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Pastor Harold's Sermon Sampler
Alive Again
We come to a passage of
Scripture that is rich in meaning and tenderness.
Many a person has read this passage and realized that they have a
need for resurrection in their life.
This passage is easily one which people like you and I can identify
with, also. Let’s look at it and
glean from it what God would have us to know today.
“Now a man was sick,
Lazarus, from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
Mary was the one who anointed the
Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, and it was her
brother Lazarus who was sick. So the
sisters sent a message to Him: "Lord, the one You love is sick."
When Jesus heard it, He said, "This
sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son
of God may be glorified through it." (Jesus
loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.) So
when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where
He was. Then after that, He said to
the disciples, "Let's go to Judea again." "
Rabbi," the disciples told Him, "just now the Jews tried to stone You, and
You're going there again?" "Aren't
there 12 hours in a day?" Jesus answered. "If anyone walks during the day,
he doesn't stumble, because he sees the light of this world.
If anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light
is not in him." He said this,
and then He told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I'm on My
way to wake him up." Then the
disciples said to Him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well."
Jesus, however, was speaking about
his death, but they thought He was speaking about natural sleep.
So Jesus then told them plainly,
"Lazarus has died. I'm glad for you
that I wasn't there so that you may believe. But let's go to him."
Then Thomas (called "Twin") said to
his fellow disciples, "Let's go so that we may die with Him."
When Jesus arrived, He found that
Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
Bethany was near Jerusalem (about two
miles away). Many of the Jews
had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.
As soon as Martha heard that Jesus
was coming, she went to meet Him. But
Mary remained seated in the house. Then
Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother wouldn't have
died. Yet even now I know that
whatever You ask from God, God will give You."
"Your brother will rise again," Jesus
told her. Martha said, "I know that
he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who
believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.
Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die—ever.
Do you believe this?" "Yes,
Lord," she told Him, "I believe You are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was
to come into the world." Having
said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, saying in private, "The
Teacher is here and is calling for you." As
soon as she heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him.
Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place
where Martha had met Him. The Jews
who were with her in the house consoling her saw that Mary got up quickly
and went out. So they followed her,
supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there.
When Mary came to where Jesus was and
saw Him, she fell at His feet and told Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my
brother would not have died!" When
Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, He was
angry in His spirit and deeply moved. "Where
have you put him?" He asked. "Lord,"
they told Him, "come and see." Jesus
wept. So the Jews said, "See how
He loved him!" But some of them said,
"Couldn't He who opened the blind man's eyes also have kept this man from
dying?" Then Jesus, angry in Himself
again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
"Remove the stone," Jesus said. Martha,
the dead man's sister, told Him, "Lord, he already stinks. It's been four
days." Jesus said to her, "Didn't I
tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?"
So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes and said,
"Father, I thank You that You heard Me.
I know that You always hear Me, but because of the crowd standing
here I said this, so they may believe You sent Me."
After He said this, He shouted with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come
out!" The dead man came out
bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth.
Jesus said to them, "Loose him and let him go."
Therefore many of the Jews who came
to Mary and saw what He did believed in Him.
But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had
done.”
The plea is sent in
verses 1-3. We notice that
Lazarus is mentioned as one whom the Lord loves.
It is most interesting that, in the only account of Jesus’ previous
visit to Bethany, in Luke 10:38 and following, that there is no mention at
all of Lazarus, whom the Lord loves.
Only Martha and Mary are mentioned.
Yet, this is just like
God and His Word. This
illustrates how there is so much of the Lord’s work that is not recorded.
John writes in 21:25, “But there are also many other things which
Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world
itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
This petition of the
sisters is a common prayer of God’s children.
We find, at every turn in our lives, that we are limited in what we
can do. Our understanding of the
way things are is so short-sighted.
It is only in God that we can find answers to questions that we
cannot answer. It is only in God
that we can trust. Our coins
still say that. In God we trust.
Now notice, please, the
reaction of Jesus as He receives the news in verse 4 and following.
He informed the courier and those that were with Him that this was an
illness not unto death, but for the glory of God.
But what He does following this statement is what is so outrageous to
us!
The next phrase states
His love for this dear family.
But how does He express that love?
He stays two days longer in the place where He was.
Alfred Edershiem, in his book The Life and Times of Jesus, Messiah,
exclaims, “…what majestic calm, what self-restraint of human affections and
sublime consciousness of divine power in this delay.”
This seems to me to be
another of those moments when humans panic.
When we lose all our emotional control and literally lose it.
We have all had those times in our lives.
When crisis comes our way and our routine of daily living is
interrupted. At those times, we
cry out for God’s action. We
want answers and we want them now!
But God delays His answer.
How frustrated Mary and Martha must have been when no answer came,
when Lazarus’ condition worsened and finally he died, with no Jesus in
sight.
You may be feeling
abandoned today. You might have
something in your life that is at crises proportions and you need a strong
hand, a touch from God, and He seems so far away.
I want you to know that you are being heard.
Your prayers and petitions are ascending upon the ears of God in
Christ.
You know, this story
reminds me of another time when the disciples were at wit’s end and death
was staring them in the face.
Desperation was controlling their emotions.
You know the account of when Jesus was asleep in the stern of the
boat. The disciples wake Him and
yell, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?”
He got up and rebuked the wind and calmed the sea.
I want you to know this morning that Jesus can say to your life,
“Peace, be still” and it will be so.
If we know Christ, we
need not worry. He asked then,
“Why are you afraid? Have you no
faith?” When the storms of life
come upon us, let us have faith!
In verses 7-10, the
disciples are worried about going to Judea again.
The people wanted to kill Jesus the last time He was there and the
disciples questioned His wisdom.
He then informs them, in verses 11-16, that Lazarus has died.
But I think verse 16 is cute.
Thomas said to his fellow disciples, “Let us go, that we may die with
him.” What weak faith, after
witnessing so many of Jesus’ miracles.
And Jesus even commented that He was glad that they were with Him, so
they might believe. And still
Thomas makes this sarcastic statement under his breath.
By the time Jesus
arrives, Lazarus has been dead for four days.
He reached Jerusalem and was passing on toward Bethany.
When Martha heard He was coming, she took off to meet Him.
Bethany was two miles away from Jerusalem, according to this passage.
That is like walking from here at the church to Wal-Mart.
We are two miles away from their front door.
Anyway, Martha questions
Jesus’ timeliness and He answers with a firm, “Your brother will rise
again.” in verse 23. But Martha
thinks He is talking about the resurrection day.
Then comes the famous verse 25.
Then Martha sends for Mary and she, too, questions Jesus.
He is moved compassionately and Jesus weeps in verse 35.
Some texts say He groaned in His spirit.
Others say He vehemently moved His spirit and troubled himself.
Whatever the case, Jesus mourned over the loss of His friend and
sympathetically wept with the mourners.
Jesus was touched by
humanity at every turn of His life.
God became a man for us.
“He took away the sufferings and diseases of men in some sense by taking
them upon himself.”1
Now we find Him at the
tomb. He instructs them to open
it. Again, Martha questions His
actions, and continues to inform Him of the foul odor of decomposition.
And Jesus gently reminds her in verse 40, “Did I not tell you that,
if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?”
He then prays a prayer of thanksgiving and utters three simple words.
“Lazarus, come forth.”
The Bible tells us that
we are dead in our trespasses and sins in Ephesians 2:1.
Apart from Jesus Christ, we are dead.
We are, by nature, children of wrath according to verse 3.
We are already condemned.
Each one of us is in need of the words ‘come forth.’
What happened in the
remainder of our story? Lazarus
comes walking out, bound head and foot in the stinky old grave clothes.
And Jesus said to unbind him and let him go.
He came forth like that as a witness.
He wanted them to know that he really had died, had really began to
decompose and that He had the power over life and death.
Many, in verse 45, believed.
Jesus is standing
calling to you today to come forth.
You may be here today and never trusted Christ as Savior.
He is calling your name – calling you out of a life of sin and death
unto life. He said He was the
resurrection and the life.
Christian, you may be
here today, out of the tomb, but walking around in your grave clothes.
Let Jesus loose you, unbind you from that sin, that habit, that
grudge, that hate, that fear, that worry, whatever it is, let Him unbind you
this morning and give you freedom from things that you never thought
possible. I know He has done it
for me and He can do it for you.
For more
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