I Am Statements Of Jesus - But For The Glory Of God

God Centered Theology

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To kind of set the stage here, they're coming off the heels of John chapter 10.

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And you remember in John chapter 10 he had both, I am the door and I am the good shepherd.

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And right there at the end of chapter 10 you'll notice it's very interesting, and I say this a lot too, we fly through Scripture so fast, and we read through what we miss so much.

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Right there at the end of chapter 10 it says, he went away beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing, and he was staying there.

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Many came to him and were saying, while John performed no sign, yet everything John said about this man was true.

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Many believed in him there. So at this point in time, at this juncture, where he was and what he was doing,

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Jesus was having a lot of noticeable success in His ministry by what obviously we would deem success.

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All that Jesus did was His success. But at least from His disciples vantage point, we're going to see this in a minute, it was a very successful place to be.

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Many were believing who Jesus was and what He had said. They were coming to Him. They were believing in Him.

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And that's the stage in which we find ourselves when we go over to John 11. It says, Now a certain man was sick,

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Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped

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His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. And so the sister sent word to him, saying,

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Lord behold, he whom you love is sick. But when Jesus heard this, He said, This sickness is not in death, but for the glory of God, so the

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Son of God may be glorified by Him. Notice it says, But for the glory of God.

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And that is the title I've decided to go with this morning, but for the glory of God. You see, one of the five souls of the

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Christian faith is one as solely Deo Gloria, meaning all glory to God.

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Anything that would bring glory or rob God of His rightful and due glory and bring it to ourselves is sin.

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Even if what we are doing we may have good intentions, or it may be a quote -unquote good thing, or even if it is a quote -unquote righteous thing.

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You can do the right thing with the wrong motive and it will still be sin. You can do all the good in the world. You can do all the good with Bible school.

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A pastor can do all the good in the world with preaching a good message. And all these things that we do as Christians, and that's all fine and well.

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If it is designed for your glory, it is sin. Because all glory is due to God because of who He is.

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You see, things and situations in life should always be for the glory of God.

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Psalm 57 talks about how you let your glory be above all the earth.

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All the earth. What David means there is that your glory is above all things.

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We learn from the book of Ephesians that one day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Christ is Lord. He is above all things,

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He is all and in all, but He is also all things, in all cases, the eternal God. And because He is

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God, because He is the only God, He alone is deserving of all glory. And see this situation here is no different than really any other situation in life.

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We all have people that have died in our life. We've all had people with sickness. We've all had financial hardships.

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We've all had things that weren't necessarily coming from our own sin, but because of the sin curse on the creation, just like it says in Romans 8, that the creation itself groans for the redemption of the body.

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So even creation itself, you just look at animals, you can tell something is off, something is not right.

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It's because this creation is cursed. Everything is cursed by sin. It's not just that we fail and fall short of the glory of God, but the creation itself is cursed by it.

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And we have this situation here where Lazarus is sick. And Jesus, while He doesn't come out like He did in other places like John 8, where He says, you know, before Abraham was,

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I am. He doesn't make necessarily specific claims in the sense that He plainly says,

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I am God. He makes it very clear, and John the writer here makes it very clear that Jesus was

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God, and He was deity, because there are many things that Jesus says and does in this chapter that only, and that's what we're going to see, and that's why

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He deserves that glory. Notice Jesus heard this, He says, this sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God.

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How could He have known that if He's just a man? Where He was, the messenger that would have had to come from Bethany to where Jesus was, it would have taken at least one day's trip just to get where Jesus was.

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So it's very likely, by all accounts, that by the time the messenger reaches Jesus to let

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Him know Lazarus is sick, Lazarus is probably already dead by this point. And we see that and can make that argument even stronger with the verses that follow.

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But it's very likely He's already dead. And He's coming there and telling Him, not that Lazarus has died, but that Lazarus is sick.

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The only way Christ could have known what was going on, what He was going to do about it, and how it was going to play out, is

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He'd have to have the eternal mind of God. He'd have to have that omniscience, that all -knowing power that comes from being the eternal

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God. He says it's not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so the

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Son of God may be glorified by it. So express claim to deity here in the sense that He's saying, not only is this glory for God, but the

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Son of Man, the Son of God, of which He had made clear this is who He is, may be glorified by it.

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And what's really cool about this scene and this stage that we're here, and we're not going to go into this today, so I invite you, when you have time, go on past verses 47 in this chapter, and start moving into 12 and 13, as we prepare for two weeks from now, when we will be in John 14.

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But this is sort of the grand, or like the miracle of all miracles, sort of the thing that everything was kind of building to, because after this miracle, the

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Jews just get so set, and they're disgust, and they're hatred, and we're going to see how they say, we've got to do something about this guy.

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He's got to be taken out. He's got to be dealt with, because we let them keep on doing these signs and these miracles.

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Everybody's going to believe this guy, and we're going to be out of dots. And so right after this is when all the motion, all the things start happening.

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And it's not soon after this that we find Jesus on the cross. So in a sense, it's almost like it was building to this, because in this event, and we all know the story and the account here, when

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He raises Lazarus from the dead, it's a precursor miracle. He's raising someone from the dead, establishing that He has power over life and death and resurrection, eternal life, because He Himself, and you remember in John chapter 10, you can go back and read it,

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He says, nobody takes my life. I have the authority to lay it down, and I will take it up again. And He proves

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He has this power by what He does here. He says, it's for the glory of God, so that the

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Son of God may be glorified by it. It stands to reason we must ask the question, what keeps us from seeing, or potentially seeing, the blessing that comes from seeing

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God work? Disobedient hearts? Anything that would cause us to try to rob

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God of His glory? Notice what happens as we move forward. It says, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, so when

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He heard that He was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was. Now, when you read this, you think, well, huh?

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There must be a mistake here. You love these people. You find out

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He's sick. The same Jesus that healed people, and He didn't even have to be in the room when He did it.

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He could just speak the word. One lady was healed just simply by touching the guy's clothes. You know

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He's sick. You care for them, but then you stay two days longer where you're at.

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What will we do? We go running, right? Make no mistake, my friends, it doesn't say that He stayed two days longer because He didn't care about Lazarus, or didn't care about the situation.

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It's because God in His internal omniscience, in the form and in the person of Jesus Christ, the second person of the

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Trinity, knew exactly what was going on. His intention was never to keep

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Lazarus from dying. That was never His intention. Because whether we live or whether we die, it is about the eternal life.

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It is about the spiritual life, the spiritual death. This is but a physical body. His intention was never to keep

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Lazarus from dying. His intention was to raise Him from the dead. So why stay two more days?

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Well, think about it. One day of travel to tell Jesus that Lazarus is sick. Two days longer

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He stays. And then it would take them another day to make it to where Lazarus is at. It's four days.

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In the Jewish culture, in the Jewish tradition, a lot of them believe that it was only after until four days had passed after someone was dead that you could be certain that they were dead.

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Because usually by the fourth day the body starts decomposing. And that's when the spirit would leave the body at that point.

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How they came up with the four days, I don't know. Maybe they flipped a coin. I mean it works out for the

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Super Bowl. It worked for them, right? The Super Bowl didn't exist then, but work with me, John. How they came up with four days,

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I don't know. But a lot of them traditionally believed that it was four days. So Jesus, He was so aware of what was going on, so aware of what

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He was going to do, but also so aware of all the belief systems and everything that was going on.

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He's like, so I'm going to make sure at least four days have gone by. So that way when

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I raise this guy, there will be no question. Because think about it. How many people said, oh, you know,

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Jesus didn't really die. He was just, He was in a coma. He came out of a coma or something like that.

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Jesus said, not only is the guy going to be dead, I'm going to wait four days. We're going to make sure he's really dead.

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That way nobody can go around and say, well, you know, Lazarus didn't really die. It hadn't been four days after all.

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He was probably just sleeping really good. He had a big meal. Went out and had Italian food. He's in a food coma.

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He's just passed out. In a couple days he'll wake up. No, dead. D -E -D, dead.

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We're not talking like, you know, just needs a little bit of resuscitation. We're talking about dead. You know, one of the preachers

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I watch on the Internet, when he talks about this, he says, he uses a great example. He talks about snakes. He says, you know, some snakes will kill you, and some snakes will kill you dead.

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So there's some that will get a hold of you, and you might wish to die, but there's some that will kill you dead. D -E -D, dead.

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And this is dead. This is as dead as you can get. And so he waits two days because Jesus knows what's going on, and He knows what

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He's going to do. But notice how the disciples react. It's very interesting to watch them. And unless we pile on them, remember we're not really so different, really.

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But look how they react. Then after this He said to His disciples, let's go to Judea again. The disciples said to Him, Rabbi, the

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Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and you are going there again. Now what are they referring?

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If you'll remember, not only in John 8, but John 10, and all these other places, every time

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Jesus would make a claim to deity, and claim to be God, that's what would get them to want to stone Him. I mean

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He could heal people, and do all these great things, but boy, you start talking about you're the

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Eternal Son of God, we've got to pick up some stones and stone this guy. We don't want to hear that. We don't want to hear truth.

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We want to hear what makes us feel good. We want to see Him do things that everybody can get on board with.

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I mean you start talking about you're the Eternal God, you're going to bow to me one day. They don't want to hear that part. And so these disciples didn't really get it.

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Hold on. Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and you're going there again?

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Think about this. Are we so different? They say, you're in this place, they wanted to stone you, and that's where you're going?

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Hey, John, get some of the disciples over in the corner. Jesus has lost

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His mind? We left fishing for this? He's carried us all over the place.

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Oh man, the healings are great. I'm down with that. This guy wants to go to the place where they want to stone him?

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This man's lost it. He's gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. He's lost it.

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He's insane. He needs a straight jacket. He's crazy.

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Or as the kids are saying these days, he's cray -cray. Why in the world?

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Look, if I knew somebody wanted to kill me or stone me, you know the last place I'm going to go? There. Wherever that is.

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Sometimes that's the house if I don't take the trash out. You know, I kind of might want to stay out for a little bit longer and let

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Gina cool down. So don't throw a trash bag at my head. But you don't go places where it's going to end badly for you.

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And Jesus is saying, That's where I'm going. And they say, Look, he wants to stone you. Why are you going to go there again? And Jesus goes through and answers them.

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And he says, And then you skip down to verse 11. He says, Then he said after that, He said to them, Our friend

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Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go that I may awaken him out of sleep.

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And the disciples said to him, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, he'll recover. So they still didn't get it. And they were still thinking about themselves.

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Like, well, he's just asleep. Why in the world? Where are we going down there for? What's the point?

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Now, do we do that, though? Because these disciples, what they were ultimately demonstrating was a disobedient heart.

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See, Jesus is their leader. He's their Lord. He's the one discipling them. He's the one that said, We're going to Judea.

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And they're coming up with all these reasons and excuses. See, what

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Jesus was doing is he was seeking to grow the disciples' faith. Even in this late stage of his ministry, he was always working on them.

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No matter what was going on, no matter if he was healing someone, or feeding 5 ,000, or running away from people that wanted to stone him, his mind was always on his people.

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Always on his disciples. Why would he want to grow their faith? Because an increased faith is an increased capacity for obedience.

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Think about it. If you believe something just a little, is it going to change your actions much?

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Probably not. I mean, if you believe something, you know, well, this might happen, or so and so said it, yeah, that's probably true.

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Probably not going to guarantee much change of action, would it? But man, if you believe something down deep in your soul, you know it to be true, it's going to prompt me for action.

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If somebody called me and said, you know, your daughter's in trouble, and you know, she had an accident, or something, and it's coming from an unreliable source, they don't have their facts straight, like something don't feel...

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I'm probably going to make a few more phone calls, and a few more inquiries before I go running out the door.

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But if Gina calls me and tells me, our daughter is hurt, here's where she's at, we need to get to her.

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Am I going to drop everything I'm doing and go running? Oh, you betcha. You betcha. He's trying to increase their faith, because the more that they have faith in Him as the

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Son of God, and Jesus knows how they're going to respond when

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He dies. Remember how down, depressed the disciples were? But He also knows that at Pentecost, when the

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Holy Spirit comes, they're going to turn a 180. They're going to go from the most depressed group of people we've ever seen in your life, to where all of a sudden, they're turning the world upside down, preaching the

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Gospel, going to jail for it, being beaten, in some cases, in most all cases, killed for it.

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And He says, I know where they're going to be, but in this moment in time, this is what they need. That's why they say, live in the present, do what you can in the present, live for God in the present.

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It's no problem to have goals, it's no problem to be looking forward, but if you're not doing what you need to do in the present, you'll never get to that point.

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You've got to start somewhere. And even though Jesus has omniscience, He knows everything those disciples are going to do, both then and in the future.

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He knows that right now, in time, it's a present moment, where they need their faith grown, because the faith that's going to grow in them now, is going to lead them to what they're going to do in the future.

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So it's not just a miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, it's everything that goes with it. And once again, they still don't get it.

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They say, well if he's just falling asleep, why are we going? It says in verse 13, now

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Jesus has spoken of his death, but they thought he was speaking of literal sleep. So then Jesus said to them plainly,

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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.

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So when Jesus came, and now this is fast forwarding to the part where He's there, verse 17,

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He found that He had already been in the tomb four days. And what we're going to see is faith grown not only in these disciples, but in Martha, and everyone around.

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And Jesus was always looking to increase people's faith, and call people to faith in Himself. Notice, now

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Bethany was near Jerusalem about two miles off. Look, Jesus did a lot of things. There was a lot of things

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Jesus was willing to do for what was at hand here. He was willing to change. He was willing to change

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His schedule, His plans, His operations. Now remember, they are in a place where everything is going well.

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John's disciples were the same way. You remember John the Baptist's disciples in John chapter 3? They were all throwing fits, because everybody was leaving

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John and going to Jesus. Like, man we've had it good for so long, and now they are going to Jesus? Now you've got

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Jesus' disciples doing the same thing here, thinking about themselves, thinking about their own glory. We are in this environment here.

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So many people are coming to our Leader, and believing Him, and everything is going great. Why in the world would

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Jesus want to go mess with that? For the glory of God? Because God's glory is more important than what we think is important.

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God's glory is the number one reason we should do anything. As Christians, as a Church, as anybody, it's all for the glory of God.

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Whatever is to be obedient, to bring glory to God, that is what you do. And Jesus was modeling this for them.

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He was saying, look, I know, He may have told them, maybe it's not recorded, maybe He even told them, He said, we've got it good here.

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People are following us. And you know what? If He had stayed there, the disciples were probably thinking, man, the way this is going, we're going to build us up a little kingdom here.

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We're going to get us a few million people. They'll be following us. We'll overtake Rome. We'll take it over.

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It's no different than Star Wars. What's the first thing? I know some of you all, I'm going to lose you and bore you with this, but work with me.

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Anakin Skywalker, the first thing he does after he turns to the dark side, what does he do? He tells his little girlfriend,

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Padme, we can overthrow the Emperor. I can rule my own empire. A movie ago, all you cared about was keeping your girl from dying.

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And now you want to take over the galaxy. Power corrupts. It corrupts.

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His focus was on the wrong things. The disciples' focus was on the wrong things.

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They were thinking about the good life and all these things. And man, we could do so much more with this. And da -da -da.

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God says, nah. Jesus says, no. The glory of God is more important.

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He says, we've got to go. Even if it takes me close to Jerusalem where they want to stone me, it's worth the risk.

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He was willing to change. He was willing to take the risk. Because he knew what was more important.

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Watch what happens here. Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.

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Martha, therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet him. But Mary stayed at the house. And then notice this beautiful section of Scripture here.

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This beautiful confrontation between Jesus and Martha. Martha then said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

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Well, that's true. If he had been there, he probably could have done a miracle. Kept him from dying.

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That's certainly not false. And she certainly is not questioning the Lord Jesus or raking him over the coals or saying that, well, you should have been here.

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She's just simply stating her level of belief and understanding. Lord, if you had been here, this wouldn't have happened.

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And we say that so much in our life. Lord, if you had done this, if you had done that. So if you ever want to answer the question of the why.

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Why did he allow this? Or why did he cause this? Or why didn't he do this? Or why didn't he do that?

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Go back to John chapter 11 and look at what he tells Martha. She says,

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Even now I know whatever you ask of God, God will give you. And Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Martha said,

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Oh, yes, yes. I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. So she obviously knew far more about the

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Scripture than the Sadducees did who didn't believe in the resurrection. Although the Old Testament clearly taught it, and Job and other places.

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But she says, Yes, I know. But then watch what Jesus says to her. He says,

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

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Now Jesus is going to say the same thing essentially in verses 25 and 26, but in two different ways.

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So I want to bring this part out to you here. He says, I'm the resurrection and life. The first thing he says is,

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He who believes in me will live even if he dies. Okay? So he's using

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Lazarus as an example to teach Martha something here. He's telling her in physical life, your physical body, even if you die, it's not the end.

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Because in that day, just much like in our day, there's a lot of naturalists running around, a lot of people that think you just live, you breathe, you die, we're nothing but a bunch of dust particles.

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And when this life is over, that's it. You go back into the ground, that's it. There's nothing more.

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There's nothing to look forward to. There's no heaven. There's no hell. It's just a here and now. Let me tell you something.

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If all there was was a here and now, my life would be a lot different. You know what I would be living for? Me. I'd be number one.

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I'd be number two. I'd be number three. I'd be number four. And somewhere around number 126, I might get to her.

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And then maybe down the road a little bit more, I'd get to Hannah. And then maybe y 'all at some point, you know, other people, the church, you know, we'll get to them eventually.

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No. There is something else. There is life after death.

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And Jesus is saying, you believe in me, even if you die like Lazarus has died.

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in case you don't know this, I did, look, y 'all are going to be so proud. I did hours and hours of deep,

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I'm talking like way down deep, statistical analysis for this sermon. Y 'all are going to be blown away.

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Y 'all ready? This is the cool, I'm telling you, this is the coolest statistic you'll ever hear in a sermon. All right. Ready? Studies have shown that one out of one people die.

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I bet y 'all didn't know that. Boy, I bet y 'all are so proud of me right now. Obviously, I'm joking.

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But one out of one people die. Everybody dies. There's a point where the man wants to die, and then the...

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Physical death was not even at the forefront of Jesus' thinking. It's about spiritual life.

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You believe in Jesus Christ. Even if you die in this life, I don't care if you're 2, 5, 10, 95, 130, whatever your age, whatever the circumstances of your death, albeit these things are hard and difficult, and obviously certain death situations are much more difficult for us to wrap our heads around than others.

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We're not making light, and we're not acting like those things aren't difficult. But I'm telling you, scripturally speaking, it matters not how you die, when you die.

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If you believe in Christ, you will live. Because it's about eternal life. So He says, he that believes in Me will live, and he that never dies.

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And then the second statement He makes might kind of confuse you at first, like, wait, wait, wait, that doesn't seem to jive with what

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He just said, but watch it. Verse 26, everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.

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Well, you just said, even if you die, but now you're saying you'll never... It's because in both statements, verse 25 and verse 26,

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Jesus is talking about spiritual life, spiritual life, eternal life, the very thing that Jesus Christ Himself is, that's what

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His focus is on. Whether you live or die physically, and we all will die physically at some point, if you believe in Christ you will live eternally.

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And we know from Scripture that we will have a resurrected and glorified body for eternity, which is a sermon for another day.

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But what He's telling them, He's telling Martha specifically, is I am the resurrection and the life, which means what?

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He's saying I am the only source and power in the entire universe that has the power over resurrection, the power over death, and the power over life.

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You will find life only in Me. And then watch what He does, He says, Martha, do you believe this?

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What is He calling Martha to?

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The same thing He calls us to, my friends, repentance and faith and trust in the only uniquely qualified Savior, Jesus Christ.

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He's calling her to personal faith in Himself, in a person.

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We don't believe a set of rules, we don't believe a religion, we don't believe in some guy that's dead in a tomb, we believe in a person.

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The second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, and He's saying I am God, I am the

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Son of God, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the one that has power over death, I am the one in which you will find life.

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Do you believe this? Do you believe who I am? Do you believe what I am telling you?

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Each one of you has got to make that decision for yourself. I can't do it for you. There's only one mediator between God and man, and it's not your pastor, it's not the

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Pope, it's not your Sunday school teacher. It's not your father, it's not your kids, it's

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Jesus Christ. As much as you need a pastor in your life, you at the same time don't need me when it comes to your access to God.

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You have the same access to the eternal God of the universe that I do, that Gina does, everybody does. And I play a role, and there's certain things that I do just like you all play a role in the church.

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But in terms of our eternal standing, in terms of our access to the Father, in terms of our access to Jesus Christ, who is both the resurrection and life, we're equal.

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Just as equal as we are to Martha, Lazarus, John, all the disciples, Moses, Abraham.

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The book of Galatians tells us if you believe in Christ, you're Abraham's descendants. Join heirs of the promise.

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All the promises made to Abraham, all the promises made throughout scripture. If you're a child of God and place faith in Christ, you're an heir.

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Join heirs with Christ of the eternal life that's found in Christ. It's what we study, it's what we preach on Easter.

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Resurrection Sunday. 1 Corinthians 15, the whole point to 1

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Corinthians 15 is the power and victory over death. Where is your sting, oh death? It's not there.

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Why? Jesus defeated it. He says, do you believe this? She said to him, yes

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Lord, I have believed. No, she says, I have believed. Yes, I believe.

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That you are the Christ, the Son of God, even he who comes into the world. No, she says he's the Christ, the

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Messiah, the coming one, the Son of God, even he who comes into the world.

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Now, Martha didn't write Hebrews, but the writer of the Hebrews references this. Not this direct quotation per se, but this understanding.

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When the writer of the Hebrews talks about Jesus Christ as he who is coming to the world. Verse 28, when he had said this, she went away and called

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Mary her sister. And then it moves on down, look at verse 32, it says, Therefore when Mary came to where Jesus was, she saw him, fell at his feet, and notice

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Mary does the same thing. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And then we go on through the shortest verse in the

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Bible, 11 -35, he says, Jesus wept, and then you move down some more. Verse 40,

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Jesus said to her, or excuse me, before we get to that, verse 39, Jesus said, Remove the stone. And they removed the stone, so they demonstrate their obedience.

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And he says to her, Did I not say to you that if you believe you will see the glory of God? So once again, going all the way back to the beginning of the chapter, now we've come full circle once again.

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He's at that moment, he's in front of the tomb, they're removing the stone, and the whole point while Jesus is there, he reiterates it and says,

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This is for the glory of God. It's not just so you'll get your brother raised from the dead.

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It's not just so those that are watching can believe in me. It's not just so the disciples' faith will be increased.

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It's not just so that Martha's faith will be increased, although that's all part of what's going on.

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But the ultimate goal, the ultimate purpose of everything that Jesus is doing is for the glory of God.

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And he says that here once again. He says, I said to you, If you believe you will see the glory of God.

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It says, So they removed the stone. If they didn't believe He could do it, if they didn't believe He could do something, if they didn't believe in who

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He was, they would have never done it. Remember, if you don't believe something, that's not going to change your actions, would you?

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You only go and remove that stone if you truly believe He's about to do something great and special. They had to believe.

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Otherwise, why do it? The guy's been in there four days. Let me tell you something. He's stunking, stinking, stinking by then.

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However which way you want to put it, that body is rank by that point.

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There's a reason we don't just go around exhuming bodies, okay? Because when they die they begin to decompose and stink.

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And so for them to remove this stone, they believe what He said. And then

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He tells them, He says, Lazarus come forth, He's resurrected, He comes out. And then notice in verse 45 it says,

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Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what He had done believed in Him.

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This is referencing back to remember when Jesus gets to Bethany. It talks about how many of the Jews from Jerusalem who

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Jesus had to go by to get there had came to console Mary. So think about what's going on here.

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You've got Martha. You've got Mary. You've got the family. You've got His disciples. And you've got all these

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Jews that came and they all get to stand back and see the glory of God. Notice, see preaching's fun man.

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Y 'all should try it sometime man. Man, just keep going here. Notice here a few things and we're going to close this off.

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The glory of God goes so far beyond what we think God should do. You notice that in this account?

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What do the disciples think He should do? Stay where He was at because life was good there? What did

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Mary and Martha think He should have done? Come quicker? Lord, if you'd been here. But what actually happens?

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The glory of God goes so far beyond what you think God should do. Or what you may think

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God wants you to do. We're so earthly focused.

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And Jesus was always eternally focused. And see when we're either unwilling to be obedient.

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Or if we hold back something. What we're essentially saying is well, we're okay with God getting the glory but we want it on my terms.

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So many of us do this and I know I've done it in my life when I've sinned. We'll give the lip service to God and say

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I want God to get the glory but it's got to be on my terms. Don't push me beyond my boundaries or my comfort zone.

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Especially don't ask me to submit to something I don't think I should have to. Because if that's the case, well, sorry

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God, that little bit of glory is going to have to stay down here with me. Jesus is our perfect example of how anything at all costs, no matter what it takes,

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I'm going to do it for the glory of God because it's what God wants me to do. Don't say that you know better.

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Or this is how I would have done it. Or this is how God should have done it.

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We do that in our lives because we're so circumstance oriented. Man, if I would have been in control of this it would have worked out so much better.

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Maybe it did work out exactly as God wanted it and got glory from it but you're not looking at it through spiritual lenses.

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This is hard. But look at your life through spiritual lenses, through the

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Word of God, and you'll see so much more of the glory of God in your life. And then lastly, notice verse 47 and 48 and then we close.

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Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council and were saying, What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs.

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These Pharisees and these people, man, there's something. You ever notice how when man's glory or power is threatened they immediately go and convene councils or meetings?

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And they, man, what are we going to do about this guy? They were more concerned with their fantasy of what they thought the

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Jews were doing. They thought Jesus was trying to take over. He was threatening them. It wasn't why Jesus was there.

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They weren't concerned about the glory of God. So don't miss this. Everything that we have, everything that we are, is by the grace of God.

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And everything that we do, everything that should be the focus of our life, should be for the glory of God.

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Why? Because that's what our Savior did. But for the glory of God, so that the

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Son of God may be glorified by it because He's the resurrection and the life.