It was just 2 weeks ago that our parking lot out here was filled with emergency vehicles. There was a fire truck, ambulance, and police car. Even the St. John’s helicopter landed out there! That was all part of the fall kickoff for the children’s ministry. I appreciate the people who serve in those ways – some of them are members of our church family. They work under a lot of stress and dangers, but you know what’s neat about what they do? They save lives.
Save a life. That would be neat, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be great to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right training – and all you do is what you know is right to do, and as a result someone is kept from dying? That would be even neater than beating Halo 3 or winning $5 on a lottery ticket, wouldn’t it? I want to talk about an opportunity we all have to save lives this morning.
John 11:1-15
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea." "But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world’s light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light." After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up." His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."
I’ve been around enough loss and grief to see a lot of people while they’re hurting. And it’s a fairly normal feeling to wish that you could make the hurt go away. Instead, about all you can do is hurt alongside them and share the pain. What if you could somehow change the situation? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to walk into the loss and hopelessness of a situation where someone has died and to bring a dead person back to life? I’ll go ahead and spoil the story of John 11: That’s what Jesus does. He raises Lazarus from the dead and takes away the pain of grief. He brings a man out of death and back to life! Wow. But, as far as I can tell, Lazarus died again later – or else he’s really old right now. Even in this story, we have to remember that Jesus was doing something bigger than just extending someone’s life a few years.
Along the way, He said and demonstrated something even greater – that He is the resurrection and the life and that believing in Him means a person will live forever.
Now, what if we could be a part of that bigger thing? That would be neat, wouldn’t it? This morning, we can! And I want you to see in Jesus what it will take.
I. Commitment like Jesus
-Ill - The city commission of Miami established a municipal beautification committee. They appointed 25 members to it. Word got around, and it seems that everyone wanted on it. Request after request was granted until 131 citizens were appointed. Then the committee had a meeting. 19 members showed up!
Great accomplishment requires some commitment, doesn’t it?
Jesus was committed to carry out what He came to do, despite some obstacles. His life had already been threatened in Jerusalem, and now He’s talking about returning to that area. Bethany was just 2 miles from Jerusalem. If an angry street gang from Joplin said they were going to whack me, I probably wouldn’t come and hang out in Webb City. So look at what the disciples say.
V8 "But Rabbi, a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?"
There were was a reason to go back – Lazarus was the most obvious, but if you look back in v4, you’ll see a bigger one: it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it. Returning to Bethany was God’s plan. It didn’t make sense from a human standpoint. What really made sense was to stay far away from the people with the rocks in their hands. That’s why the disciples were trying to point Jesus the other direction. But Jesus was committed to doing the Father’s will.
Strange how we sometimes discourage each other from our commitment to what we know is right! I’m glad Jesus didn’t listen to it. And I praise God for every person since who has chosen to be committed to God’s plan rather than listening to advice in the opposite direction. I read something else in
Hebrews 10:24
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
We’re supposed to encourage each other and challenge one another to commitment! Whatever happened to the old “triple dog dare”? It’s hard enough to do what’s right sometimes without us discouraging one another from doing it! So let me encourage you this morning: We need to be committed to this thing called service for Jesus! Where are you on that?
-Ill - The inscription on the Plymouth Rock monument: "This spot marks the final resting place of the Pilgrims of the Mayflower. In weariness and hunger and cold, fighting the wilderness and burying their dead in common graves that the Indians should not know how many had perished, they here laid the foundations of a state in which all men for countless ages should have liberty to worship God in their own way. All you who pass by and see this stone remember, and dedicate yourselves anew to the resolution that you will not rest until this lofty ideal shall have been realized throughout the earth." -that’s a monument to commitment.
Jesus was committed to what He came to do. We need that same sense of commitment as a congregation here in our area.
-Ill - Early Sunday morning Oct. 30, 1983, a Mercedes truck loaded with 2,000 pounds of dynamite rolled past security barricades and crashed into the lobby of the headquarters of the 8th Marine Battalion in Beirut, Lebanon. Seconds later the terrorist driver ignited the explosives and the building collapsed. 229 Marines dead. 81 wounded. During a press conference that followed an investigation of the tragedy, a reporter asked a general from the Pentagon how one man could get past such tight security and cause so much damage. The general replied: "In spite of our defensive weapons, it still is virtually impossible to stop those who are willing to die for what they believe."
Are you troubled by the ground that Christianity has surrendered in our age? Does it bother you that the Church is regarded less and less as an important factor in our nation? What would it take to turn that tide?
I like the saying, “Until you have something worth dying for, you have nothing worth living for.”
It is still virtually impossible to stop those who are willing to die for what they believe. What if that was every person who’s a Christ-follower today?
You and I are going to be in all kinds of situations this week where our level of commitment to authentic Christianity is going to make the difference between Jesus being brought up and thought about and sought after or just not there on peoples’ agenda.
We need to show people that there’s a Savior, a healer for their hurts, an answer to their questions. To effectively do that is going to take commitment - the kind of commitment that Jesus showed as He went to Bethany.
You want to save lives? You’ll also need…
II. Compassion like Jesus
v3 "Lord, the one you love is sick"
Jesus loved them (v5). Their pains hurt Him. That’s called empathy. It means to “feel together.”
Have you ever been in situations where someone you love is in pain, and it would have been easier to endure if it had been you instead? My wife doesn’t like IV’s…or they don’t like her. I’ll not forget standing and watching as nurses made 6 attempts before finally getting that needle into her wrist and secured. It would have been easier to have it done to me than to watch my wife hurting. I remember how much I hurt, as a kid in high school, watching my dad bowing his head and crying one day because of some hard times at the church in Colorado Springs.
Most of us can take the thought of suffering personally, but put someone you really love in the hospital bed or in the accident and pain takes on a new meaning. Compassion is that gut-wrenching feeling that comes from caring for someone.
I’ll bet that someone you love is sick. Someone close to you doesn’t know what it means to be saved. They’re spiritually "sick." Like Lazarus, it’s a terminal sickness. Mary and Martha loved Lazarus. They did something about it. They sent for Jesus. They knew that getting Jesus on the scene would make it be OK. They knew Jesus would care. What are we doing about the people we love – the ones who are spiritually sick and dying?
Ill - A man fell into a pit and couldn’t get himself out.
A Christian Scientist came along and said: "You only think that you are in a pit".
A Pharisee said: "Only bad people fall into a pit".
A Legalist said: "You deserve your pit".
A Charismatic said: "Just confess that you’re not in a pit".
An IRS man asked if he was paying taxes on the pit.
An insurance agent asked if he had insurance for that pit.
An Optimist said: "Things could be worse"
A Pessimist said: "Things will get worse!"
Jesus, seeing the man, took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit.
Picture the scene: sadness, despair, disbelief that Lazarus is really dead. Then, Jesus comes. He’s the One Who could have done something. Even now, they’d do whatever He said.
Every eye turns to the great Master from Galilee. The words that describe His emotions (v33) are strong: "to snort like a horse," usually describes anger, then a word that means "agitation." What a scene it must have been when the great Healer breaks down and weeps!
John 11:31-36
When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there. 32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 "Where have you laid him?" he asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied. 35 Jesus wept. 36 Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"
I used to assume that this was Jesus, sitting outside the tomb, weeping. That’s not what it says. Look again at the text. It reads like Jesus is on His way to the tomb. He cries in v35. He goes to the tomb in v38. The people around see Him cry and assume it’s His grief over the loss of His friend, but that doesn’t make sense. He knew He could raise Lazarus. He knew what power He had. Something else was happening here. Jesus was moved by the grief of the people around Him. Here was Martha, here was Mary, at His feet, crying. Here was a crowd of people who knew them – grieving. V33 – Jesus was moved by their grief. That’s compassion.
He wasn’t crying for Lazarus only, but for the grief that death caused to those He loved. He wasn’t crying just because He had lost a friend. He was confronted by the whole mess that sin had made of creation!
Yes, Jesus “sure loved him.“ But Jesus loved THEM. He had compassion on the world because of its fallen state. See How He loved them!
In Lk 19, where you can read about the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, read there in v41 about how Jesus saw the city and wept over it as He approached. Listen to His words about the people of Jerusalem:
Matthew 23:37-38
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.”
That kind of compassion for the souls of lost people is what sent Jesus on the great life-saving mission to earth.
We need to be able to have compassion - the kind that looks at the life that’s a shambles and hurts with the kind of hurt that Jesus felt as He wept at the scene in Jn 11.
-quote - A. Lincoln - “I am sorry for the man who can’t feel the whip when it is laid on the other man’s back.”
Ill - A church was looking for a preacher. They had it narrowed down to 2 men, so they decided to have them both come and preach a trial sermon. The first man came and preached on hell. The next Sunday the other man came and it turns out his sermon was also on hell, and his basic teaching was the same as the first one. When the members of the church were called upon to vote, they chose the 2nd candidate. When asked why, they said, "The 1st one spoke like he was glad that people were going to hell. The 2nd seemed sorry for it."
Compassion. It should be the fuel that drives our commitment in the Church. How’s your level of compassion? Jesus had plenty of it because He saw people in need. That hasn’t changed. The Lord will use compassionate people to do good things. To save lives, even.
Do you want to save lives? You’ll also need…
III. Conviction of His ability to give life
The words of Martha are pretty remarkable, if you think about it. She believes Jesus could have saved her brother’s life. She also believes that her brother will be raised again one day.
John 11:21-26
"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." 23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 24 Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." 25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
Do you believe this? Or in other words, are we really convicted that Jesus can, in fact, bring people back from being dead? Jesus knew He could.
Some of the people there weren’t convicted. Had any of them ever seen a person raised from the dead? We have record of only 3X that Jesus ever did this.
John 11:37
But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
After all, Lazarus had been in the tomb 4 days. Many had their doubts... It’s one thing to heal a sick person, but to raise a dead man...! Jesus raised him from the dead. Do you believe it?
Do we really believe in the power of Jesus to save lives? When we look at a person and think about where he’s at with God, do we tend to "write off" those who seem "too far gone?"
What’s your level of conviction? Just how convicted are you of what Jesus is able to do?
Convicted of what Jesus can do, whole families have moved to remote parts of the world. Others have given up secure jobs. Some have continued to meet in underground churches where they could be arrested, tortured, or killed for it. How far should your conviction take you? I won’t try to answer that now, but I will say this - you’ll only go as far as your conviction reaches!
If you’re not convinced that Jesus is able to forgive sins, able to change lives, able to make a person into a new creation... first of all why accept Him? Secondly, you won’t go out of your way to help others know Him. The cost will be too great sometimes; and unless you’re really convicted that there’s a soul at stake and that Jesus is the answer that person needs, you’ll not be there with the good news about salvation in Jesus -- at least not with the kind of power that the good news carries when it is told by someone who really believes it.
Conclusion
“Lord, if you had been here.” That’s a statement of lost hope.
If you had been there! How many could receive life if only we will "be there"?-- Be there with Commitment to our calling; with Compassion like our Lord’s; with Conviction that He is able to give life.
What a great thing it would be on Judgment Day to hear instead "Thank you for being there! Thank you for caring enough, for sharing the good news with me!" Who wouldn’t love to hear that?
Ill - William Penn was once asked by an acquaintance to take him to a Quaker meeting in London. The future founder of Pennsylvania did so. When he and a friend had sat through an hour of silence, the friend asked Penn, in a whisper, "When does the service begin?" Penn’s response was, "The service begins when the meeting ends."
Jesus was there when it counted. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly…while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
