The First Death Of Lazarus - [John 11:1-16]

I would invite you to open your Bibles to John chapter 11, as we finally move out of John chapter 10 and into chapter 11.

What an encouragement to hear those testimonies this morning, to see those baptisms and to be reminded that God saves sinners.

I thought that both Andrew and Nathan did a great job.

John chapter 11, you know, I think that we sometimes think, we think of the love of God and we think about how

Jesus came to die for us. And that's true. But this morning, we're going to talk about the love of God in a different way and the way he works through circumstances in our lives that sometimes we don't particularly like.

And I was thinking, even as we come to this this morning, now it says the death of Lazarus. I really wanted it to be the first death of Lazarus because Lazarus seems to die a few times.

But I was thinking about, you know, I thought, I thought, oh, I'm going to come up with a really trick opening and I'm going to go through, you know, famous trios in the

Bible. And I started thinking, and I came up with Peter, James and John. And then I just kind of, and I thought, well, you can talk about the

Trinity. And I go, that's just kind of almost blasphemous. And then I was just like, I'm going, there really aren't that many famous trios in the

Bible. So that was useless. But I thought about these names because we're going to, we're going to meet these folks this morning,

Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And I just thought, you know what, a lot of little girls running around over the years have been named

Mary and Martha. Why aren't there any little boys named Lazarus? This morning as we, as we go through this text,

I think it's a good question. Why aren't there little boys named Lazarus? Because if Jesus loved

Lazarus, I don't see any reason why Lazarus wouldn't be a good name. I like it. And I also thought of a really cool nickname for her.

How about this? Laser. We like that? All right.

John chapter 11. I mean, you know, when you study something for a while, you start wandering all over the place.

John chapter 11, beginning of verse 1. Now, a certain man was ill,

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

Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair. Whose brother

Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill.

But when Jesus heard it, he said, this illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God so that the son of God may be glorified through it.

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

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

The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you.

And are you going there again? Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day?

If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world.

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

After saying these things, he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.

But I go to awaken him. I'm going to sneeze. Excuse me.

The disciples said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.

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

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

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

So Thomas called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let us go also that we may die with him.

Now, last week, as we ended chapter 10, we took an extended look at the life and ministry of John the

Baptist. And as I said last week, it's normally not a good thing to preach about a mortal, another man.

We want to focus on Christ Jesus and his work in person. But that's what

John the Baptist did. It's as you're talking about John the Baptist, you cannot help but point to Jesus because John the

Baptist was like a broken record. Repent and believe. Here's the lamb who takes away the sins of the world over and over and over.

Just preaching about Christ. That was his role. That was his function. That's why he was sent to point to the light, even though he wasn't the light.

We talked about the remarkable legacy that John the Baptist left because he didn't focus on having a legacy.

He was just faithful to the task that God gave him. And it really is true that we can have our own legacy by just being faithful to the task, the ministry that the

Lord gives us. But for John the Baptist in preaching about repentance and about Jesus, he left such an impression that many were saved after his death.

When they met Jesus, they were struck by how everything that John the Baptist said, you remember, everything he said about this man was true.

And many believed him there. Now, again, this morning, we're going to talk about the first death of Lazarus.

And I have four P's to kind of help us keep track of where we are in the text.

But the main thing I'm going to focus on, I mean, we could talk about the glory of God and we'll certainly do that in the weeks to come.

But just the love and the care of Jesus for his sheep, for his own, will become evident in this text.

Our first P, the problem. The problem was simply this. Lazarus was sick.

Look at verse one. Now, a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister

Martha. Now, how many of you have been to Israel? Few of us.

When you get to Israel, one of the one of the reasons why I encourage people to go and I tell people this ahead of time is when you get there, you're going to be surprised at how close everything is.

I mean, it's like all of a sudden you have almost claustrophobia. Because when you exit Jerusalem down through the

Temple Gate and you go into like a little gully, all of a sudden to the left of you is the

Garden of Gethsemane. You just go, I didn't know it was right there. Well, it is.

And that hill right in front of you, that's the Mount of Olives. And you go up the Mount of Olives, you go down the

Mount of Olives and you're in the village of Bethany. That's how close it is.

It's just a short walk outside of Jerusalem. So it would be nothing if Jesus was in Jerusalem, had to go to Bethany, it would take him a short while, half an hour, maybe less to walk there.

But he's not in Jerusalem. Right. He left Jerusalem because the

Jews tried to stone him because you making yourself being a man, make yourself out to be

God. They tried to stone him, put him to death. And when he left, he went some distance outside of Jerusalem, outside of their kind of control.

You know, as a police officer, I just think there were certain areas where I had police powers and then there were areas where I didn't.

Well, he's kind of outside their authority out there in the wilderness and in the vicinity of a town known as Bethany, a little village out there.

So we're talking about two Bethany's and I mentioned, well, or it's not that, again, it's not that incredible to me that there would be two

Bethany's. We have lots of different towns here that are repeated throughout New England.

So this is not unusual. But this, the actions of the

Pharisees drove them out there into the wilderness. Now, the author of the gospel, John, the beloved apostle, helps us to understand who these folks are, who

Mary, Martha and Lazarus are. And verse two, it was Mary who anointed the

Lord with ointments and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.

Now, here he's describing something that's going to happen in the next chapter. And he's talking about people, though, that the readers of this gospel would be familiar with because they're not

Lazarus, but Mary and Martha are in Luke's gospel. We have busy Martha and faithful Mary.

And then there are also Mary's also in Matthew and Mark. So her deeds, what she did with the oil and wiping

Jesus' feet with her hair, these would be known by the readers of John's gospel. She was,

I guess it's fair to say, fairly famous within the early church. She would, you know, if somebody said

Mary, well, Mary is a very common name. We have Mary, the mother of Jesus. There are several

Marys, more than I care to list in the New Testament. So how do you identify Mary? Oh, Mary, the one who anointed

Jesus' feet with oil and washed his feet with her hair.

That Mary. OK, now I know who it is. But the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, send word to Jesus, who's out there far from Jerusalem.

Verse three. So the sister sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill.

Now, can you imagine having that kind of relationship with Jesus, where you just send a messenger and you just say, you know, dear

Jesus, the one whom you love is ill, signed Mary and Martha. You don't even have to put his name in there.

They automatically, he automatically knows he's going to know who it is. They don't make the trip.

They don't go. Well, and when you think about it, that's normal, right? Lazarus is very sick.

They wouldn't just say he has the sniffles. He's very ill. They're not going to leave his side because they're concerned for his life.

They're his sisters. They love him. And even that kind of trip would be very odd for a couple of women to do in that time.

A few days journey, so they send a messenger. But also notice what's missing.

There's no request there. There's no Jesus. Please come. He's really sick. Jesus, please pray for him.

They don't ask for anything. They're just informing him. Now it's reasonable to speculate that they might not ask him to come because they knew that he was wanted by the

Pharisees, that they still wanted to put him to death for the healing he had done on the

Sabbath for the fact that he had claimed rightly to be God. So maybe they wouldn't say, please come here because they knew it would involve danger.

They just wanted to make him aware that Lazarus was sick. I mean, maybe all they needed to do was just bring that to his attention and he would do whatever was right.

If you think about it, did Jesus need to be there to heal him? No, he done kind of a,

I'll just call it long distance healing before, right? If you recall, there's a government official at the end of John chapter four, who comes to him and says, you know, my son's sick, please come with me.

And Jesus says to him, go, your son will live the man, but the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way and his son was healed.

And again, the closeness to the family, they don't mention Lazarus by name.

They don't ask for anything. And you just think who has that kind of relationship?

Well, it's like, you know, and let's just kind of frame this. I'll make it about me because it's easy because I don't know all of your circumstances, but if my two daughters, if I was, you know, in Japan, my two daughters sent me a note signed

Megan and Kristen, and they said, your son is very sick. We'll see by process of elimination.

I know who it is. It's that hard. And so when Mary and Martha sent a note and say that when you love is sick and he goes, okay, who's missing

Lazarus? So they know it's easy. They've made him aware.

They've taken care of that. Now let's look at the purpose. We've seen the problem. Now the purpose, the glory of God, the glory of God is the purpose verse four.

But when Jesus heard it, he said, this illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God so that the son of God may be glorified through it.

Now, in one sense, as you sit there, you're just like, well, we know the story. We know how it ends. We know he's going to call him forth from the tomb.

We know all of this. Well, it's really not fair. You have to put yourself in the place of the disciples when they hear this.

I mean, we shouldn't, we can't lose track of the fact that this is the predetermined plan of God.

And it is the predetermined plan of the father to glorify the son through this incident. But imagine being a disciple and you hear that Lazarus, this man that Jesus loved, was sick.

And then you listen to his response, which is, this illness does not lead to death. And you go, well, okay.

The master says what? Lazarus isn't going to die. Problem solved. Now the rest of it seems kind of a mystery.

You know, what kind of illness is it that would lead to the glory of God? Well, you might think, okay, he's going to heal him somehow because we'd seen him as a disciple.

You would have seen him do miracles before. But it's certainly not something where you think that Lazarus is going to die.

That's not what you would think. That's not what you would conclude at all. So we've seen the problem.

We know the purpose is to glorify God. We don't quite understand that yet. And our third

P is the puzzling delay, the puzzling delay. Verse five, now

Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Mary, Martha and Lazarus, the three of them.

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

That's not what we expect to read. We want to see something like, so when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he immediately got up and went to Bethany.

You know, as a police officer's vice, if I said I'm rolling code three, that meant it had the highest urgency for me.

It was really important. And so if I heard that, I would go, well, this is a code three call and it's very important.

But Jesus just says he's not going to do anything, right?

He's just staying. And it's very curious because our text tells us that because he loved them, he stayed two more days.

Because he loved Lazarus and Martha and Mary, he didn't go.

I don't think I could get away with that. I love your family so much, I'm going to wait two more days.

You're in the hospital and I'll see you in a couple of days. Probably couldn't do that.

And it was impossible to see at this moment, but this is

Romans 8, 28 in action. That God works all things together for good, for those that he loves and are called according to his purpose.

He was going to use this incident to strengthen the faith of Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and all the disciples, by the way, but he was going to use this illness and ultimately death to strengthen them because he loved them.

I think this is a great lesson for every single one of us. What happens in life?

You know, we get difficult circumstances. We lose our job. We get an unexpected illness. Somebody in our family dies or other situations.

You know, maybe our relationship isn't everything we thought it should be. We have difficulties within our family where their parent and child struggles, whatever.

Our friends betray us. We're persecuted at work.

All kinds of difficulties come upon us and what do we immediately think? I can hear Linda Ronstadt warming up in the background.

Poor, poor, pitiful me. What do we need to think, though?

What ought we to think when these circumstances come? I don't want this circumstance, but I know one thing is true.

The word of God is true. And the word of God tells me that God works all things together for good, all things together for good, including death, including death.

And if death can be used for good, then I'd suggest that anything less than death can also be used for good.

Now, I'm just kind of odd about some things, as you may have noticed.

But this name Lazarus, it's a shortened version. It doesn't look very short to us, but it is.

It's a shortened version of Eleazar. And I really like that. I mean, there's another boy's name for you.

Eleazar doesn't quite roll off the tongue the way Lazarus does. But it's like a shortened or nicknamed version for it.

You know what it means? It means he whom God helped. What a great name.

What a great name. I would like to be named Lazarus, quite frankly, Lazarus Cooley, him who

God helped. Does he help Lazarus? Yes. Does he love

Lazarus? Yes. And he loves Lazarus so much that he's going to let him rot.

So we come to our fourth P, the perilous proposal, the perilous proposal.

I mean, we don't think of love that way, do we? Jesus loved Lazarus so much, he thought he'd let him sit there in the tomb for a couple of days.

Verse seven, the perilous proposal. Then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again.

The disciples said to him, and again, think about it, they have his best interest at heart. At least they think they do. Rabbi, the

Jews were just now seeking to stone you. And are you going there again? Well, Judea is the region of Jerusalem.

This is, I mean, this is like, I want to avoid the sheriff's department of Los Angeles County and I'm going to go to LA County.

Don't do it. I'm going to go to Judea. Well, that's where the

Jewish leadership had the most influence. That's where they have the furthest reach. It's also where Bethany is.

It's where Lazarus is. It's where Mary and Martha are. And he's going to go see

Lazarus. The disciples are just like, did you just forget what happened, you know, in the last chapter?

They don't, you know, use chapters, but they're just like, do you remember that? They all have these stones and they were getting ready to stone you.

Do you remember that? You remember how you talked them out of that, but they still wanted to arrest you. But somehow we escaped that.

You want to go back there. You know, that certain death, right? Again, think about what they said or what

Jesus had just said about Lazarus. He's not going to die. Verse four, this, this illness does not lead to death.

So what's the rush? What are we doing? Why are we going to risk our lives going back to see him? Can't we just call him?

Can't you just heal him from here? But here we really get a lesson in the sovereignty of God and the sovereign plan of God.

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

But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. You just think, well, that's a really curious response to why are we going back to where we're wanted or where you're wanted for death?

Takes a little unpacking, a little explaining. Now today, I mean, this whole idea here, are there not 12 hours a day?

And today we have, you know, watches and clocks on the wall and smartphones.

In fact, we have way too much information. I can't help it, folks. If you're playing Pokemon Go this morning, just stop.

People falling off cliffs and getting stabbed. And I watched all this madness in New York City the other day.

Crazy, crazy stuff. But we have all this technology to get back on point. All this technology and all these things that really keep us precisely informed or everything.

But it's interesting, in ancient Israel, every day had 12 hours.

And you say, well, I don't get it. What do you mean every day? I mean, every sunlit day had 12 hours.

So if the days were shorter, that just meant that each hour was shorter. But you still had 12 hours.

And every night had 12 hours. So, you know, there was one day of the year where, you know, there were exactly 12 hours and 12 hours, 12 hours in the day and 12 hours in the night.

And every hour is worth an hour. But how about that? We go to school and we learn there are 60 minutes in a day and all that.

But their hours would have like, sorry, 60 minutes an hour. If you learn there's 60 minutes a day, then shame on you.

But their hours were variable. So, you know, you could have an hour that was 45 minutes long or you could have an hour that was an hour and 15 minutes long by our reckoning.

But they had 12 hours. So that's what he's saying there. Thank you for that. Here's his point.

His point is these things are fixed. There's 12 hours in a day. There's 12 hours in the night.

He's not talking about when he's talking about stumbling. He's not talking about clumsiness, any of those kind of things.

Here's his point. His point is fixed period.

And he's here for a fixed period. He has work to do in this, within this allotted time.

It's the father's sovereign plan. And if we do what the father wants, we'll succeed.

And if we don't, we will fail. Now, Jesus cannot fail. He cannot stumble, as it were.

But he's encouraging his disciples to stay the course, to do what he's saying and to recognize the fact that there's only so much time.

That they need to do what they need to do. And they only have an appointed time to do it. Now, he's resolved.

But I think it's fair to say that the disciples are reluctant. Look at verse 11. Now, after saying these things, he said to them, our friend

Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. Now, he's using metaphorical language.

Lazarus has fallen asleep. What he really means is Lazarus is dead.

Lazarus would have been dead by this time. And he used an oft -used euphemism to say, you know, that he's fallen asleep.

This is throughout the Bible. You know, people fall asleep. And even when we talk about Christians, they sleep because they're going to be awakened from that.

But it appears to confuse the disciples. This euphemism they uses. Look at verse 12.

And, you know, especially since he says he's going to go awaken him. Look, he's down for a nap and I'm going to go awaken him.

That's kind of what the disciples are thinking. And we can see that by verse 12. The disciples said to him, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, he will recover.

Right? He's sick. He's taking a nap. Good for him. When he wakes up, he'll be fine. Easy. Because they took what he said and they just applied the basic understanding of it.

So it's like, why are we going to go back to Judea? Why are we going to risk life and limb? Why are we going to risk the wrath of the

Jews when he's not going to die? You told us that. He's taking a nap and you want to wake him up.

Of course, that was not right. It was a little bit foolish. I mean, think about it.

Even if Lazarus was sleeping, if he had just fallen asleep, he wouldn't be sleeping by the time that they got there.

It was a couple of days trip. So what were they going to do? Like, just think he was asleep for that whole time.

No, I mean, we're talking about a trip from where they were in the wilderness or outside of across the river

Jordan in this place, probably Bethany where John the Baptist had been ministering before his death or when he first started his ministry.

We're talking about a trip of almost three days. Now, since they were completely lost, kind of in a metaphorical fog,

Jesus clears it up in verse 13. Now, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he meant taking rest and sleep.

Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. He's muerto, deceased, fini.

How did Jesus know he was dead? How did he know? We could say, well, because he's

God, maybe because the Holy Spirit told him was the exercise of some power of being

God. We're not we're not told our text doesn't tell us what we are told is he knows that Lazarus is dead.

This is all part of a divine plan that had only been revealed to Jesus until now.

Now he's kind of bringing the disciples into it. They can start to understand what's happening.

Lazarus is dead. But Jesus says he's going to wake Lazarus up.

So is Lazarus really dead? I mean, how do you wake the dead? Now, John, the beloved apostle, the writer of this is one of the disciples.

And I think it's important to remember that he's there. So he's thinking back on this as he's writing it down.

And I was as I was thinking as I was studying this and I was reading through it, just kind of thinking about I thought, you know, sometimes

I think when he wrote these things, he must have thought we were really thick. You know, he's telling us he's giving us all these hints and we just didn't get it.

How could they have just missed this so badly? They'd been around when he had healed the man born blind.

They had seen him raise Jerusalem's daughter from the dead. They'd heard about all these miracles that he performed, even if they hadn't seen them.

They'd seen him walk on water. They'd seen him calm the storm. How could they fail to see what was coming when he tells them

Lazarus is dead and I'm going to go raise him from the dead, I'm going to go wake him up. Jesus, again, says something that makes perfect sense to us because we know the ending.

But it likely seemed a little mysterious to the disciples. Look at verse 15. And for your sake,

I am glad that I was not there for your sake, disciples.

I'm glad I wasn't there with Lazarus. They would have been with him. And look why?

So that you may believe. But let us go to him.

What do you suppose would have happened with if with Lazarus, if Jesus was there? When he was so sick that he was about to die.

Mary and Martha pleading with him, likely, you know, save our brother, stop him from dying.

He probably wouldn't have died. Jesus notes that this all happens.

Lazarus dies. Why? So that you may believe. Well, what didn't they believe?

Yes, they believed. But this was to increase their faith. He was equipping them even then for the day when he wouldn't be around.

And this really is we're building up to the ultimate display of Jesus power coming up later in John chapter 11.

But remember in verses 4 and 5 and 6 when it says that Jesus loved

Martha, Mary and Lazarus. So he stayed where he was out there for two more days. And it's the same principle here.

It's better for all the believers, the disciples there and for the disciples in Bethany, that they see

Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, then just see him raise him from his sickbed.

And then Jesus just says, OK, I'm done teaching. Let's go. Let's get moving.

Then we have some really super cheery words from Doubting Thomas in verse 16.

So Thomas called the twins into his fellow disciples. I mean, let's just kind of gather around, huddle up.

Let's get, you know, fired up. Let us also go that we may die with him.

Yes. Thomas really gets, you know, I don't know, maybe

John and him weren't on the best of terms. I don't know what the deal is. But his reputation is what as Doubting Thomas.

I will not believe because he wasn't there initially. He said he wouldn't believe until he could feel the wounds in the resurrected

Jesus. But here he boldly proclaims his allegiance to Jesus.

Though others will fade away, I will not, you know, fall away. I will not. Right. This is what the disciples did.

They they wanted to believe that they were more that they were stronger than they really were. He's resigned to all of them dying, even though there's no idea that ultimately the

Jewish leaders are going to put everybody to death. But they are going to put Jesus to death. But Thomas is known throughout scripture for his despondency, but also for his devotion to Jesus.

He always expects the worst and is surprised if anything good comes about. And I think that's probably like a lot of Christians.

I know. Expect the worst. Something good happens. Great. But I'm expecting the worst.

Thomas is determined to stay with his master, even if it means death. That's good. But what happened?

What happened when Jesus was arrested? Just for a moment,

I want you to turn over to Matthew 26, Matthew 26, verses 52 to 57,

Matthew 26, verses 52 to 57. And this is after Judas betrays

Jesus with a kiss after Peter goes after one of the servants of the high priest with a sword.

Verse 52, then Jesus said to him, put your sword back in its place for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

Do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels?

But how then should this or should the scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so? At that hour,

Jesus said to the crowds, have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me?

In other words, what's all this? You know that you really need to be armed like this to capture me. Day after day,

I sat in the temple teaching and you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.

And listen, then all the disciples left him and fled.

All the disciples left him and fled. Then those who had seized

Jesus led him to Caiaphas and the high priest where the scribes and the elders had gathered.

Let's go back to John 11. It was fine for Thomas to say, let us also go that we may die with him as if to, you know, say, there's no way

I'm leaving you, Jesus. I'm in. But when he was arrested, all the disciples left him and fled.

Now, to be fair, the disciples did leave everything. They gave up everything, including their lives and their livelihood to follow

Jesus. They walked beside him for three years. They ate with him. They learned with him.

They laughed with him. It was definitely life on life. And in their minds,

I'm sure they were determined to stay with him, but they didn't. But here's what's important.

Jesus' love for them wasn't based on their faithfulness, wasn't based on their obedience, wasn't based on their lack of sin, wasn't based on the fullness of their devotion, that they had the same devotion for him that he had for them, because that would not happen.

There's a lesson in this. The love of God is fixed. I can't stress this enough.

It's not performance based. God doesn't love you more based on what you do. He didn't love

Thomas more because he promised that or because he failed to give his promise.

The love of God is for those who are in Christ Jesus, and it is because of him.

God loves us. The Father loves us as much as he loves the Son, because we are in the Son. We will see in the verses upcoming that there will be tears.

There will be pain. Death is ugly, great sorrow.

There will even be anger toward Jesus. But for right now, let's just focus on the love of God.

We've seen the problem, the purpose, the puzzling delay, the perilous proposal. Again, Jesus loved

Lazarus so much, Mary and Martha so much, the disciples so much that he let Lazarus die.

He loved Mary and Martha so much that he pushed aside their message. He loved

Thomas so much that he let him make this pledge that he knew he wouldn't keep. Didn't correct him then.

Didn't need to. But everything the disciples saw, everything that they heard, even the things they didn't immediately understand what would happen later, the

Holy Spirit would call these things to mind and he would use them for their good. He would use them to, these incidents, to equip them to lead the church.

And again, I think there's a message here for us, a lesson here for us. Everything you go for, go through is for your good and for God's glory, because he tells us that.

And many of the things that you experience are so that you can strengthen others.

He tells us that too. We need to trust the

Lord. We need to trust God no matter what our circumstances are. Now, if you're here this morning and you don't know

Christ, you don't have these assurances. You don't have the fixed love of God.

In fact, let me just put it another way. We heard these testimonies this morning. You know, here's a phrase, and this is going to sound like I'm just going off the rails.

Maybe I am. If you ever say this, I want you to really think about it.

If you ever say to yourself, I hate my life. I hate my life. I think there's really reason to question your salvation.

Not for me. I can't question your salvation, but for you. Why? Because God brings circumstances into your life.

And if you say, I hate my life, then what you're really saying is, I hate these God ordained circumstances.

What you really ought to be thinking is, I can't believe God doesn't strike me dead for my sin.

In light of everything that I've done to offend him, I can't believe how gracious he is. I can't believe he gives me a spouse.

I can't believe he gives me children. I can't believe he gives me grandchildren. I can't believe he gives me all these things.

I don't deserve them. I'll be honest. I love my life because I don't deserve it.

And I'm reminded daily of the goodness of God. And if you're not reminded daily of the goodness of God, maybe you haven't experienced it.

Maybe you haven't experienced forgiveness of sins. Maybe you haven't felt that overwhelming weight of sin upon you.

And then the relief when you realize that Jesus bore your burden for you, that he died on the cross so that you don't have to suffer like that, so that you will escape hell.

More than that, he lived the perfect life, the one that you ought to live, the performance -based life that you think you should live.

He lived it so that you'll be fully acceptable to God if you believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ. Is there anything more that you could ask for than to think, when

I think back on my life, all the sins I've committed, I don't bear the penalty for that.

Then after that, everything that God gives you is just a blessing. Whatever he gives you beyond forgiveness of sins, you just think,

I can't believe he would do that for me. And if you hate your life, you've got the wrong perspective.

And there's only one or two reasons for that. One is that you need to repent and say, you know what, God, I'm sorry for doubting you.

The other is you need to repent. You need to say, I need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I need to be saved.

Jesus loved his sheep, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, the disciples, enough to bring the worst possible circumstance into their life.

Why? To grow them, to increase their faith so that they would believe before he would exhibit the power of God over death.

He had to permit death. He had to bring the worst possible circumstances so that he could be glorified in it.

Let's pray. Lord, for anyone here today who just thinks their life is miserable, that it's beyond hope, that they've sinned so bad that God could never forgive them.

Lord, there's no such thing. You forgive the greatest of sins.

You forgive murder, adultery, hatred, racism, fornication, stealing, every sin, every sin that's named in the

Bible, homosexuality, all these things that we have learned to name and to despise, and rightly so, because you hate them.

And you hate them so much that you put your son on a cross for us and to pay the price of sin.

For anyone here who does not have the joy that can only attend forgiveness of sins, that can only attend faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, would you make today the day of salvation, we pray in Jesus' name.