The Power of the Resurrection

Well, I'd like for all of you to turn in your Bible to the Resurrection chapter.

I don't mean to tell you where that is, because I know you know where it is.

Of course, 1 Corinthians 15 is viewed or thought to be the Resurrection chapter of the Bible.

And I only want to mention one of the verses that's here in chapter 15, and I'm not going to go over this chapter at all except to point out or to introduce this sermon that Paul is writing in this whole chapter about an understanding of an incredibly important part of the plan of God. When you think about it, you think about it, the fact that God is going to resurrect the dead.

We're currently alive. We may die before Christ returns. We don't know.

We hope that He returns soon, as quick as possible. But even if we do die, we have hope. We have hope because we not only believe the Bible, but we absolutely know that God is faithful. And he says there's a resurrection of the dead. And Paul mentions, of course, when he's talking about this and just affirming the fact that the resurrection of the dead is real. You know, there were some who didn't believe that at that time, even as surely people, whether they would say or not, most don't really know or really are very sure about what's going to happen. And in verse 17 it says, if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile and you're still in your sins.

And so here he was clearly talking about the resurrection of Jesus, the fact that he had been in the grave for three days and three nights, and that he rose from the dead. You know, God is able to do that. But he goes on to say, then those also who have died in Christ have perished.

And so he was saying, well, without the resurrection of Christ, then we don't have any hope. So it's an absolute necessity. But he goes on to say in verse 19, if in this life, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, well, then we are of all people most miserable. Our hope is not simply in obeying God today and receiving his benefits and blessings, which we do wish for, we ask for.

We also know that even trials and tests are blessings when we learn to look at them in the positive way that we should. And yet, what this points out is that the resurrection of the dead is our hope. And clearly, as Jesus said in John chapter 5, in John chapter 5, Jesus is making a statement about his authority, about the power that the Father has and that he has been given.

And he says in verse 25, barely I tell you the hour is coming and is now here when the dead are going to hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. And so he says there will come a time when everybody who has ever lived, and he even reaffirms that more so down in verse 28, don't be astonished at this.

The hour is coming that all who have not, all who are in the graves will hear his voice and will come out. And here he mentions some resurrection of life and some the resurrection of condemnation or judgment. Now, he doesn't explain everything there is to know about all the resurrections, not right here in this verse.

But what I'm pointing out is the fact that all, according to Jesus, everyone who has ever died, going back over the last 6,000 years to the time of Adam and Eve, where Adam lived, you know, the sixth of that. You know, he lived about, what, 930 years, I believe it is. He lived an awful long time, but he did finally die, as many others have lived long lives, but then they die. But he says everyone who has ever lived is going to be resurrected.

And some people are going to be resurrected to eternal life. You know, that's what any of us, as we look toward the time when Christ returns, and if we have died at that time, then we want to be resurrected and changed. We want to be given eternal life at that time. And we also know from Revelation that some are going to be resurrected after a thousand years to physical life.

That's going to be, you know, what we would assume to be the bulk of all people who have ever lived. And it even points out again in Revelation 20 that there will be some who are resurrected to eternal death. You know, if they refuse to accept what God offers, then that's the outcome.

That's the judgment that He gives. But I want to just focus today in this sermon on a remarkable chapter that I know all of you are very familiar with, but I'd like for us to think about it in a certain way. You know, we have hope. We have hope not only now but in the future because of the resurrection and because of how faithful God is. He is going to bring about, that's why we have hope. That's why we can, we're told, you know, that there, that these abide, love and faith and hope.

It says the greatest of these is love. But it says we have hope. You know, we don't have to be drowned in despair. Sometimes we are, you know, sad. Sometimes we are down, but we don't have to be down in despair because there is hope. You know, we have hope because God is faithful.

But I want to focus here in this chapter in John 11 because this is a chapter about the resurrection, or a resurrection at least, a resurrection of a man that Jesus very much loved, a resurrection, in this case, simply to physical life, resurrection of Lazarus. And yet there are a lot of things to learn as you read through this chapter. It's an easy, pretty easy chapter to read through because it's really very interesting. And yet what I hope to point out, and I hope that by going through this, we can have focused in our mind the power of the resurrection. See, we know, if you are familiar with this story of Lazarus and him dying, and then Jesus come and giving him life back, resurrecting him. If we're familiar with that story, we know what happens. We know what the outcome is. We know Jesus could do that. But see what this really points out is the power of God, the power of the resurrection, and the fact that all who are in the graves are going to be brought back to life. So let's start in chapter 11, verse 1, and we can go through here and see remind ourselves of the things that happened in this story because there are some remarkable things that also happened here. It says, a certain man was ill, and this man's name was Lazarus. He lived in Bethany, and this was the village of his sisters, Mary and Martha. And so Bethany was just a short ways outside of Jerusalem. This was a family that Jesus was familiar with. You know, they were quite respectfully observant of the laws of God. And it says in verse 2, Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair.

Now, you find that being done in chapter 12, verse 3. This is actually at the celebration dinner after Lazarus has been resurrected. And, you know, Jesus has come and he's in Bethany.

And in verse 2, it says, they gave a dinner for him and Martha served and Lazarus was one of the guests. And Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped them with her hair. See, of course, Judas didn't like that. You know, he didn't want, you know, that ointment wasted on Jesus. You know, that kind of shows he didn't quite have the respect. He clearly didn't have the respect and the understanding perhaps of, you know, who it was he had been walking with. Who it was that he had been trained by, trained if he happened to pay attention. But he seemed to be more interested in accumulating a certain level of money for himself or spending it for whatever he wanted. And so, you know, he was pretty, you know, jumbled in the way he thought about things. But Jesus said in verse 7, leave her alone. Leave Mary alone. She bought it so that she might keep it from the day of my burial. And so, you know, he said this was more important, more important than any other use that might have been used, you know, this ointment. And so I believe there's another example of Jesus being anointed. I think it's a separate one. I don't believe that they're talking about the same time. But this appears, you know, to be, you know, the account that we can see here in John 11. So if we go back to verse 2 again, chapter 11, verse 2, Mary was the one who anointed the Lord, wiped his feet with her hair. Her brother Lazarus was the one who was ill. And the sisters sent a message to Jesus and said, Lord, he whom you love is ill. So it would appear that Jesus knew Mary and Martha. He knew Lazarus. He was familiar with the family. He liked them. He loved them, it says. And in verse 4, Jesus heard about it.

And he said, this illness does not lead to death. Rather, it is for the glory of God. So the Son of God may be glorified through it. And so he said here, you know, this illness, this decline in Lazarus' health is, you know, going to be highlighting the glory of God. And accordingly, verse 5, you know, this is quite an amazing statement in verse 5, accordingly through Jesus' love of Martha. And he loved her sister Mary, and he loved Lazarus.

After having hearing about the fact that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. You know, it was intentional. He delayed going to Bethany to wait for Lazarus to die, for him to be buried, and for him to be in the tomb for four days by the time he's eventually going to get there. And he's, you know, in a sense set this up quite well. But what we find in verse 5 is, in verse 6, really, I guess, is that Jesus delayed, delayed going to help these people he loved. And of course the reason is to emphasize the glory of God, to emphasize the power of God, the power of the resurrection. See, this is a fabulous example, and it clearly shows that Lazarus didn't go to heaven when he died. Now, he's still in the grave, he's still there four days later, and he's going to be rising to physical life. You know, can God do that, as you see described in Ezekiel 37? You know, we cover that often on the last great day of the feast.

You know, is God able to bring everybody back to life, to physical life? Is he able to bring the bones together that had been separated and flesh come upon those bones and eventually breath to enter those bones? Well, that's what Ezekiel 37 is talking about. And it says it's talking about the whole house of Israel, meaning not only them but certainly others who would also rise in that same way or at that same time. And yet, very clearly, from the example of Lazarus, the power of the resurrection is extraordinary. It is incredible that God is able to have us have hope because of the resurrection. So in verse 7, after this, he said to the disciples, let's go to Judea again. You know, Jesus was not there because, you know, the Jews had just run him out of town. The Jews had just been wanting to stone him. And the disciples said, Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you and you're going to go back?

You know, you read about this in chapter 10, verse 31. The Jews took up stones again to stone him, and Jesus said, I've shown you many good works from the Father, but which of these are you going to show and stone me? You know, this is what the disciples were kind of thinking about. They said, I don't know, this is a great idea to go back and go back to Judea, where they're looking for you and where it appears they're out to kill you.

But Jesus answered in verse 9. Again, it doesn't seem in this verse, you know, why did Jesus answer this way? I'm not exactly sure. He said in verse 9, or this is in chapter 11 now, verse 9, are there not 12 hours in the day? And those who walk during the day are able to see. They don't stumble because they have the light of the world or this world, but those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them. And so here he's making a statement about, we sometimes would refer to this to describe an understanding of how it is that the day even has been designed. You know, the 24-hour day, you know, essentially 12 hours are light and 12 hours are dark.

And yet, as you know right now, you know, we've got about, what, 10 hours a day and 14 hours of dark. And it shifts wherever you are on earth as well as, but Jesus is making a general statement about the time of day or the timing of daylight and night. But he really says in order to walk or to do the work that I need to do and that in a sense the church needs to do, we need to do it, you know, during the time of the day, during the time we've been allotted to do it, during the time when we can walk in the light and where we can be an example of the light. And he was, of course, referencing the fact that he was the light of the world. But so he didn't really seem to answer the question, you know, why are we going back where they were trying to kill you? He said, I just need to do the job that I'm here to perform. And so in verse 11 after this, saying this, he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. And so here in this case, you know, he was aware of the fact that Lazarus had died, but he said he's fallen asleep, but I'm going to go there and awaken him. And the disciples said, Lord, if he's just sleeping, then he'll be all right. You know, if someone is resting or if they're asleep, you know, say, well, they'll wake up. Eventually, you know, they are tired and all of us are get tired. We all sleep some. Some sleep better than others, and then we'll awake. That's what he said. But Jesus said, verse 13, however, he had been speaking about Lazarus' death. And so Jesus directly talked about death as being just asleep, having fallen asleep. Jesus had been speaking about his death, but they thought he was referring to merely sleep. And so Jesus told him plainly, Lazarus is dead. And so again, understanding that death is certainly likened unto sleep by Jesus Christ. And for your sake, I'm glad. Jesus is glad that Lazarus is dead. Well, he knows what's going to happen. He knows what the purpose is of this miracle, because clearly it was a miracle, but we're thinking about it as how powerful the resurrection of the dead is. How incredibly wonderful is it that God not only is able to do that, but that he says he will do that for everyone who has died. He says, Lazarus is dead, and yet for your sake, I'm glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. And so let's go to him. See, he was saying, I'm trying to teach you. I'm trying to help my disciples know that I am able. I'm the author of life. I am the able, or I am able to give even physical life. I am able to give eternal life. It is through me that life is given. And so he said, let's go. And Thomas said, the one who was called a twin, said to his fellow disciples, well, let's go as well so that we can die with him. You kind of wonder what Thomas is saying there. In some ways, it might be saying that he's faithful enough to go with Jesus no matter what's going to happen. And we don't know if the Jews are going to catch him and kill him, or at least we will go and be with him if it shows, I guess, in the sense that he was not afraid.

Maybe he was not afraid to die if need be. Anyway, verse 17, when Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the grave. He'd been in the tomb for four days. So by the time he finally, after fiddling around and eventually waiting and gradually moving from wherever he was, I think beyond the Jordan, so he was not terribly far away, but he was a little ways away.

And he didn't immediately come because that wasn't his intent or purpose. But when he got there, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. It says, Bethany was close to Jerusalem, about two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. So here in Bethany, they were a known family, and others were concerned about them. They came to console them. In the verse 20, you see Jesus' interaction with Martha. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him while Mary stayed back at home. And Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. It almost seems like it was a pretty direct statement, maybe almost an irritated statement. I mean, that's the way I read this. Maybe that's not exactly what she was thinking because she does recognize, well, I know he's going to be resurrected. She understands that. She didn't know exactly how he was going to be resurrected right now. But it almost looks like she's kind of irritated. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that God will give you whatever you ask.

And so she was expressing, I think, a belief in who Jesus was and understanding of the need to have faith, as our sermonette mentioned, our need to live by faith, to live with faith, and to know that God, having our lives in the hands of God, is an extremely wonderful thing. We want to be always thankful for that. And so Martha said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't die, but I know that God will give you. In verse 23, Jesus said, your brother will rise again.

And again, he was meaning something different than what Martha was thinking. Martha said, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. And so she was thinking, well, I do understand or believe something about the last day, something about a resurrection that will occur at that time. And so she had an awareness of that. But Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection.

And so here he was, of course, making statements that they were having trouble fully understanding. I hold the power of the resurrection. I hold the power of life and death. I am the resurrection. And the life. I'm the one who holds that in my hands. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. And he said, do you believe this?

See here, of course, he was emphasizing the need to believe. Tom gave a sermon at the other day about, well, belief isn't enough. And that's correct. But belief is necessary. Belief is required, you know, to fully know Jesus Christ and to know the God the Father. You know, we in a sense begin with belief. And that's what he wanted Mary and Martha to understand. And I'm sure Lazarus later understood. And I would hope that many of the disciples understood it better than even the Jews who were there, who some of them even believed. But he says, or he asked her, do you really believe this? And in verse 27, she said, yes, Lord, I believe that you're the Messiah, that you're the Son of God, you're the one coming into the world. And so she again makes a statement of belief and admission of understanding who he was. You know, you see in another account where Jesus is asking the disciples, and they say, well, who do people think I am? And Peter eventually says, well, you know, you're the Christ, you're the Son of God. And he said, flesh and blood does not reveal that to you. You know, you have been given that understanding, that belief from the Father. And so I'm going to assume that Martha had to be given some help with fully understanding who Jesus was at this point. And so, you know, you see this exchange with Martha, you then see an exchange with Mary that is a little bit different. It kind of asks the same question, but the exchange with Mary is different. And Jesus' response to her is also different. Verse 28, when she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, told her privately, the teacher is here, and he's calling for you. So Jesus had gotten finally close to Bethany. Martha had gone out to meet him outside the city. It says that Jesus wanted to talk to Mary in verse 29 when she heard it, when Mary heard it, she got up quickly and she went to him and Jesus had not yet come to the village, but he was still at the place where Martha had met him. And the Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, and they followed her because they thought that she was going to go to the tomb to weep.

But when Mary, in verse 32, came where Jesus was and where he was waiting for whenever she saw him, and this kind of shows a little difference of the, you know, we see an example earlier of Mary and Martha, and Mary and Martha worried about all the setting up and the serving and the things it needed to be doing when Jesus was there, and Mary was simply listening at the feet of Jesus. What is it that you have to tell us? Because I know everything that you were... Mary seemed to have a closeness in understanding, a closeness to Jesus that, you know, maybe was escaping many others. But it says, when Mary, verse 32, came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet. See, it doesn't say that about Martha. It does say that about Mary, that she was willing to submit herself. And of course, in chapter 12, you know, we see her anointing his feet with oil and wiping his feet with her hair. I mean, it's quite a gorgeous display of the type of submission that, you know, all of us need to have to Jesus Christ. But you also see that Mary, in a sense, asks the same question. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. See, that's kind of the same thing that Martha'd ask, but it almost seems to be in a different tone. You know, if you had been here, I know you could have solved this. I know you could have just healed him. I know, you know, that you are able to perform miracles. And so, here you find in verse 33, and down through verse 35, a certain level of compassion and concern, a deep desire to help and serve and love, in this case, Mary, but even the others who were there and who were quite upset over, you know, Lazarus' death. It says in verse 33, when Jesus saw her weeping and when he saw the Jews who came with her weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and he was deeply moved.

Now, was Jesus able to be touched with the infirmities of man? Was he able to understand?

He was, in a sense, always learning, I would say. He did understand, having taken on the form of a servant and having come, you know, to give his life for humanity, for mankind. And yet, here he displays the type of compassion and concern and love that we all want to exemplify. It says he was greatly disturbed in spirit. He was deeply moved. And he said, where have they laid him? And they said, well, come and see. And it says in verse 35, Jesus wept. See, that's again an example of the type of human concern or compassion that Jesus had for another human being. And it's not simply that, you know, Lazarus had died. It was out of concern for Mary, out of concern for the others who were so distraught, who were so upset, who were suffering. And so, verse 36, Jews say, verse 36, how he loved him. See how he loved him. And must have been a few of the Jews, at least, who said that because some of the others said, well, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind, blind men, who kept this man from dying, you know, they were apparently vocal about what they thought. And they were, some of them clearly around from John 9, where we saw, you know, the man who was blind having been healed. And that was also to display the power of God, to display the glory of God. And again, I remind you that Jesus said in verse 4, you know, this illness is for the glory of God, so that the Son of Man may be glorified through it. And so, again, he was just going to display the power of God, the power of the resurrection. And so, in verse 38, we find here in the conclusion of this, that Jesus, again, being greatly disturbed, he came to the tomb, and it was a cave, and the stone was lying against the tomb, and Jesus said, take away the stone.

And Martha, the sister of the dead man, said, well, Lord, he's been there already. There's this stench because he's been dead for four days. And so, he, you know, he had been entombed already. He had died or had been dead for four days. You know, they were sure he was dead. There wasn't any doubt that he was dead. He was starting to decay or decompose. I don't guess they did the type of embalming that we do today. I would think not. I don't know exactly what the custom word was, but, you know, it was obvious he was dead, and it had been now for four days. And yet, you find Jesus saying in verse 40, didn't I tell you that if you believed that you would see the glory of God, that you would have a miracle performed before your eyes, and that you, you know, can appreciate who I am and, you know, who God is, because he had already said, of course, in John 5, everyone who's in the grave is going to be resurrected. And so, he was going to prove that with Lazarus. And so, in verse 41, they took away the stone. And in a sense, Jesus looked up to his father. He looked upward, and he said, Father, I thank you for having heard me. See, he knew that God had always heard him. Every time he cried out to him, you know, this was, you know, later in his life, he was approaching the time when he was going to be put to death here shortly. And he says, no, Father, I know you've always, you always hear me. You always, he was in a communion with the Father and a closeness and relationship with the Father, where, you know, he didn't pray and then wonder, you know, I wonder whether God, or I wonder if that was fervent enough, or I wonder, and that's what we sometimes do, you know, we wonder if our prayer got above the ceiling. We wonder, you know, well, I prayed the same thing yesterday that I prayed today, and so does God really hear? Well, Jesus said, I know you hear every prayer, mine and others. You know, we want to be benefit from that. But he says, I know that you always hear me, but I'm saying this for the sake of the people standing here, this crowd standing around. I'm saying this for the sake of the crowd standing here so that they may believe that you sent me. See, he wanted them to learn the many lessons here. Part of it was his example of compassion and love, other aspects of things that should be learned about, you know, his rule over life and death, you know, that he is the resurrection and the life.

But he said in verse 41, after he had said those things, and he said, actually, I'm just saying this for those who hear. And he said, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. And Jesus said, untie him and let him go. So you had the dead man walking.

You know, that's something that people kind of make fun of today. They use that in a manner that is completely irrelevant and clearly misunderstanding how very, very true it is that everyone who has ever died is going to rise again. Everyone who has ever died is going to be resurrected.

And yet, in this case, you know, this miracle, Jesus said, is for the benefit of those who hear. Those not only who hear, but of course John wrote it down here, so that those who read will, you know, be able to benefit from an understanding of the power of the resurrection. And even in verse 45, many of the Jews who were there who had come, and they were with Mary, and they were with Martha, and they had seen what Jesus did. They believed in him too. At least some of them did. Now, others, as you see through the remainder of this chapter, you see in the remainder of this chapter the fact that, well, others didn't believe him. Others, the high priest, and those the high priest could affect. You know, they didn't want to believe who he was.

They continued to deceive themselves and fall prey to Satan's deception. And actually, you know, in verse 49, Aephas, who was the high priest of the year, said, you know nothing at all. You don't understand that it's better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroy. You know, he was clearly simply looking out for himself and looking out for the nation. And he didn't say this on his own in verse 31, but being high priest said, you're prophesied. Or he was making a pronouncement that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. See, Jesus' death was necessary. His death that was going to happen here very shortly, you know, that was, there was a need. And he was going to go through a, in a sense, a similar example of dying, and after three days, in his case, rising again. And so the power of the resurrection is, I think, very amply described in not only this chapter, but in other places. You see, this wasn't the only time Jesus raised someone from the dead. You know, there was a young man, I think a single son of a widow, and says he was dead, and Jesus had compassion upon his mother, and you know, just healed him. Healed him in a sense of, you know, bringing him back to life, resurrecting him from the dead. I'm not sure exactly where that is, but I recall that that happened. So this wasn't the only time that Jesus achieved this type of miracle.

But what I, you know, just wanted to point out, and what I connected with what we started with here, is just that the resurrection, the power that God has to resurrect people from the dead, is completely reliable. It is completely dependable, as God is remarkably faithful to his Word. He is faithful to what he tells us, and we certainly want to learn the lesson of John 11, you know, that the illness of Telazris was simply to show the glory of God, and to show the power that God has in ruling over life, physical life, and even extending eternal life to all of us. And so I hope that, you know, as you think about this, this, you know, this is an incredible example. One that, you know, you can go back and you can read and perhaps learn more about some of the specifics of it, but there are many things to learn, and yet the primary focus, I think, is simply the power of the resurrection. We might go to Isaiah here in closing, Isaiah 38, and I've mentioned this to you before, but it always stands out to me because in Isaiah 38, Hezekiah has been given several more years to live, and he makes a statement that during that time, during the time that He has to live, you know, He wants to be sure, you know, that He is doing what the living are able to do. Here it says in verse 17, surely it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness, but you have held back my life from the destruction. See, Hezekiah was saying, you've added 15 years to my life, you, you know, look like I was about to die, but I'm happy that you have given me additional life. And he says in verse 18, the grave shield cannot thank you, death cannot praise you, those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness. He mentions three things there. You know, those who are dead, you know, cannot praise God, they cannot thank God, and they certainly no longer, you know, they do not have hope like those of us who are alive. We have hope because of the faithfulness of God. And he says in verse 19, the living, the living, they are the ones who can thank you as I do this day. They are the ones whose fathers make known to their children the faithfulness of God. See, that's really what Jesus was emphasizing. It was not just that he could perform miracles, which he clearly could. He wanted his disciples to truly believe in the power of the resurrection. And he wants all of us, you know, to have hope, you know, because God is faithful and God will resurrect all of us should we happen to die between now and the time Christ returns. So appreciate, enjoy, and be uplifted by God's explanation of the power of the resurrection.