Book of John: John 11

November 26th, 2023/Casey middle school

Intro: Have you ever had a struggle that you were dealing with and then God showed up and performed a miracle in your life? This could be a financial miracle, physical healing, or restoration in a broken relationship. All you know, without a shadow of a doubt, God did it for me.

Then in life you meet someone struggling with the same thing that God had healed you from. How can you not share “Let me tell you about a time I was in a similar situation.” How can you now testify of God's goodness in your life? I was alone, then God gave me community. I was without hope, then God showed up! I was depressed, then God healed my mind! Doctors said I would never get pregnant, BUT GOD!

C’mon somebody, do you have a testimony to share?!

There’s a story of a man we’re going to look at today who has quite the testimony. I want to illustrate the story in a fun and unique way. Would you go with me for a moment and step into my childhood and listen to this story of four men carrying a crippled man to Jesus.

Song: My Name Is Lazarus Song *you can phase out the music around 2:30, which is when they start going into the second chorus. Phase out the music first, then after I start talking go to the next slide.

Big Idea:

Find hope in times of desperation, confusion, and grief

Have faith even when circumstances are beyond my understanding.

Stand firm on God’s love, even when I lose that which I love the most.

Passage: John 11:1-44 CSB

Now a man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. 3 So the sisters sent a message to him: “Lord, the one you love is sick.” 4 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.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.

Pray:

Background:

Lazarus literally means “The one who God helps.” Martha was the hospitable host for Jesus. She welcomed Him into her home and served Him. Mary was known for sitting at Jesus’ feet. Jesus loved to go to this house just 2 miles outside of Jerusalem called Bethany. He loved them all very much. This family was special to Jesus.

She says “the one you love is sick.” Notice she doesn’t say “Lazarus is sick…” But she says “the one you love is sick.” So come quickly Lord, come heal the one you love. As if to say, “Come quickly! We need you!”

Haymakers:

1. HEARS THE NEWS (V5-16)

   1. 6 So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was.
   2. If you’re not a little confused, then let me read it again. He loved them, received hospitality from them, but when they needed Him the most, He stayed two extra days because He loved them.
   3. We would rather live in certainty than mystery. We want both the answer to our prayers and the outcome, and we want it now.
   4. There’s a difference between our job and God’s job. Our timing and God’s timing. Our understanding and God’s perspective.
   5. Faith is not a way of keeping God on our time table. Faith is not a manipulation tool to keep God on our schedule. Faith is not a means of control on what we want, when we want it!
   6. “Faith is not a means of manipulation, it is a patience with mystery.” - Steven Furtick
   7. Question: How many of you here today have prayed in faith, and you're sitting in the mystery? Unknown and unsure of how the future will turn out?
   8. If God really loved me then He would… If God really cared for me then He would… If He really sees me in my time of need then He… We think that faith is in the proof of our circumstances changing based on His presence, not in His perceived absence. That even though I don’t feel Him, I praise Him because of who He is, not what He does for me!
   9. If you’re looking at your circumstances for the proof of God’s love, then you’re looking for love in all the wrong places. Look to God’s love not for what He can do for you, but what He has done for you, for who He is! Trust in the delay!
   10. He’s the God of the outcome. We often think “You got to see it to believe it.”, But God says “You got to believe it to see it.”
   11. 7 Then after that, he said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.” 8 “Rabbi,” the disciples told him, “just now the Jews tried to stone you, and you’re going there again?” 9 “Aren’t there twelve hours in a day?” Jesus answered. “If anyone walks during the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him.”
   12. Daylight is walking in the guidance of God and the knowledge of His sovereign will. Walking at night is walking in our own effort and understanding, we will surely stumble and fall.
   13. If we try walking without Jesus we will surely stumble time and time again.
   14. 11 He said this, and then he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m on my way to wake him up.” 12 Then the disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.” 13 Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought he was speaking about natural sleep. 14 So Jesus then told them plainly, “Lazarus has died. 15 I’m glad for you that I wasn’t there so that you may believe. But let’s go to him.” 16 Then Thomas (called “Twin”) said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go too so that we may die with him.”

   15. It was Thomas who demanded evidence before he would accept the truth of our Lord’s resurrection (John 20:24–28). He is often referred to as “doubting Thomas”. But here we see “devoted Thomas”. We remember him as “curious Thomas”, but we see him now as “courageous Thomas”. He may not know what’s going to happen, but he’s ready to go head first in the danger and risk his own life!

       1. Anybody got friends like this… “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we’re going to hurt some people…” response “Whose car are we gonna take?”
       2. I don’t know about you, but I think we all need a Thomas in our lives.
       3. Question: Any courageous Thomas’s in the house today that would say “Jesus, wherever you go, I’ll follow! I’ve counted the cost, and I’m ALL IN!”

2. JOINS THE FUNERAL (V17-27)

   1. 17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

   2. There was a Jewish tradition that believed a person's soul could re-enter their body for up to three days, but on the fourth day, after the body had started decomposing, they would be deemed truly dead. It was a superstitious belief common to Judaism in the first century.

      1. In this recorded miracle, there was going to be no question as to the magnitude and authenticity of this miracle. It was going to reveal something so significant about Himself that it would cause the world to notice.
         3. “The fact that the man had been dead four days gave greater authenticity to the miracle and greater opportunity for people to believe, including His own disciples.” - Warren W. Wiersbe
         4. Question: I’m wondering if God is past the point of your expectation so His strength can be revealed in your life, waiting till after your time period expires to reveal His glory?
         5. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem (less than two miles away). 19 Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. 20 As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house.
         6. Notice how different the two sisters handle the coming of Jesus. One runs to the gate, the other sits in the chair. They are both dealing with significant loss, grief, and disappointment, and we all handle it so differently.
         7. One runs to church to find hope, the other stays in bed under the covers. One reaches out to a friend for support, while the other crawls in a corner and weeps. One propelled by faith, while others paralyzed in fear.
         8. Question: How do you respond in disappointment?
         9. 21 Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
         10. Here we see an honest prayer. “Where were you when I needed you most?!” YET EVEN NOW…
         11. Even in her grief, she still acknowledges Jesus as “Lord”. She may be questioning His decision, but she doesn’t doubt His divinity. “I don’t know why you allowed this, BUT LORD…”
         12. We see both frustration and faith. If only you would have come when we called! If only you would have been here!
         13. 23 “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her. 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”
         14. Even though she didn’t fully understand what was to come, she knew who He was! She believed in the Messiah, the Son of God!
         15. The resurrection wasn’t just an event, it was a person. He wasn’t speaking in the tangible and physical, but the eternal and spiritual.
         16. This is the fifth “I Am” statement that Jesus makes here in verse 25.

3. SHARES IN THE SORROW (V28-37)

   1. 28 Having said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 As soon as Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.30 Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw that Mary got up quickly and went out. They followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there. 32 As soon as 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 wouldn’t have died!” 33 When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you put him?” he asked. “Lord,” they told him, “come and see.” 35 Jesus wept.
   2. Before Jesus exercised authority, He demonstrated empathy and He entered fully into the human experience. I’m with you in the waiting. I’m with you in your disappointment. I’ll never leave you, nor forsake you. I’m the friend that sticks closer than a brother. I am your comforter. The one acquainted with all of your grief.
   3. He could have performed the miracle without coming to Bethany, but He came to demonstrate His humanity through empathy, and His power so they might believe. He wept! He was deeply moved and troubled in his spirit.
   4. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Couldn’t he who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?”
   5. Martha was looking to the future, knowing that Lazarus would rise again and she would see him. Her friends were looking to the past and saying, “He could have prevented Lazarus from dying!” But Jesus tried to center their attention on the present: wherever He is, God’s resurrection power is available now. - Warren W. Wiersbe
   6. “Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” - Romans 6:4

4. RAISES THE DEAD (V38-44)

   1. 38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 “Remove the stone, ”Jesus said. Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
   2. God’s glory is the full manifestation of His power and presence.
   3. “Martha, do you believe?” (26)
   4. Story: Adoption and church planting
   5. Everyone has a Lazarus. Everyone has that moment that they thought God was going to show up, but he didn’t show up when they wanted Him to, and now everything is jacked up, messed up, and I'm left in my grief, pain, and disappointment! Everyone has a Lazarus… What's yours? Or should I say “Who’s yours?”
   6. 41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. 42 I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so that they may believe you sent me.” 43 After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”
   7. Career, come forth. Marriage, come forth. Health, come forth. Future, come forth. Family, come forth. Hope, come forth. Joy, come forth. Significance, come forth.
   8. God is calling us to not just hear about it, but to experience His resurrection power! Whatever is dying in your life can be called forth!
   9. It’s time for a resurrection.
   10. I was dead but now I’m alive!
   11. I was lost, but now I’m found!
   12. I was blind, but now I see!
   13. I was hopeless, but by the grace of God I’m hope filled!
   14. I was addicted, but now I’m set free!
   15. I was alone, but now I’m a part of the family!
   16. I was in darkness, but praise God I’m walking in the light!
   17. My name is Lazarus - the one who God helps!

Invitation