God's Delay Is God's Timing | Sermon 08/13/2023

Alright, if you would, please turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel according to John chapter 11.

We're now on chapter 11. We're going to be in verses 1 through 16 today.

And the title of this sermon today church is, God's delay is

God's timing. God's delay is God's timing.

I'm actually reminded real quick, we've just hit one year in the Gospel according to John.

It's been amazing thus far. I hope it's been edifying to you. I think we're going to be finishing up around April or May is the trajectory.

So anyways, it's just been an amazing year in the Gospel according to John. Starting in verse 1, chapter 11.

Hear now the inerrant and fallible words of the living and true God. Now a certain man was sick,

Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was the

Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother

Lazarus was sick. So the sister sent word to him saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.

But when Jesus heard this, he said, this sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the

Son of God may be glorified by it. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

So when he heard that he was sick, he then stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again, the disciples said to him,

Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. And are you going there again?

Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world.

But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.

This he said, and after that he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go so that I may awaken him out of sleep.

The disciples then said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover. Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he was speaking of literal sleep.

So Jesus then said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there so that you may believe, but let us go to him.

Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go so that we may die with him.

Thus ending the reading of God's glorious and marvelous word, let's pray quickly, church.

Father, I ask that you would bless this time. God, illuminate the scriptures by your Holy Spirit.

Lord, I pray that you would cause us to see the beginning of this wonderful account with Lazarus in the way that we should.

God, I pray that this would not be something that we're jaded to, that Jesus simply did another miracle, but God, that we would be in wonder and we would be in awe of the things that you've done and the things that you will do,

Lord. God, I really pray that this lands among your people and that you encourage them as you've encouraged me through this process of study and preparation.

Lord, glorify yourself and let the truth and the truth only be spoken today.

In Christ's name I pray, amen. So church, we are now embarking on one of the greatest, most magnificent miracles of Jesus Christ, all that he has performed in history, one of the most amazing things.

As I've told you before, in the Gospel according to John, John has purposefully selected the accounts that he has chosen to share.

You see, if you read the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you're going to see all these other stories that you don't see in John.

But John has made it clear that that was on purpose. He has an agenda here and he's not afraid to show it.

He says, I've written these things, I've selected these things. He said, even though all the things that Jesus did could fill all the books of the world, he said,

I decided to show you these things so that you may know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

That's what John has shown. So, we saw Jesus turn water into wine at the wedding at Cana, showing that He is the eternal

Bridegroom. He's better than the earthly Bridegroom who is there. He brings

Messianic abundance. He brought the best wine, and that's associated with so many

Messianic prophecies of the Messiah coming and things are flowing and things are abundant.

He cleansed the temple from the corrupt money changers, showing He is the

Lord who was prophesied of in the Old Testament, who would come into His temple and clean it.

He revealed that He is the fulfillment of the temple, and that His body as a temple would die and then

He would raise it up in three days. He healed the royal official's son with only a word, showing that His Word is powerful.

If you remember, He healed the lame man at the pools of Bethesda, showing that He is the

One who heals. What those people were waiting around those pools, hoping for the water to be stirred up, thinking that there was some sort of magic in them, that some sort of angel was going to come down and if they got in the water fast enough, they'd be healed.

But they forgot who was the true healer. Jesus showed He's the true healer. Jesus multiplied the bread and the fish, showing that He is the

Lord of the Old Testament who rained down manna, who rained down bread from heaven. We saw that on the storming waters of the

Sea of Galilee, Jesus walked on chaos. He walked on water.

In the middle of a storm on the Sea of Galilee, and He walked to His apostles, and He said these famous words,

He said, I am. Fear not. What is that? That's the New Testament way for Him to say,

I'm the Lord. Yahweh. Fear not. We saw that creation bends to His will.

He speaks. Creation does what He wants. Then we saw Him heal the man born blind.

And that fulfilled so many prophecies. That the Messiah is coming to heal the blind.

To give hearing to those who are deaf. To cause the lame to walk. This should trigger everyone who's in Jerusalem, everyone who's in Galilee, everyone who's in Samaria, when

Jesus does these miracles. We're not saying that this is a regular occurrence. Do you get that?

This is not something like we read the Gospels and it's like, oh, there was miracles all the time. No, miracles had ceased for hundreds of years in a way.

These signs, miracles, of course, miracles were happening upon the earth. God was still doing them in such a way.

But these sign miracles were in abundance with Christ. He showed that He leads the lost sheep of Israel as the

Good Shepherd. He binds them up. He cares for them when all the other leaders of Israel don't.

He said, none of them will perish. None of them will be snatched out of His hand. But look, all of these things have taken time.

All of these occurrences were impeccably at the right time too.

They were perfect. When they needed to happen, where they needed to happen, with the people involved, they happened at the right time.

And everything following these accounts will also be according to God's timing.

As I told you at the tail end of the sermon two weeks ago, chapters 1 -10 of the

Gospel according to John have been roughly over a three -year period of Jesus' ministry.

John 1 -10, about three years of Jesus' ministry. We're now in John 11. And all the way from this point with Lazarus to the crucifixion in chapter 19 and the resurrection in chapter 20, now from this point, 11 on, is a matter of weeks.

So we were in 1 -10 years. Now, a matter of weeks. Coming to the cross.

Things are becoming tied off. Things started with John the Baptist in chapter 1. And we saw in chapter 10 the vast majority of his earthly ministry ended with a mention of John the

Baptist. That was on purpose. These are the final steps to the ultimate objective of Christ's mission on earth.

We're in the final steps. The Son of God came from the halls of heaven existing from all eternity in full divinity, and His time on earth is coming to a close in John.

You and I will, so to speak, walk with the Lord until the very end.

We will walk together with Jesus to the very end. And that's what we'll do for the next six months.

In that case, the end is really just a new beginning, right? It's the beginning. It's like a new

Genesis. So, let's see how this account of Lazarus fits on that trajectory, okay?

Go to verse 1. It says, Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and Martha her sister.

So if you remember two weeks ago, we saw the Apostle John setting up the scene for Jesus' eventual arrival to Bethany.

He's currently been 39 miles east of Jerusalem beyond the

Jordan River, but Bethany is only two miles east of Jerusalem.

Two miles. It's actually just on the opposite side of the

Mount of Olives. So if you're in Jerusalem, you could see to the east the

Mount of Olives. Well, Bethany, that town, would be on the other side of the mountain. You'd go around or you'd do a little hike, whatever.

And that's where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived. This man was sick.

But John identifies even this Mary with us. I imagine if the other

Gospels were already done by now, which is my belief they were, I think John was the last Gospel written, then

John was like, people are going to have a hard time knowing which Mary is who. You ever read the

Gospels and you're like, man, there's like four Marys in here. And so John even says this is the

Mary who anointed the Lord Jesus with ointment, wiped His feet with her hair.

This comes from John 12. It also comes from Luke 7. Lazarus is apparently the brother to these sisters

Mary and Martha. This is a family. This is a family. And Jesus was friends with this family.

You know what's amazing? Fun fact. Archaeologists in 1873 found the names inscribed on ossuary tombs, the names

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany. They found them in 1873.

So they stuck together all the way. Verse 3 shows the sisters sent a message to Jesus informing

Him, Lord behold, which is come see in the Greek, he whom you love is sick.

They say Lord, which here in this context would be more like rabbi or master, as Jesus has yet to be acknowledged as the

Lord, which is more of a post -resurrection title. But the sisters appeal to Jesus.

They say the one whom you love. The one whom you love. Now, I wonder if this was hard for John to write.

If any of you have read the Gospel according to John before, what does John call himself all the time?

The disciple whom Jesus loved. And so John's like, I guess he really loved

Lazarus too. The one whom you love.

He's like, well, the sisters said it, so it's not me saying it. I'm still the best. No, I'm just kidding. I'm sorry,

John. Wait, he can't hear me. We're not Roman Catholics. That's right. Okay, continuing on.

So, it says here, their statement about Jesus loving

Lazarus touches, I think, on things that we've never had access to. I imagine there were many friendships that were had in the

Gospels in that period of time. There were many friendships between Jesus and disciples,

Jesus and others, the apostles and others. You know, we're given all these names, but there were many more people than this and we see these friendships.

It causes one to consider the friendships that we have here, but even the many friendships that we'll have in the future.

You want to be friends with the Apostle Paul? You got it. I think it'll happen.

It's going to be amazing. You know, people often wonder if it's right or wrong to be friends with a pastor.

They go, is that weird? Should I be friends with you? You know, of course, there can be some different elements to that sort of relationship, especially if I have to use the full force of the

Word of God in my position as a minister of the Gospel. But for the most part, absolutely.

Why not? If the Lord Jesus could be great friends with Lazarus and Mary and Martha, of course, that's possible.

Here we see the Lord of glory, the God who made everything, was friends with a regular old

Joe named Lazarus. It's honestly amazing. Nevertheless, the sisters sent this message to Jesus.

And even though they didn't say it plainly, really I think what they're trying to ask for behind the scenes is this is an indirect way to say,

Jesus, will You come and heal him? Because all they told him was the one whom you love is sick.

And so there's this hope, there's this expectation for their sick brother.

And they're using reverence too, this honorific title to Jesus, also appealing to Him on the basis of friendship.

And so for Mary and Martha, I think we see at a very basic level some faith here.

Some faith. Some belief. Jesus, come!

Help! Help our brother! They believe Jesus can fix this.

Go to verse 4. But when Jesus heard this,

He said, this sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the

Son of God may be glorified by it. So Jesus hears the message and confidently says, this sickness is not to death.

He doesn't mean that this sickness is not fatal. But its end is far from death.

The conclusion of this will not be to death, but will be to something else.

It will be for, or in the Greek, on behalf of the glory of God. Its ultimate purpose is not death.

It will result in the honor, recognition, and praise of the one true

God. And it's not that this will only glorify God. It's that this will reveal the already existent glory of God.

Do you get that? It's that this will not only glorify God, but it will reveal to people the glory that God already possesses, that God already has.

What is already there will be seen. It will cause people to see the splendor of God outshining the death of a man.

And simultaneously, he says here, it will be also so that the

Son of God may be glorified. The Son is included in this. And likewise, it's not just simply that the

Son will be glorified, it's that the already existent glory of the Son will be shown.

You say, what is the difference? You see, there's an aspect here where people's eyes are blinded to the glory of Jesus, and He's going to do something like this, and it's going to reveal who

He is. It's going to show who He is, who He already is. And He doesn't say

Son of Man like He did in the last nine chapters. He, as you remember in chapter 10, revealed

Himself as the Son of God. And He'll maintain that here.

Now what is important to see here, once again, what has been one of the prevailing themes of the

Gospel according to John? I think it's been what? The deity of Christ. That's been one of the most prevailing themes of the

Gospel according to John. And even here, we see that the Son coordinates the glory of the

Father with Himself. With Himself. They are tied together.

They are one and the same. This goes back to last chapter when He said

He and the Father are what? They're one. When one is glorified, so is the other.

We talked about what's called mutual glorification. And I hope you see how serious this statement is.

You see, if I were to do something good, it would only be right that people glorify

God who was the ultimate One behind it, right? If I did something that people perceived as good in the world,

I get it. In the world, we give them awards and they have little awards where they eat good food and they wear fancy clothes and they pat each other on the back and they give each other smooches and they say, you're just the best.

Each one of them. That's how the world does these awards. But we know that really anything good that we do,

God is the ultimate One behind it. God uses us. I'm not saying we're all just these terrible people who can do nothing good.

We're allowed to do that by the work of the Spirit, of course. But the idea is, if I were to do something good, you would ultimately,

I hope, glorify God in Heaven. He's the ultimate

One behind it. All good things come from our Father above. And if I were God -fearing, I would have to reject then any personal glorification.

I know who I am. I have no cause for boasting. Any good that comes through me was what, according to Ephesians 2 .10,

prepared beforehand that I would walk in. God gets all the glory. I don't get to boast.

And that would be right and that would be true for me to reject that. Oh no, I appreciate it. God's the

One behind it. But here, what Jesus indicates to performing something in the near future that will be indeed very good,

He's pointing to something that will be very good in the near future. Not only does the Father get the glory,

He also will equally be glorified. That's significant. Because I would have to deny any glory that goes from God.

But here Jesus goes, you're going to glorify the Father and you're going to glorify Me. Putting Himself on that same level.

He can take the credit. Why? Because He's the Son of God. He's divine.

He is truly the source of all good things, all blessings. So it is proper to mutually glorify the

Father and the Son. They are one. But beyond that, we have to deal with the fact that something bad, that is sickness, will lead to the glory of God.

This is not unlike when we saw in chapter 9 the man born blind, is it not? Do you remember in chapter 9 it says, as Jesus passed by,

He saw a man blind from birth and His disciples asked Him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?

Jesus answered, it was neither that this man sinned nor his parents, so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

And what we talked about, the fact that this man nor his parents did any sort of personal sin to incur this sickness.

It was also not that God is a bully and He likes to give people sickness and then heal them and make

Himself look good. That's not what it is either. It was that in this fallen and cursed world where sickness and disease have entered in after Adam's fall, those things can come upon both those who do evil or those who do good indiscriminately.

Sickness comes upon the righteous and the wicked indiscriminately because we're in a fallen world and God is redeeming this world to Himself.

But as one may intend for bad, God can intend through the same thing for good.

Through the brokenness and hurt of the man being born blind, God would do a work that would be displayed in him.

It would be for the man's good and God's glory. And we can conclude that that's the same situation here.

The same thing here. Sickness has come upon Lazarus.

This is not good. Sickness has come upon Lazarus. This is not good.

It was serious enough for his sisters to message the only one they believe can remedy this perilous situation.

Doctors couldn't fix it. The elders of Bethany looked upon him and said they couldn't get it done.

Lazarus was in a bad shape. But somehow, Jesus is already confident that this will not end in death, but for the glory of God the

Father and God the Son. And look, in Scripture, we see

God does not always take away every infirmity in this life for us. That's true.

He doesn't always raise our loved ones from the dead right now. He will later.

And so the causation isn't God, but sovereignly through it, the conclusion for all of us who are believers, whatever condition you are in will be fully restored, made whole, completely healed, and it's all for your good now and later.

That's what's amazing. Whatever you're facing now, it's for your good now and later, and the restoration that you'll have later.

And it's for God's glory. And that's certain. Just fill in the blank.

What this sickness, what this disease, what this infirmity, what this death meant for evil,

God will use for good. And it will end in goodness. That's all throughout

Scripture for the believer. Now besides the glory of God, what will be the underlying theme of this section of Scripture?

I think we see that it's love. It's love. Go to v. 5. What Jesus said in v.

4 could be considered I suppose as callous or insensitive.

People are like, oh, this guy's sick, and he's like, well, it's not going to end in death. And it's like, whoa, don't you care about Lazarus?

And he's like, what's actually behind it is love. The Apostle John won't let us think anything otherwise.

He gives us a bit of narration here in v. 5, an insight into Jesus' feelings towards the

Bethany family. It says, what? Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

He loved them. He loved them. And in the Greek, this is the word agapeo.

It's like the word agape. Now some of you may have heard that Greek word before.

A preacher brings up agape love. Some of you may have not heard the word agape.

Look, many people absolutely inflate that word to much more than it is sometimes.

I completely get it. But it would also be equally wrong to say that there is no significance to the word agape and agape love.

Because this is not romantic love or passionate love like the Greek word eros.

This is not friendship love or companionship love like the word phileo.

Agape love is used between humans in the Bible sometimes, but agape is most often used to describe

God's type of love for us, towards us, and then our love towards Him.

It's not some sort of rom -com, sappy, emotional, fluffy -duffy,

Valentine's Day sort of love. Right? It's not just about sentiment.

This sort of love Jesus has for His people is actually based on His own divine attributes.

Isn't that amazing? Often we love people because they're lovable.

Or we have these feelings towards them. Or they've done something to be worthy of our love.

Right? I might have loved my wife all that I wanted when we were courting, but if she didn't love me back, it was probably going nowhere.

It doesn't matter how much I loved her. She had to love me too. But with agape love,

God's the initiator. It doesn't matter what you've done. God's love flows out of Himself, out of His own nature.

Okay? He loves the unlovable. He loves the unlovely.

Not because we deserve to be loved or because of any excellence we possess, but because it is

His nature to love and He must be true to His nature. He is God. And so God's agape love is most seen in His actions, in the things that He's done for us.

And that is what we will see take place in a small way in John 11. And we'll see it, of course, in a much greater way at the cross.

And I suppose what we see here also is that the

God of the universe cares for the nobody. Do you see this? The God of the universe cares even for the nobody.

There is no other mention of this Lazarus in the Bible. There is the

Luke 16 parable of a man named Lazarus who was poor and destitute and covered in sores, who went to Abraham's bosom, who seems to be used by Jesus in such a way for the purpose of a story and a parable.

But this Lazarus here in John 11, he was just a regular man from the village of Bethany.

Just a regular guy. Jesus shows no partiality irrespective of your talents, irrespective of your status, fame, appearance, or wealth.

Jesus loves not on the qualities that men and women possess, but on His own.

Because everyone, and this might be controversial to say because the whole world says it otherwise, is because of our rebellion, we are undeserving of God's love.

But the amazing thing is is He loves the rebellious. He loves us.

That's what's baffling is He gives it to anyone considering our sin. But it doesn't matter who you are.

It doesn't matter what you've done, where you come from, the pigmentation level in your skin.

God loves those who are His people. All types of them. It doesn't matter what kind of name you have.

Because we now associate ourselves in the name of Christ. The greater name.

The only name. So if you're here and you're a nobody, first off, you're somebody with me.

But most of all, you're somebody with the Lord Jesus. And we're all in good company in that way.

And it's on that basis, it's on that basis, on Jesus' love for Martha, Mary, and Lazarus and the glory of God, that according to verse 6, it says, when

He heard that He was sick, the Lord Jesus stayed two days longer in the place where He was.

Do you see that? Jesus stayed two days longer in the place where He was.

And that's what's striking. The backdrop to this delay is

Jesus' love somehow. Jesus' love causes

Him to delay, to wait. Now you say, but how is that loving?

Lazarus needs Him now. How is that loving? A few things come to mind with that sort of question.

First, we have to remember the character of God. Number one, God is perfect. He is love, and therefore all that He does is perfect and loving.

And that comes on the basis of faith. That's revealed in nature. That's revealed in His Word.

But He's perfect and loving. Consequently, His timing is perfect as all

His ways are perfect. His timing is never early, and it's never been late.

It's precisely when He means to. In fact, every second since God made time and space, since He said, let there be light, all things have been under His sovereign control and divine will.

As if the seconds of the day come to God for instruction, and all things carry out what

He has ordained, so is His timing perfectly ordered. Time does what

God tells it to. From before we were born until the moment we take our last earthly breath, our

God has timed everything we've interacted with. Proverbs 16 .9

says, The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.

That word plans in the Hebrew is the word for weaves. Weaving something.

Man weaves things. And in the Hebrew, the word for directs here is to make something firm.

So, the mind of man weaves things into a loose cord, but God makes things solid.

He directs them. He makes them firm. Another example,

I know that the context here is covenant Israel, and I don't need Matt Chandler coming at me right now, but Jeremiah 29 .11,

I think the principle is still timeless. God says, I know the plans that I have for you.

I think that's timeless. I know the plans that I have for you. You know, man has plans.

God has plans. And no doubt, God's plans prevail every time.

Every time. Under inspiration, Job said in Job 42 .2,

I know that you can do all things and that no plan of yours can be thwarted.

You see, that's a comfort. There's a lot of men and women out there planning to do terrible things to people.

And somehow, through it all, in an ultimate sense,

God's plans will never be thwarted. In this situation, Jesus is completely and totally aware of the plight of Lazarus.

Jesus knows how dire this is. He knows the severity of this sickness, but He also knows what

Lazarus and everyone else who will be in attendance need.

He knows. He knows. Jesus says in the

Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6 .8, for your Father knows what you need before you even ask

Him. Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. What a comforting truth.

So God is perfect in His timing. Perfect in His love. He's in control over all things and He has ordained all that has come to pass and He knows exactly what we need.

He knows exactly what you need. You're like, well, this is what

I need right now. But He knows what you need. But I know what

I need. But He knows what you need. Keep that in mind.

With these principles, we can therefore deduce that there is a greater purpose and design in merely making

Lazarus and his family wait. Like with Joseph and his brothers in Genesis, we cover this a lot.

Sure, God could have rescued a young Joseph out of the pit. He could have saved him.

But then the famine that occurred so many years later would have wiped Israel out.

It would have wiped out the twelve tribes. It would have been done. Joseph would have never been sold to Potiphar in Egypt.

He would have therefore never gone to the dungeons. And therefore, having not gone to the dungeons, he would have never spoken to the administrators and royal cupbearer and baker of Pharaoh.

And he would have never then rightly given the prophecy interpretation for Pharaoh and therefore be elevated to a place of status only second after Pharaoh in all of Egypt.

But he was in a pit. Why didn't God take him out of the pit for all that?

And now all Israel is saved and they're that much closer to the promised land. And they're that much closer to the

Messiah, to Jesus Christ coming. That's why. And so all of this is more connected than you could ever know.

So what's the application here? Trust God even when you're waiting. Trust God even when you're waiting.

Have you been enduring a long trial right now? Some of us have. And it's been hard.

Maybe you've been facing a debilitating condition. Maybe you've been praying for a specific loved one to be saved for such a long time.

And you say, God, don't You hear what I'm praying for? Don't You listen? But this says wait on God.

His timing is perfect. Be patient. Pray for patience equally or even more so than what you're praying for.

That's key. You know, we're often praying for this solution, praying for this thing, but I dare you to sometimes pray,

God, help me to trust You in the waiting. God, help me to have patience in the waiting.

God, I don't get why my marriage fell apart. God, I don't get why I lost my child.

I don't get why I have this sickness. I don't get why

I lost my job. And He hears you. And He loves you like He loves

Lazarus. And this isn't some sort of thing where I'm trying to pacify your feelings. I get it.

But this is the answer. Whether we like it or not, we've got to pray.

Wait for the Lord. Know that His plans haven't stopped in this one situation with you.

You see, the whole world is going around and God's sustaining it, upholding it by the Word of His power, and somehow this one situation that you're in,

God has stopped working. Yeah, that's right. No, that's not true. He's not.

He's continuing to work through it. He keeps going. So it all comes back to a fundamental lack of or fullness of faith.

That's what we need. More faith. Lack of trust or fully trusting.

Because He says He will do far more abundantly than we ask or think. Isn't that crazy?

You know, we put that on cards or on stickers or on memes on the Internet. He will do far more abundantly than you ask or think, but that's actually real.

And He does that all the time, and sometimes you don't even notice it. He's done things for you that you've never even thought, that you've never even asked for.

And He's done them for you. And He's continuing to do that for you. And you're joyfully surprised.

And so do you believe it? We've got to keep going. Keep going, brothers and sisters.

God's delay is not purposeless. That's why I actually titled this sermon God's Delay is

God's Timing. What may look like delay to us is actually always

God's timing. And so Jesus' delay with going to Lazarus had a reason behind it.

Everything does. Now some secular scholars have looked at this, and they've wrongfully accused

Jesus of being the catalyst of Lazarus' death. Do you get what I'm saying? Some have said, look,

Jesus' delay killed Lazarus. Look at Him.

Look what Jesus did. That's far from the truth, brothers and sisters. It's not that Jesus' delay caused the death of Lazarus.

His delay is not to be confused with causation. Remember, it took the messenger what?

It takes a messenger one whole day to go 30 -plus miles to where Jesus is beyond the

Jordan from Bethany. Then Jesus waited two whole days.

And then from that point, when Jesus decided to go to Bethany, it would have taken

Him a whole day to travel. That's four days. But you know what's interesting?

We're not covering it today, but verse 39 says, there is already a stench.

Why? For He has been dead for four days. What does that mean?

By the time that Jesus even said, let's wait, by the time that the messenger had shortly left

Bethany to go give a message to Jesus, by the time it was even given, He was likely already dead.

He'd been dead for four days. One day for the messenger to come. Two -day delay. One day for Jesus to travel there.

He had already been dead. And so it's wrong for people to consider this about Jesus.

The trajectory of this sickness was already fatal before the delay. Now as we saw with Jesus and His brothers at one point,

He doesn't operate on man's time. Jesus won't be manipulated. He won't be moved.

Sure, He'll show emotion. In fact, we're going to see one of the greatest displays of emotion by Jesus in this chapter.

But He'll go and do things based off of God and God's timing His own. Okay? That's essential here.

Jesus' care and love for us and for His friends is perfectly balanced with His sovereignty and hidden decree.

It's mysterious how those work together. That's what the Bible shows. There's an ultimate purpose behind it all.

So, the purposeful delay of two days had passed. And Jesus now declares they must go back to Judea again in v.

7. The disciples protested, however, in v. 8. It says, the

Jews were just now seeking to stone You, Jesus. And are You going there again?

We've seen it. We know they've been trying to intentionally kill Him on three separate occasions while conspiring to capture

Him all along the way. And so in the apostles' minds, Jesus has only just begun getting more followers.

Jesus' ministry is now getting the sort of influence that they think He needs. And by going to Judea, they see that that would compromise things.

Why? Because He could either be captured, put in jail, or worse, killed.

So they're like, why would you go back? We just barely escaped,

Lord Jesus. They call Him Rabbi. One day, it's not going to be

Jesus the Rabbi they proclaim to the world. It's going to be Jesus the Christ, the

Lord, the Son of God that they'll proclaim. And so the apostles show here that they can't see beyond what's directly in front of them.

We would be the same, honestly. But they will see soon enough. Go to verses 9 and 10.

Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.

But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. You see, in ancient times, most people groups considered that there were strictly twelve hours of the daytime.

Okay? That is to say, outside of those twelve hours of daytime, you could no longer work or no longer even walk.

Actually, I asked some of the people who went to family camp, I said, how dark was it out there?

And they said, it was so dark that if you went out of your cabin at night, they could barely see.

And so, you could imagine, there's no light pollution. There's nothing where they're at, especially in this time of history.

And so it's like, look, when the light's gone, the light's gone. You can't walk. You can't work anymore. And that's what he's saying.

Carson says regarding this, these verses metaphorically insist that Jesus is safe as long as He performs

His Father's will. In other words, what Jesus is saying here is it's wrong for Him to quit working and walking before the cross.

The cross hasn't happened yet. It's not time for us to hide here beyond the

Jordan. We've got to keep going. There's still daytime. We've got to keep working.

We've got to keep laboring. Likewise, the apostles are still with Him.

They're still with the light of the world. So they shouldn't fear. They should continue laboring.

There's still time to work and walk in the light. It's similar to when Jesus said in chapter 9, we must work the works of Him while it is still day.

Do you remember that? We must work the works of Him while it is still day. And the darkness that opposes

Him, the murderous Jewish leaders, they can't do anything to Him.

They stumble around in darkness themselves. Remember, He said

He lays down His life of His own initiative. Until Jesus gives over His life,

He's invincible. He's untouchable. That's why it was so miraculous.

He's escaped their clutches more than three, four, five times now.

And it's like, how does He do this? Because they can't touch Him until He gives Himself up.

He's invincible until He does that. And so He's like, we've got to go to Judea. We've got to keep working.

There's 12 hours of light in the day. Keep going. It goes back to God's timing.

Those seeking to stone Him, get this, those seeking to stone Jesus couldn't even flick a pebble at Him if they wanted to because of God's control over this.

He has nothing to fear. And really, Jesus is establishing that the ultimate enemy is not the

Jewish leaders, but the absence of light that is in them. Get that?

The darkness of sin is the ultimate enemy and catastrophe that the world has been facing.

It's not exactly the Jewish leaders. It's what's behind them. For our battle is not against flesh and blood.

It's that darkness. And that's His mission. He must deal with that.

He must deal with the darkness. He'll take care of the darkness. That's what He's come to do.

But it will include putting His life in danger. You get that? Jesus' life has been marked by perilous occasions.

And it's going to end in the most perilous way, but in the most glorious way. And I suppose one lesson we ought to take away from this is that Jesus is willing to go to dangerous places.

Jesus is willing to put His life at risk for what? For simply the glory of His name?

No. Also for the sake of others. Of course. He's willing to face difficult tasks for the people

He loves. You see, we can get so comfortable with where we're at.

We can get so used to what's recognizable in our lives. We like safety.

God wired that in us in a sense. But what if venturing out of that bubble could help other people?

See, it's something that we ought to do too. When God has called us to something like that, if we love our neighbors as ourselves, we would seek to do that.

You know, I'm actually reminded when I was young, I loved to see two of my uncles.

I had my Uncle Chris and my Uncle Todd and they were police officers. And so what? If you're a kid, you think they're the coolest, right?

They get to have a gun, handcuffs, go get the bad guys. My uncles were the coolest to me.

They were police officers in Southern California. And actually, I got to go on a police cruiser ride along with my

Uncle Chris. And so I'm sitting actually in the back and I'm like, it's like I'm arrested. We're going on this ride along and I'm asking him all these questions about the arrests that he's done, the dangers my uncle has faced.

And you know what? As a kid, you don't understand the solemnity, the seriousness of this sort of thing.

I remember asking him for some of the craziest stories and he's kind of like, look, this is not like the movies,

Wade. This is not like the movies. He would tell me some of the things he faced and I would be like, were you scared?

And he said, of course. Of course you get scared. But there is a greater purpose.

There is a greater thing that drives you. There's a higher driving factor and it surpasses the fear that you have in you.

It outweighs it. And so this sense of profound duty comes over people like that.

And so these sort of people enter into places that most people run out of for the sake of others.

That's what it is. To rescue people. And that's what

Jesus does here. Jesus is showing selflessness. Do we get this?

He was about to be murdered, stoned to death, and He's going back to the place where He was going to be killed.

He'll do it. He'll do it for us. He did it for us. He did it at the cross.

He did it for the sake of others. And so if God ever calls you to it, will you do it?

When it doesn't involve the praise of your name, but simply the sake of others, will you give your life?

And look, I talked about Jesus, I talked about police officers, but we're talking about stuff that hits us every day.

Motherhood. Fatherhood. Husband. Wife. Worker.

Will you do the things that are hard and uncomfortable for the sake of others?

You know? They say there's something in men sometimes that wants to retain boyhood.

You know, we want to go get the different things, slay dragons, we want to fight with swords, we want to maybe get cool motorcycles.

No offense if you have one. You can have one. That's not the pastor saying you can't. But even in that, there's a sense where some of them don't want duty.

They don't want responsibility. You know what? It's hard sometimes to be the head of a household. It's hard to carry that weight.

But that's the sort of thing you do for your family. And when you're a mother too, and you're working hard, maybe you have to work outside the home.

Maybe you're staying up late with the kids just so your husband can get sleep so he can work the next day.

Maybe you work too outside the home and then you've got to work in the home. You're giving your life for others.

It's uncomfortable. But the Lord Jesus did it and He did it all the way.

Let's go to our final verses. Verse 11 says, then

He said after that, He said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go so that I may awaken him out of sleep.

So without any notices, without any messengers, Jesus supernaturally knows something has happened with Lazarus.

And do you see He says, Our friend, plural, but then

Jesus says, I, singular. Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go to him.

I will awaken him. Why? Because He alone is the resurrection and the life.

He alone. Only Him. And much like other times,

Jesus' disciples will take this too literally. They say in verse 12, Look, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.

They're thinking, Look, sleep is good when you're sick. In fact, some of us here take four Benadryls just so we can fall asleep and wake up well the next day.

Okay. That's a big remedy for Andrew.

That's the thing, right? Sleep is good when you're sick. He'll probably be fine. But this is no nap.

This is no sleep. In fact, in the New Testament, this word in the

Greek, only four times does it actually mean literal sleep.

14 other times in the New Testament, it means death.

Sleeping death. But what is fascinating is that what

Jesus said, and specifically how He said it, must have conveyed some sort of comfort, ease, and calm, and that whatever was ailing

Lazarus was easy to overcome. Do you get that? That's crazy. For the apostles to be able to just hear

Jesus and go, oh, he's sleeping? Oh, that's good. That means that there was no urgency, no fear, and no fright in Jesus' voice.

This was easy to Him. No big deal. Lazarus is dead, and Jesus makes the apostles feel like it's a walk in the park.

Oh, He's got to sleep? And honestly, this sort of confidence displays incalculable power.

So it makes sense that they would misinterpret Jesus. So John clues us in on what

Jesus meant by that through v. 13. It says, Jesus had spoken though of Lazarus' death, not literal sleep.

He is dead. His sickness overtook Him. I would say poor

Lazarus if I didn't know the end of the story. And if I didn't know who

Jesus was. V. 14 So Jesus declared it plainly so they could understand.

Lazarus is dead. Now how do we reconcile that with the fact that Jesus said earlier, this is a sickness that is not to death?

How do we reconcile that? I think the phrase ending in death is key.

Which we will see how that plays out in the coming weeks. But the other thing I want to point out about these verses is that once again, as we've seen before,

Jesus minimizes physical death so much in this

Gospel to the point that He calls it sleeping. And that all that He needs to perform is simply awaking.

I need to go awaken Lazarus out of sleep. Augustine said it was in reference to his own power that he spoke of Lazarus sleeping.

You see, Jesus' confidence, His ease, His calm, the way

He speaks here that makes them think He's talking about literal sleep, all of that is born out of the fact that this is no issue for Him.

The grave is nothing for Him. He can raise people from the dead. He can raise you and I from the dead.

He will raise us from the grave. That's the promise. Outside of a

God that resurrects redeemed sinners, death would be death and not sleep. I want you to store that deep into your soul.

If you are a believer, if Christ has saved you, then the way He speaks of your physical death is as if it is little to no consequence.

In fact, I dare say, in the grand scheme of eternal life, it is simply a door we must all walk through.

It's as if Jesus is saying this is easy. I'm not saying dying and suffering are easy things.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the act of dying as a believer is as if taking a passageway to God, to the presence of God.

It's like falling asleep, and guess who will awake you on the other side?

The same One who intends to wake up Lazarus. That's the destiny of the

Christian. If Jesus could wait two days and Lazarus has died and He calls it sleeping, then the grave is powerless to hold the ones

Jesus loves. And so if you are His and He loves you, the grave is powerless to hold you and keep you from Jesus.

Remember we saw in John 6 He will lose none that the Father has given Him. Then in John 10,

He says, none of you will perish and no one will snatch you out of My hands. He speaks with such definition, definite sense, confidence, as if it's done, it's set in stone.

Brothers and sisters, God is trying over and over again in the

Gospel according to John to assure us that we need not fear physical death when eternal life and salvation is our destiny.

You simply don't. And we need to hold on to that fiercely. Because the older you get, the older we get, the more you're going to see it.

We have some people here who are older than us, 21 -year -olds like me, and they've seen it.

They've seen more. And that's what's going to happen. As I've gotten older,

I've seen more death in my family, more death in friendships. And although it's sad, we must find comfort in this.

It's as brief as sleep. You know what? Isn't that true? Sometimes eight hours in the office feels so long.

But then you go to bed and then you wake up and it's like a blink of an eye, you're already awake.

The alarm's going off or the kid is crowing like a rooster. And eight hours of sleep is like that.

Eight hours of work at the office feels long. And so look,

Jesus relates this to sleeping. So sleep is quick. Heaven will be quicker than that for us.

We'll come to heaven quicker. Verse 15. This is an incredible statement.

Jesus says, look, He says, I am glad. I am glad for your sakes.

He's joyful. Why? Because they will believe, He says. The faith the disciples will incur by this brings

Jesus joy. So that means your belief, your trust, your faith, it pleases

God. You know, God does things for us in His timing so that we would believe.

And honestly, I've heard many stories from all of you of things that God has done in your life and it increased your faith.

That's what He does for us. And so this will be a moment for the people in attendance that they will never forget.

We'll see that in the coming weeks. Thankfully, it's been written down for us. But also there's one other subtle thing here.

It's amazing. Jesus doesn't say, let's go to Mary and Martha. You see that?

Look at verse 15. He doesn't say, let's go to Mary and Martha, thereby believing

Lazarus is in a state that they cannot interact with, i .e. death. Jesus says here in this verse, let's go to Him.

Who's the Him? Lazarus. And so what I'm saying is, it's as if Jesus is speaking like Lazarus is still alive even though He's dead.

Once again, He's so sure. He's so confident. Because He's so powerful.

And the grave is not. Lastly, verse 16 says,

Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die with Him.

They're talking about dying with Jesus. Honestly, I find this sort of passionate statement of the

Apostle Thomas not only really neat, but kind of comical.

What is Thomas known for? What is he called sometimes? The doubting

Thomas? Because Thomas later on after the resurrection had this moment where he was the logical skeptic of the group, and he said,

Jesus, unless I touch Your wounds and see that You were actually the one who was on the cross,

I won't believe. And then Jesus gives this profound statement and He says, Blessed be those who believe in this,

I'm paraphrasing, who have never seen. But Thomas needed to see the wounds of Jesus after the resurrection.

And so it's kind of funny. He's like, let us also go with Jesus and we'll die with Him.

We see this raw emotion and zeal. If Jesus is going back, let's die with Him.

And so in a way, Thomas spoke better than he knew. Is there a sense of faith and courage here?

I think there is. No doubt. But I think it's sort of like the

Apostle Peter's when what? When Peter says to Jesus, even when all others deny

You, I'll never deny You. And what did Peter do? He denied

Him. And so that's the sort of misplaced zeal that they have here. But the reality is,

Jesus won't die in Bethany, but when Jesus does die, it will not be so that the apostles will die.

His death will be so that they will live. When Jesus suffers loss, they and we endure great gain.

And that's the Gospel. That's the good news. When the Son of God dies, we live.

Because He lives again. So let's wrap this up, church. We are at the moment of one of the greatest miracles of Jesus Christ.

One of the most miraculous things that has ever occurred in history.

But we've only got through the introduction. You can tell I'm an apologia pastor. That's okay.

There's likely going to be a part 2 and a part 3 of this story of Lazarus.

I'm looking forward to it in the coming weeks. So I really spoke about five main lessons that we saw in this section.

Number one, God's timing is perfect. Even when it seems like there is a delay, it's purposeful.

Sometimes God wants us to wait and it is better that way. It is better. Okay? Number two,

Lazarus, as far as we know, was not well known. He is now, obviously.

But not before this. God cares for the nameless one. There are people in parts of the world where no one and we don't know their name, and Jesus has saved them.

And that means something to Him. That's huge. Number three, like the blindness leading to the glory of God, so can death lead to God's glory in our good.

That's hard to say. We aren't always able to answer the why questions here and now.

Right? The why? Why this? Why this? We can't answer these always here and now, but God assures us it will all make sense one day.

That's certain. Take comfort in that. Number four, Jesus was willing to go to the place of danger.

He was willing to face peril for the sake of others. Jesus could never,

Jesus could never, ever, be considered a coward. Ever.

How dare people use His name as a curse word. He's God. He's no coward.

He faced what He had to do to the very end. His name should only ever come off the lips of people with praise and adoration.

We should emulate that when God calls us to it. And lastly, number five, death for the Christian is ultimately inconsequential.

Our Lord related it to sleeping. It's not that He minimizes the hurt.

In fact, I'm telling you, we're going to see in a little bit how Jesus hurts for others, how

He feels in the coming weeks. But the hope that we have in Christ and the eternal life that He has given us is such a present reality that it trumps any sort of earthly suffering that we have right now.

Christians should mourn. I'm not saying Christians shouldn't mourn.

That when someone who is near to us dies and we should just be like, well, that's like sleeping.

No, we need to mourn. But we should also be people who can rejoice the most in that sort of situation.

Well, that's it for now. We'll see more on the

Lazarus story next week and the week after. Let's pray, church. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you, God, that although these words are thousands of years old, they are timeless and they are relevant to us and they instruct us and they encourage us and we learn more about you and we grow with them and they're living and sharper than any two -edged sword.

Lord, we thank you for this account. We thank you for your word. Lord, I pray that you have encouraged your people today, that you have uplifted them.

And God, I pray that you have glorified yourself. So Lord, help us to walk in these truths. There's something in us that sometimes in the flesh wants us to leave these things and forget these truths on Monday.

Lord, help us by your spirit to keep these things near to us always.