Facing Death As A Christian | Jeff Durbin Sermon

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If you would, open your Bibles to Gospel according to John 11.

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John 11, let's start in verse 17. Hear now the word of the living and the true

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God. Now when Jesus came, He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

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Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them, concerning their brother.

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So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met Him, but Mary remained seated in the house.

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

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But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her,

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

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Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

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And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? Thus far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's praise

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His people. Father, for Your glory today, we open

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Your word to worship You, to hear from You. And Father, You are our great comfort.

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You are the God of all peace. And Lord, we come to You as Your children, seeking

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Your face, seeking Your truth. We pray, God, that You'd minister to our hearts and the hearts of the hurting, the grieving, the weeping.

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We pray that through Your word, by Your Spirit, You would,

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Lord, keep our eyes set to heaven and on Your promises and on Your truth. Minister to the hearts of Your people today in the midst of death.

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In Jesus' name. Amen. Such a powerful moment in the life and ministry of Jesus, this moment of the raising of Lazarus.

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It's powerful, I think, because you do see across the Gospels and the historical narrative of the

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Gospels, you see the instances where Jesus, of course, does the miraculous, the powerful things, like He gives sight to blind people.

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I mean, what was that like? Someone hasn't seen from birth, even, and Jesus is giving them their eyes, and they're finally seeing the world the way that God made it.

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And it's just such an incredible experience, not just for the person who has the new eyes, but the person who is next to that person, in love with that person, the family, the friends of that person that has endured this kind of brokenness and this kind of disability their whole lives, and now everyone gets to experience this glorious moment of eyes.

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And it's this one here, this Jesus of Nazareth, He's the one healing the blind, and He's giving people their hearing back, and He's causing the lame to walk.

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It's a powerful thing, because this world is so broken and so painful. There's disabilities and people on crutches and wheelchairs, and the most severe of disabilities, and the most brokenness, and there's so much pain in this world, so much beauty, so much glory, so much power, but also so much pain in the narratives of the gospel.

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You see Jesus is giving eyes to people, He's giving hearing to people. Then He does some spectacular things where He demonstrates who

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He is, who He truly is, the author of life, the one with power over life and death, and He raises people from the dead.

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I mean, it's an incredible thing, the ministry of Jesus is just these signs and these miracles testifying to everybody about who

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Jesus actually is, who's walking among them. Jesus walks on water, Jesus shows that He's the creator of Himself, He has power and control over His own creation,

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Jesus can give people eyes so they can see, He can let them hear again, Jesus can take the people who can't walk, and He gives them legs again, and then

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He does the ultimate, and He defeats the greatest enemy all of us have. Everybody would say blindness is an enemy, being deaf, not being able to hear is an enemy, not being able to walk is an enemy, all this physical brokenness, these are enemies in the human experience, but the one thing we can't agree on is the ultimate enemy is death.

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It's what everybody is facing, every human being knows something is wrong, every human being knows this is an enemy, this is not the way things ought to be, but it is that way, it's a fallen world, and then

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Jesus can say to a little girl, He can say, little girl, arise. You know, they've got the professional mourners there, they've got the people there who are mourning, and it's laughable to think that this little girl is gonna rise from the dead.

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These people are not stupid, they know that dead people don't rise. And so when

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Jesus raises a little dead girl that speaks and testifies to exactly who it is that's walking among them, this is

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God incarnate, the one who has power over life and death, and He could just say a word, a word, little girl, arise.

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He speaks it, and she gets up. And Jesus in His ministry is being testified to by all these signs and miracles, there's something behind the sign and miracle they were supposed to see as ultimate, but they're seeing it right there in front of them, this is a miracle worker like we've never seen before,

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Jesus is raising dead people, but in the narrative here in John chapter 11 with Lazarus, I think there is so much for us to understand and to even put into practice as Christians when we're dealing with death and grief, and you see this,

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I'll just say it honestly, this incomprehensible thing happening here in the text where God is walking among us, it's

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God who created all things, the author of John, John says that at the beginning, that without Him was not anything made that was made, in the beginning was the

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Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, this is

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God incarnate, and now in John 11, it's God incarnate, this is incomprehensible, don't pretend to understand, you can't fully comprehend this as a creature,

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He knows what He's gonna do, this is according to the decree of God, He declares the end from the beginning,

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He knows He's gonna raise Lazarus from the dead, He knows He's dead, He knows He's going, He knows

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He's gonna rise from the dead, and yet in the midst of something that is according to the foreordained will of God and Jesus knows the end,

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Lazarus is coming out of that tomb, what does it say? Jesus wept.

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Now, I will just say in terms of ministering to our hearts and how I minister to others in the midst of grief and death, that is something that we must emphasize, and I don't really know how to explain it,

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I understand it's in the text, I understand it, God incarnate weeping over the death of a loved one, that He knew

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He was gonna reverse, that He knew it happened, He decreed this, and He was gonna raise him from the dead, and yet God incarnate in the midst of a fallen world weeps alongside

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His people over death, that's the heart of God. Now, I may not be able to fully understand that and comprehend that, but that's who

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He is, that's what the text says, and it's interesting because as a church, we have to embrace the fact that we live in a fallen world and there's moments that we're gonna have together as a body that are filled with just heights of joy, just glorious victories of the gospel, tremendous acts of hospitality and love and concern for one another and sacrifice for one another, it's such a gift to know you all and to walk with you and to see the love you have for one another and see the

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Spirit of God filling your lives and transforming you and you see like this divine light coming out of the people of God and this divine love among us, and we get to taste and see, we get to experience that, we get to actually experience what we testify to our kids about since they've been young, we say, what is man's chief end?

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What is man's primary purpose? What is it? To glorify God and what? To enjoy

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Him forever. We're gonna experience that, actually enjoying God in the midst of a fallen world, tasting heaven now meeting earth, we get to experience

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His great heights of divine love and peace and power and we get to all taste that and we have to embrace the fact that at the same time we still live in a fallen world and though we have the beauty of God, though we have forgiveness, though we have the gift of eternal life, though we know

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God, though we are not condemned, though we are children of God, though we know we have a future resurrection, we have to contend with the fact that we have the consequences of a fallen world all around us and we won't be able to hide ourselves from them, consequences like pain, sickness, disease, lies, slander, abuse, betrayal, theft, adultery, and ultimately death.

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As the people of God, as glorious as God is, as beautiful as He truly is, as amazing as Christ is as our

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King, we are going to experience pain and sorrow and grief and tears because we still live in the midst of a fallen world that yes,

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Jesus is redeeming and restoring, amen and hallelujah to that, but we are going to feel the worst that this world has to offer.

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As an example, in this past month, three of our precious members of our body have come face to face with the most painful, in my mind, the most painful experiences of death.

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The death of children in the womb. We've had three of our families either experience it themselves or experience people close to them, their loved ones experience the loss of a child in the womb that's full term.

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All that's happened in the last two weeks. Babies dying in the wombs of their mothers before childbirth or during childbirth.

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And I want to say, I think all of us feel the weight of that grief and that death and that pain in a way that we don't necessarily experience.

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Say, for example, when it's an elderly parent, somebody who's lived their life, walked with God, you know that death is coming for us all and those are always painful.

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I lost my mother this year and it's extraordinarily painful. It's a pain that you can't fully describe. It's not something you can really prepare somebody for.

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That experience of losing a parent, but you anticipate, you know. But when you feel death, like the death of a child in the womb at full term during childbirth, there's a set of circumstances there that you feel the weight of that death in a way that you don't feel in other experiences, in other instances.

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It's truly painful. And if we're honest, can we be just truthful, honest, take off the

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God face, don't pretend like you have it all together. Just be honest about what you experience in these moments, the kinds of thoughts that enter your mind, the things that you want to say with your mouth.

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And I heard this week from one of the mothers and I understood and I received it and I allowed, just say it.

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Yeah, just speak it. Just say it. You say to God in these moments, you say, if you are who you say you are, this wouldn't have happened.

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Right? There might be different ways that you express that in the midst of grief and death and pain on this level.

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But you sort of want to have an interview with God. You want to have a meeting with them and you want to say that.

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If you are the God that you say that you are, the loving God, the faithful God, the all powerful

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God, well then how did this happen? If you call me your child, if you love me this much, if you're really my father, what kind of good father does this to one of their children?

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How could you do this? Those are thoughts that cross our minds. Another question that comes is, where were you?

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You're in the midst of that grief and that sorrow and that weeping and it comes out of you because you mean it.

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You say it to God. You say, where were you? I mean, if you say you'll never leave me and you'll never forsake me,

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I'll be honest, God, it feels like you have forsaken me. I don't know how

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I can feel any other way about this, God. It feels like you have legitimately forsaken me and I don't even know,

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God, how you'll answer this claim. How are you going to answer this, God? If you're all powerful, if I'm your child and you're my father and your thoughts are all precious towards me,

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God, if I can count them, they'd outnumber the sand. If that's really true, then how could you put this into my circumstance?

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How is this part of your good plan for me? These are honest thoughts and speaking to one of the mothers this week, those are some of the thoughts that were said out loud, shouted out loud.

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If you were actually here, you could have stopped this, right?

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I mean, now think about it for a second, that comes in our moment of grief. We're not trying to throw punches at God.

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We're trying to be honest with God and we're saying, I feel the weight of this and the pain of this. I don't understand how this horrible thing could have happened to me if you love me.

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And so we say things like, if you were actually here, if you're the all -powerful

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God and you really love me, if you were actually here, then you could have stopped this. Now, I think that one is really, really powerful because it almost sounds offensive to say to God, he's the sovereign, he's the holy one.

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We're the creatures, we're the sinners. This is a fouled up, broken, fallen world. And in a way it sounds kind of offensive because it is kind of placing the blame on God in terms of questioning his goodness and his sovereignty and his control.

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And you're saying things like, if you were actually here, you could have stopped this. It's in a way saying like, you didn't see this coming or you weren't able to control this.

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So there's things that are out of your control. So you say to God in the midst of your sorrow and grief, if you were actually here, you could have stopped this.

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And again, it sounds kind of on the verge of sinful, blasphemous and offensive.

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But I want you to take note of what I just said. If you were here, you could have stopped this.

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That's what Martha said to Jesus. Did you ever notice that? In John chapter 11, in that scene of death with Lazarus, she's got

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God incarnate in front of her, God in the flesh, the creator of all things. And what she says to him in 21 of chapter 11,

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Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Don't hyper -spiritualize the text.

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Don't just try to turn this into pious conversation. This is

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Martha grieving, saying, Jesus, if you'd been here, this wouldn't have happened. There's a bit of an accusation.

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However gracious and loving that comes across, there's an accusation. If you had been here, he wouldn't have died.

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So something's wrong with how you work this out, Jesus. I don't know how you're keeping your schedule of control of the universe and all things.

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I'm just telling you that I know who you are and I know that if you had been here, you could have done something about this.

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But of course, she says in the tail end of that, she says, but even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.

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She still trusts him, but she's questioning. She's grieving. She's questioning.

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She understands if you had been here, you could have stopped this. You are God. You can do anything.

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If you'd been here, he wouldn't have died. But even now I know you can do anything.

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So these are the things that come out. And I think ultimately the question that lurks around in our minds and it keeps coming back and back and back again in these moments of deep pain, death and grief is what?

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Do you even love me? Do you even love me, God? Because I love my kids.

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I love my children, Father. And I don't know that I would ever want to as a human being, put them through what you put me through.

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And so we do as creatures. We have these creaturely brains and creaturely minds and creaturely wills.

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We can't understand God and all of his power and all of his majesty. And so we try to rail against God at that moment of grief.

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We shout at God. We scream at God. We question God's goodness. We say, do you even love me?

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I mean, you're the one Jesus that says, if your son asks for bread, would you give him a stone?

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Your father loves you more than you guys love your kids. Okay, well then I'm asking you.

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I'm legitimately asking you, God, if you are the perfect father who loves better than I love as a father, then why'd you do this to me?

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If we're honest, that's what comes across our hearts and minds. And I want to speak to this.

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Listen, I want to speak as your brother and pastor and say to you that I do not ever want to be in a place where I am telling you how to live a

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God -glorifying life with my own personal tips to success. I don't want to tell you how to deal with grief with my own personal opinions that just come from inside me.

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I don't want to tell you how to minister to others in the midst of grief on my own personal opinions

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I want to tell us how to minister and think in the midst of grief by standing on the word of God and using the example of Jesus in Scripture on how to minister to people in the midst of grief.

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The first thing I'll say for us as a body in the midst of grief and death and deep sorrow in the dark night of the soul,

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I'm gonna say that we must accept the fact that Scripture teaches about the divine gift, the gift of God that we have in this fallen world of tears and sorrow and grief.

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In other words, we're supposed to grieve and grieve well because we believe in God and who he is and his character because we believe in what

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God's word says about the world and us and death and the curse and the fall.

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We have every reason to be the best at our grief, the best at our sorrow, to shed meaningful tears.

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We have to experience grief. There is a time for grief, and you already know where I'm gonna go with this.

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Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Let's see how many of you guys can get there quickly.

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Ecclesiastes, famous text from God's word, says in verse 1 of chapter 3, for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time to tear and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

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My point is this, as God in his word gives you permission, there is a time to weep, a time to grieve.

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We don't want that, admit it. We love the blessings of God. We don't want the sufferings that come in this life.

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We want the gifts from God. We don't want the pain that comes in this life. And so we don't like that part of the word of God, a time to weep and a time to mourn.

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But that is the way that this world is. And the answer is we chose it for ourselves.

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Those are the consequences of the fallen world. Humanity rebels against God. God's image says no to God, no to his ways.

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They say no to his light. And so they're plunged into darkness. And darkness looks like this.

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The world is still under the weight of sin and fallenness. It's all around us. And so there is a time to grieve.

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I want to encourage you in these moments we experience when that death occurs, it's time to grieve.

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It's time to mourn and it's time to mourn well. Not to grieve as those without hope, but actually to grieve and to weep.

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And I want to say this, in those moments of great pain and sorrow and weeping, it is not time.

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It is not time for the big and detailed, extended theological discussions.

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It's time to mourn. It's time to weep. It's time to grieve. And so the best thing to do in the first moment of that grief and that pain is honestly to listen and to grieve alongside, to love someone enough to actually grieve alongside them, to shed tears with them, to mourn with them.

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The time for the big answers, the extended answers, the help from God in these long discussions about how does

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God work all these things together for his glory and for my good? That will come.

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And the answers can come. But the answer at the start is to grieve and to have sorrow and to weep and to feel that pain because that pain is meaningful.

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Because we have God's word and his truth about what the world is and who God is and who

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I am, we should be the best at weeping, the best at grieving, the best at mourning because we have a worldview that can make sense of it.

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We're not just cosmic accidents. Death is not just some natural occurrence and it's just the way of the universe, everything moving to a heat death and all this is gonna go away and it's meaningless, sound and fury.

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We don't believe that, that's not true. The tears of atheists over death are true tears that deny their own worldview.

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And so we should be the best at shedding tears over death because with Christ, death is an enemy.

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Only with Christ, death is an enemy. And every time we shed a tear over the death of a loved one or a child, we are affirming the truth of God's word that death is an enemy.

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But the glory of the gospel is that he is the resurrection and the life. The glory of the gospel is that there will be a day where Christ speaks like he spoke to the little girl, like he speaks to Lazarus in the tomb and he says, little girl arise,

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Lazarus come forth. He will speak a word and he will raise the living and the dead.

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Death swallowed up in victory and Jesus testifies to his ability to do that in his life and ministry by saying a word and speaking to our greatest enemy and conquering it.

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And then in his own life, he says, destroy this temple and in three days,

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I will raise it up again. Jesus has power over our greatest enemy and it is an enemy and the hope that we have is that we grieve, but not like those without hope.

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That's the truth, that's our hope. But Jesus says to Martha in John chapter 11, she says to Jesus, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.

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But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again.

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Now, what is she thinking of course, when he says your brother rise again is a fundamental aspect and truth of the biblical worldview long before Jesus gets here in his earthly ministry is that death is gonna be swallowed up in victory and that God is gonna raise the dead.

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This is not the end, death is not the end. God is gonna raise the dead.

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She understands that, she knows her Bible. And so he says, your brother's gonna rise again. And she says, what?

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She says, I know that he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

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She still has hope. She says, I know that's gonna happen, Jesus. Now, Jesus of course meant something deeper and that is that no, like in five minutes.

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She doesn't understand that, but notice she's confused. She's blaming God in a sense. She said, if you'd been here, this wouldn't have happened.

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He wouldn't have died. And Jesus says, your brother's gonna rise again. And she says, I know he's gonna rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

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But then Jesus does what? I think it's what we have to all do in the midst of grief. And again, take our cues from Jesus and our cues from the text.

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Jesus just reminds her of exactly who he is. And if I could say any one thing as your brother and as a pastor in the midst of grief and death as Christians and how do we manage death as Christians?

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We need to do it like Jesus does. He reminds her of who he actually is and what he is capable of.

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I know that he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

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Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

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

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So what does Jesus do? He lets her complain. If you'd been here, he wouldn't have died.

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And then Jesus reminds her of who he is and the truth about who he is and what he's capable of doing.

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And the fact that though this seems like the end, with me, the resurrection and the life, this is overcome because whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

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Now she's alive, he's dead. And he's telling her, the living person, if you live and believe in me, you'll never die.

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This is not the end. This death is an ultimate. I'm telling you that I'm the resurrection and the life.

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And if you live and believe in me, you will never die. There's the hope.

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Jesus reminds her of exactly who he is and what he's capable of. And the fact that this death, though it seems so final, is overcome in Jesus who is the resurrection and the life.

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Jesus takes the criticism. If you'd been here, he wouldn't have died. And then he simply points her to who he actually is.

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Now Jesus could have chastised her, legitimately so. Jesus could have confronted her and given her a big theological explanation and exam about the sovereignty of God and the decree of God and God declaring the end from the beginning.

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He could have done that, but she voices the criticism. She says she knows he can do anything.

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And then Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. If you want freedom from all of this, it's in me.

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It's in me. But then he asks her, does she believe it?

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And I think as we minister to one another in our hearts in the midst of grief, I think that is, brothers and sisters, one of the most important things.

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I wanna listen to wisdom incarnate walking among us in the midst of grief, in the midst of death and mourning and sorrow.

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He reminds her of who he is and he asks her to affirm it.

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Do you believe this? He's anchoring the truth within her, challenging her to remember and saying, do you believe this?

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Do you believe this? So she said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the

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Messiah, the son of God who is coming into the world. When she said this, she went and called her sister

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Mary saying in private, the teacher is here and is calling for you. And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.

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

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Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

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

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Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. There's the heart of a grieving believer.

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It's going to happen. It can happen to any of us. They both did it.

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Coming to God, the sovereign. If you'd been here, this wouldn't have happened. Where were you?

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Are you asleep at the wheel of the universe, God? Because this is too painful. If you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died.

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When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved.

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And he said, where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. And here it is.

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I think at times, because we know the Christian trivia around the verse, we lose sight of the depth of it.

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Shortest verse in the Bible. Yes, Jesus wept. But don't lose sight of the depth of that moment.

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Back the story up. Jesus, in John 11, the beginning, is waiting for days.

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Lazarus is dead, so dead. In a moment here, you'll see that he stinks.

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They're afraid to roll away the rock, the stone, because he's so dead. This has been so long, it's going to stink.

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That's an uncomfortable thing to be around a dead human body. It smells bad.

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And Jesus purposefully waits. Now, there's been commentary on why exactly did

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Jesus wait? And there's been some conversation and commentary about the fact that, well, in this day, there was a non -biblical belief, a superstition, really, amongst the

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Jews that the spirit hovered around the body for several days and you still had time if the body was still near the spirit.

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And then once those particular days were over, it's gone. There's been speculation about that. Why is

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Jesus waiting exactly that period of time? Is it to show them that he is really the one who has power over death because he can even blow past when it's possible for there to be some sort of resurrection?

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Either way, Jesus purposefully is waiting to go to the tomb of Lazarus to the degree that he stinketh.

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And in chapter 11, verse 7, it says this, then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again.

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

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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.

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But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. After saying these things, he said to them, our friend

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Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. Don't you love how

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Jesus thinks about death? He's asleep. I'm gonna go wake him up.

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The disciples said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he'll recover. They're so dumb.

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Now, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant he was taking rest and sleep.

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Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. And for your sake,

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I am glad that I was not there so that you may believe, but let us go to him.

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Now, at the start of this story, Jesus is there, Lazarus is dead, and now

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Lazarus is in the tomb and he's a rotting, stinking corpse. Jesus knows that he's going to a scene where there is grief and weeping and pain, and he knows that he is going to wake him up.

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I'm going to raise him from the dead. So I want us all to keep that in our minds in terms of when we complain against God and we're bitter towards God, we're angry at God, and we're railing against God, and we're throwing all these accusations out against God.

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Here's a story of God walking in the midst of death in a fallen world. He planned this.

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He knows it's going to happen. It's a fallen world. There is death, disease, and decay. Lazarus's friend is dead.

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He's going there to wake him up. He knows the ultimate end of this is that he is going to raise

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Lazarus. He's going to come out of that tomb. And yet, knowing the beginning, the middle, and the end, and what he was going to do to glorify his name, in this moment,

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Mary says to him, if you'd been here, he wouldn't have died. And as he goes to the tomb to do what he had planned to do, he knows the end of this, to raise

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Lazarus from the dead in the midst of the weeping, and the grieving, and the pain of everybody that he loves, it says

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Jesus wept. I wonder what that sounds like.

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I wonder what it sounds like when God as a man weeps.

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There's so many things we wish we could have had, video recorders, and record to hear

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God weeping as a man alongside his people that he loves, all the while knowing the beginning, the middle, and the end.

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He knows this is going to be overcome. He speaks about it in what seems like a flippant way, right?

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He's asleep. I'm going to go raise him up. I'm going to go wake him up. So much so I'd confuse them, so I can call him dumb, like you don't get it, guys, because it's in a way like he's sleeping.

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I'm going to wake him up. But when he's there in the midst of it with his people, it says that Jesus wept.

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So what is the heart of God like in the midst of his sovereign decree and his control over all things and his knowing the beginning, and the middle, and the end?

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What is God like as a man in our grief, experiencing death alongside of us?

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It says he weeps. Knowing all the while,

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I'm going to wake him up. And so the story goes, verse 36, the

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Jews said, see how he loved him. I love that.

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See how he loved him. Bystanders look at Jesus, the creator of all things, our

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God and savior. They're looking at Jesus in the midst of grief and death.

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And what they can testify to and be witnesses to is he loves him.

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So in the midst of your grief and your pain over death, just remember that the witnesses see the heart of God over grief and death, and they say, he loves him.

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So while you think God doesn't love me, God is far away, God's abandoned me, God doesn't care about me, the witnesses in this moment see

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Jesus, God incarnate grieving over the death of his friend, knowing what he's going to do to raise him.

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And their response is, look at him. So when you say, how could you do this to me,

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God, you don't love me, you're far from me. That's not what the witnesses say. They say, look at how much he loved him.

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But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept this man from dying?

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And there it is. And there it is. There's the accusation that comes out of the mouth of the grieving mother who loses the baby in her womb.

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Can't you, God, who opens the eyes of the blind, who raises the dead, couldn't you have kept this from happening to me?

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There they are. We're in one story about death, and there's the accusations. There's the accusations that flow through the minds of God's people in the midst of grief and death.

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Same things, if you'd been here, he wouldn't have died. If you have all this power, if you can raise the dead, if you can open the eyes of the blind, then how come you let my baby die?

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That's what comes out of us. Then Jesus, verse 38, deeply moved again, came to the tomb.

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It was a cave and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him,

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Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days. Jesus said to her, did

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I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?

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So they took away the stone, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

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I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around that you may believe that they may believe that you sent me.

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When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

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

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Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. I don't want to miss the supremacy of Christ, the glory of God, and the power of God in a moment like this, that Jesus just commands it.

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He just commands it. Death is such a great enemy to us. We fight against it.

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We war against it. We pay against it. We pay doctors. We pay for pills. We pay for this.

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We pay experts. We try to get help, fix my body. We pay surgeons to fix something.

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We fight and we fight and we fight and we work and we labor and we labor. And when someone's dying on the street and you're on the phone with 911, they're saying, follow my instructions, place your hands on their chest, do compressions.

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And you're just follow this beat and do it at this pace and do what you can. And you're exerting pressure and exerting pressure, just trying to stop and thwart death from actually coming.

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We fight and we work to actually stop this. And Jesus stands away from the tomb.

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And he, with a word, says, Lazarus, come forth.

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I am the resurrection and the life. And so in the midst of death, this is our

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God, who we in his sovereignty over every instance of death, his control of the beginning, the middle and the ends.

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He weeps with his people. He grieves with his people. He affirms the truthfulness of who he is.

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And he tells them about his power. And then all he has to do is say a word.

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And brothers and sisters, my great hope and your great hope in the midst of this fallen world and death as an enemy is that his promise is that there will be a day.

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There will be a day. There is a day ahead where he will say a word.

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And you will be raised from the dead. Your loved ones raised from the dead.

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Our dead babies raised from the dead. Because he is the resurrection and the life.

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Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. And if you die in him, you will live.

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That's the truth of who Jesus is. Now, there's an instance in scripture.

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You know this one. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this. But in terms of what we need to understand in the moment of grief, what are we doing?

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Grieving alongside them and doing what? Affirming the truth about who God is. You're affirming the truth about who

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God is. We're remembering who God is. We're keeping our eyes above our circumstances, above our inner monologue, above our pain.

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And we're focusing on Christ. And what does God say he is? Who is God? What does God do?

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What is he going to do? What has he promised us? We're focusing on that. But we need to recognize in the midst of our deepest pain, we have to be able to affirm the truthfulness about our creatureliness.

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We are just creatures. We cannot fully comprehend.

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And so, of course, you know the story of Job. What happens to Job is catastrophic.

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Losing everything. Not just the death of one loved one, but he's surrounded by death.

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He loses everything. He's dealing with every possible thing, physical, spiritual, family, loss of property, loss of everything.

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Completely broken. And I'm gonna remind you that the story of Job begins with the permission of God to do it.

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Don't ever miss that. That Satan can't touch God's people apart from God's own permission.

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So the story of Job starts with the permission of God and even the boundaries that God puts on this.

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You may do this, but not this. For his own purposes. And then Job experiences the worst of the worst.

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None of us have experienced this, like what Job experienced. He experienced the worst of the worst. In the book, the story goes, he gets some really bad advice.

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He's got some friends that are not telling him the right things to the point that it's agitation, agitation, agitation.

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And what? Job finally has his breaking point. He says, all right, you're right.

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I'm sick of this. This is horrible. And I wanna interview you

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God. I've got a complaint. And so I'm gonna bring it to your ear. And in Job 38, go there.

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I just wanna point you to what we have to understand in the midst of grief about our creatureliness.

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In Job 38, verse one, then Yahweh answered

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Job out of the whirlwind and said, who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge, dress for action like a man?

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I will question you and you make it known to me. God's basically saying to him, you've got questions.

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Let me ask some first. Where were you when

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I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

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All right, creature, you wanna rail against God? You wanna complain against God? You wanna interview with God? Okay. And so God lowers himself, kneels down to his son, to his child.

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He kneels down and condescends. He says, okay, I have a question for you first.

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Can you understand this? If you have so much understanding, and if you know so much, where were you when

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I laid the foundation of the earth? And then he says, who determines its measurements? Surely you know.

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You understand that? You understand, I spoke this into existence.

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I said, let there be, and there was. Do you understand the foundations or the measurements?

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Or who stretched the line upon it? And what were its bases sunk? Or who laid his cornerstone when the morning star sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

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Were you present when the angels were singing in harmony, in heavenly orchestra and symphony?

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Were you there? Did you get to hear that? I heard that song. Were you present for that song?

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Do you understand that, Mr. Creature? Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?

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When I made clouds, its garment and thick darkness, its swaddling band and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors and said, thus far you shall come and no farther and here shall your proud waves be stayed.

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Have you commanded the morning since your days began and caused the dawn to know its place? Then it might take hold of the skirts of the earth and the wicked be shaken out of it.

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It is changed like clay under the seal and its features stand out like a garment from the wicked their light is withheld and their uplifted arm is broken.

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Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

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Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare it if you know all this. It's just one hit after another to remind you you are the creature you don't know.

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You can't comprehend this. And so I want to take my cues from scripture and say that one of the things that I want to be honest about is

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I want to not pretend to have every answer but to be able to say what we need to say in the moment of grief and pain is that I have to get low and acknowledge my dependence upon God and the fact that I am the creature and he is the creator.

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He's God and I'm not. And the one thing that I can't do is I can't answer these questions.

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So you know the story brothers and sisters we have talked about it before. God just comes with one question after another that's meant to reveal what?

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You're the creature. You don't have any ability to fully comprehend this. I'm God which is to say what?

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You have to trust me. You have to trust my counsel. You have to trust my power. You have to trust who

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I am to the degree that question after question after question comes and finally the end of the story and Job 40 and the

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Lord said to Job shall a fault finder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God let him answer it.

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Then Job answered the Lord and said behold I am of small account. What shall

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I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I've spoken once and I will not answer. I've spoken too soon.

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Twice but I will proceed no further. So what's the outcome of the creature that wants to come to God for the interview to complain against God?

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The outcome in that instance is when it actually occurred he gets to the end of the line of questioning and Job's response is to cover his mouth and to say

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I've spoken too soon. I can't contend with the Almighty and of course you know the end of the story is that God does what he wills and he is the good

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God who is the all -powerful God. No one can thwart his purposes and Job is restored and Job is blessed but the answer from Job is you can't comprehend all things.

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We're called to rest in who God is and what his promises are. So in the midst of death in grief we have to rest in what

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God says about himself. The truth about who he says that he is and all of his promises those are what we stand on in the midst of grief.

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Romans 8 28 says God causes what? Pause for a second because we say that verse a lot.

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We say it fast but that's kind of the heart of what makes it satisfying to our souls right there.

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It is God that's personal. It's him. He's doing this.

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It's his will. It's for his purposes. It's because of his great love for you. God causes what?

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All things. It's easy to say that Sunday service.

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It's easy to say that when we're saying glory and hallelujah. It's easy to say that when we're all happy and experiencing God's blessing and we're in a garden in our lives.

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God causes all things. It's not as easy to say it when you're in a hospital room with a dead baby.

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But listen, it's true or it's not.

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So let me ask you. God causes all things to work together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

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Wait, do you believe this? Do you believe this?

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Those are the words of God. Do you believe this? That's what Jesus asks in the midst of pain.

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Do you believe this? Because what will heal you and what will free you and what will give you hope is not your ability to just overcome the pain and to get through it and to get over it and put it behind you.

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No. What will have you overcome that pain and turn that pain even into rejoicing in the

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Lord is the guaranteed assurance of God's promises, his word.

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And he says, God causes all things to work together for good. That means when you've been abused, he promises, he makes the assurance, he will cause that to work together for good.

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When you've lost everything, here's the word from God, he will cause that to work together for good.

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When you lose a baby in the womb and you even have to carry that baby around for a time, experience the grief of a full -term dead baby in your womb that you have to actually now give birth to in that deep, horrific pain, you can say,

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God causes all things to work together for good. Even this. You know, it didn't look like, it didn't look like God was causing anything to work together for good when

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Jesus was nailed to that tree. It didn't look like that to them either.

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Can we just remind ourselves of that, brothers and sisters? It didn't look like that. They thought it was defeat, right?

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I mean, that's what the disciples were thinking. They're thinking, oh, I guess this is over. I guess we were all wrong about him.

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And they were probably asking questions over those days too. They're probably saying things like, well, then how did he raise the dead?

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How did he give that girl her life back? How did he do all the stuff that we,

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John says he did so many things that he says the world itself couldn't contain the books of all the things that Jesus did.

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That's how many amazing things Jesus did. So there must've been this period of confusion between the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ where they're sitting there going,

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I don't understand how we could have missed this. He was perfect. And righteous and blameless and wisdom incarnate and walked on water and raises people and he gives life and healing.

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And how, how is he not the Messiah? He's bleeding dead on a tree.

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His dead body's in that tomb. It didn't look like God was causing that to work together for good, but it was in the murder of Jesus.

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It was in the crucifixion of the son of God that God brought redemption to the world. God takes death and he makes it life again.

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That's in your greatest tragedies, your most horrible circumstances and your deepest possible pain.

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And yes, even in the midst of the death of our children in the womb, God causes all things to work together for good.

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So I want to just encourage you brothers and sisters with those words from God.

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And I want to remind you of a few important things that you should share. I think we should share with those who are in the place of the deepest possible pain.

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The one thing I've always tried to minister to the hearts of God's people with when that moment happens is that it is only with Christ that there is meaning in our tears.

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I had some hard conversations this week. Hard. It's hard.

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It's hard to, it's hard to hear and just not feel total collapse, screaming at God, yelling at God for minute after minute after minute after minute.

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And the one thing I want to say in that moment of deepest possible pain is that though you are tempted right now to run from God, he's not there.

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He hates me. He's gone. If he had been here, this wouldn't have happened. There's temptation to run, run, run away from God.

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The one thing I want to say is your tears are only meaningful if you run and fall on him.

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You must run to him because if this is all just a cosmic accident, if God is truly the absentee landlord, if he's not there, if this is just sound and fury signifying nothing, if we're all just stuff bumping around on the universe that doesn't care about us, then your tears are meaningless.

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Wipe them and stop crying. This is just something that happens. None of us sheds tears and grieves and is filled with sorrow when rocks fall off mountains and crash.

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Just stuff being knocked around. And if we're all just stuff being knocked around in a godless universe, then your tears and my tears are meaningless.

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Stop grieving. And we know that isn't true.

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And the person who is feeling that deepest place of possible pain in that moment knows this grief is real.

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This baby had value. This life had value. This grief is real.

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These tears are real. And my answer in that moment is you must flee to Christ for meaning in this pain.

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Because if this is not the image of God, and if God is not who He says He is, then these tears are meaningless.

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If you want meaning in your pain, you must flee to Christ. I have to give you that as a foundation.

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I have to give you that as a foundation. Remind you of who He is and who you are.

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The next thing is I want to constantly encourage a brother or sister in the midst of pain to look to the unseen and not the seen, to lift up your eyes to heaven, to know where your help comes from, to lift up your eyes to God above your circumstances, to look to the truth about who

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God is. You have to be willing to tell yourself even in the midst of grief, I'm a creature and I'm wrong.

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God is true and He's right. I'm wrong. And we want to remind one another in the midst of our grief, on this side of eternity, that we are not to grieve as those without hope.

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Who grieves like those without hope? Unbelievers.

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People who don't know Jesus grieve as those without hope. When they grieve, it's hopeless.

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They don't have a resurrection on the last day. They don't have Jesus, the resurrection and the life who simply calls death sleeping and I'll go wake him up again.

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They don't have the hope that Jesus will speak one day and everybody will rise to attention to Jesus Christ in full and final glorious resurrection.

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They don't have that. They have death. They have decay. They have sickness. They have pain.

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They have misery. They have sorrow. And they have meaninglessness. They grieve as those without hope.

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But when Christians grieve, we grieve as those with hope. And brothers and sisters, this is critical to understand when the

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Bible talks about hope, it's not wishful thinking. It's not saying, hey, pull yourselves up, glass half full kind of people, guys.

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Think like that. No, you grieve as those with hope, which is a guaranteed assurance.

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It's guaranteed. It's a promise from God. It'll never be overcome.

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And so when you and I grieve with hope, we know even in the midst of death, he will speak and they will rise.

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He will overcome this. He is the good God. He is the all powerful God. He's the judge of all the earth who will always do right.

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That's my hope. I know my God and he loves me. He loves me and he promises they will work all things together for good.

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Even this, even this. Yes, even this. And I want to place before all of us this fundamental truth.

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Death is only an enemy with Christ. Death is only an enemy with Christ.

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But with Christ, death has been and will be overcome.

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You see, listen, in Jesus' life and ministry, when he's just randomly going about, from our perspective, raising people from the dead.

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Little girl, arise. Little boy, arise. Lazarus, come forth. Those are like little mini deposits.

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In his life and ministry, they're little mini deposits for that future full payments.

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So that's the point. It wasn't just a show. He's not a charlatan. He's not going around like some of these charlatans that are with these miracle ministries or faking miracles and extending people's legs, paying people to come up on stage, to act like they were healed and forgiven.

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Jesus is legitimately doing things that cannot, cannot be done. Like raising dead people from the grave.

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But what they were in his life and ministry were testimony and signs. They were little mini deposits, a guarantee of the future full payments.

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That's what it testified to. You want to see what I can do? You want to see what I will do? Here's a deposit.

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Here's another deposit. Here's another deposit. And then he gives the ultimate in his own life. He gives this guarantee.

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Look what I can do. And so the resurrection of Jesus is not only testified to in scripture and prophesied to and Jesus accomplishes it.

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It is this great display to the world. Here's a down payment for that future full payments.

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Your resurrection is coming. That day of resurrection is coming. It is a deposit and guarantee.

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It's coming. It's coming. We wait for it. We wait for it and hope, but it is a guaranteed assurance kind of thing.

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It is something that cannot be broken. See you and I lie. Your past is filled with lies.

01:04:57

Maybe you've lied today. We lie. And so we struggle trusting God because you know you are a liar.

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You know that you're inconsistent. You know that you've breathed out lies. And so we think

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God is like us, but it says in scripture, God cannot lie. He cannot lie.

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He's not like you in that sense. And so when he promises you, I am the resurrection and the life, and he promises you that he will raise and judge the living and the dead, that is a guaranteed assurance, which is why you and I will not grieve as those without hope.

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It's a promise. It's a guarantee. So brothers and sisters,

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I want to encourage you in this time to grieve and to grieve well, to weep with those who weep, to mourn with those who mourn.

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But you set your eyes upon Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, the author of life, and the one who has power over death.

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Death is an enemy. It is. Treat it like it is. When it happens, act like it is.

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But Jesus has overcome our greatest enemy in his life and ultimately in ours.

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Brothers and sisters, I think our most important thing we do with these families over the coming weeks is to weep with them and to keep them with their eyes set on Jesus.

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Amen? Let's pray. Lord, we trust you. You say that you're the resurrection and the life.

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Do you believe this? And so we say together, yes.

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And so, Lord, we ask that you would bless us with what only your spirit can give us, comfort, strength, rejoicing in you, trust in your word.

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Fill us with your love for one another. Help us to grieve well like you,

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Lord Jesus, and to grieve in a way that glorifies God. We pray for those within our body who are hurting, that you would meet them, even in this moment, with comfort and strength.

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And bless us with the ability, the perseverance, the desire to serve them and love them and come alongside them.