PRAY
Lord God and Father,
open our eyes so we can see Your truth.
Open our ears so w can hear Your voice.
Open our mind so we can understand Your Word.
And open our heart so we may receive all that You want me to receive. AMEN
There are many things that stand out to me in regards to Jesus’ earthly ministry. One of those things was His willingness to associate with people. Jesus hung out with all kinds of people. Even within His closes contacts we see a variety of people.
Four of them were Galilean fishermen.
James and John were men who had short tempers.
Philip was a man of calculation and reasonable thinking.
Bartholomew was a quiet man.
Matthew was a selfish tax collector.
Thomas was a man who needed proof.
Simon the Zealot was a member of a Jewish underground militia.
Judas Iscariot was greedy.
They were all different and they were all sinners. They were not that different than you or me.
12 men in all who were chosen by Christ to be the pillars of the new Israel, the Christian church. Each of the disciples represent different kinds of people to help us understand that we can reach all nations with the message of hope.
None of these men were famous or outstanding in anyway. They were for the most part humble and eager to learn.
Jesus took these men with Him almost everywhere He went. He allowed them responsibilities. He prayed with them. He taught them. He even let them walk on water with Him.
And, He sent them out.
Jesus told His disciples that they were supposed to go out and tell others the same message that He was telling. He told them to go and make disciples of all nations. He told them to go and minister healing to others and that they could expect miracles.
And when Jesus told those men these things, He also included all of us. We see this in John 14.
Jesus was comforting His disciples because they were feeling a little down. Jesus had told them that He was going to die for them and for us
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” John 14:1-4 NIV
I love this because Jesus was giving them some vital information that would not just benefit them, but would benefit us all.
Jesus was telling us how it would be possible for us to carry on until He returned again.
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.
Here is how we are included. Here is the bonus… 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:6-14 NIV
The key to this is accepting that Jesus is the way the truth and the life and that the only way, the only way to God is through Jesus and the benefits are awesome!
You see, Jesus is still willing to associate with all kinds of people. He is willing to allow people who are not worthy of His grace to participate in His mission!
We don’t deserve this but it is possible for us to experience it. It is possible when we give our hearts to God through Jesus and determine that we are going to keep our eyes on Him. Because the moment we take our eyes off Him we are in trouble.
But if put our faith and trust in God through Jesus Christ, we will have the power to witness, preach the Word of God to millions of people, the power to lay hands on people and see them healed, the power to drive out demons.
God invites us to participate with Him in the things that grow His kingdom and He gave us what we need to accomplish it.
Jesus told us, “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”
John 16:7 NIV
He gave us the Holy Spirit so we could have the power to do great things in His name. This does not mean that the greater works done by believers diminishes the ministry of Jesus, nor does it suggest our ministry is somehow better than His!
What it does is prove the work of the Spirit through believers is powerful.
But such work is not our work alone! It is the work of the risen Lord in us and through us. We cannot do it without Him.
Someone beside me should be excited about this!
If we are going to walk with God in this way then we need to learn a very important principle. We need to learn that we need to unbind Lazarus.
Open your Bibles to John 11while I set this up for you.
One of Jesus’ best friends got really sick and he died. His name was Lazarus. Jesus was not in the same town when this happened. He was in another town teaching the good news and healing people.
They sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was ill, but Jesus delayed in going to the town he was in until after Lazarus had died. When Jesus finally got to Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for 4 days.
Scripture records that Jesus was so moved by the death of Lazarus and the reaction of his family that he cried.
Jesus was about to do something that was impossible for man to do. He was about to do a miracle of awesome proportions. It was not the first time He had done this, but this time the person had been dead for 4 days. Jesus was going to raise the dead to life.
READ John 11:38-44
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” John 11:38-44 NIV
Lazarus dies, they wrap him up in burial clothes and then they put him into a tomb. Basically it was a cave cut in the side of a hill or a mountain side.
(At this point grab a person and have some people wrap them up in toilet paper and put them in the tomb.)
There is more to the account of Lazarus then meets the eye.
The tomb represents something more than just a burial place. It represents spiritual darkness in the lives of believers.
Darkness is usually associated to death and evil because it supports the thought that things that should not be seen are usual done in darkness.
Whereas light is usually associated with goodness. The reason is because light is an essential element to life. We gain important nutrients for our bodies from light. The light helps us see clearly when we go places.
When a person is walking in spiritual darkness they have strayed from the light of Christ which exposes sin and the work of the enemy and leads us to salvation.
That is why John describes Jesus as the life that was the light of men in John 1:4.
And in 1 John 2:11 John writes, “But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.”
If we are not putting our faith and trust in God through Jesus Christ then we are blinded by the darkness and we will stumble and we will fall every time an obstacle comes our way.
But guess what? We don’t have to worry about that if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12 NIV
If we are walking around in darkness then we are like dead Lazarus, wrapped up in our grave clothes.
Jesus, the Light of the World, the Salvation for all mankind stands outside the tomb many of us have been locked up in or maybe still are in and cries out, “Come Forth!”
(Person wrapped up comes out when I say, “Come Forth”)
(DO NOT UNWRAP YET)
Lazarus came out of the tomb when Jesus called him forth. Jesus uttered three simple words, “Lazarus, come forth.
He had been dead. He had been wrapped up in burial clothes. He was put in the tomb. The stone had been rolled in front and sealed. He was dead so long his body smelled.
But the giver of life spoke and Lazarus came out of the tomb under his own power. It was an awesome miracle!
But there was something wrong.
Lazarus still had his grave clothes on. So Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Jesus didn’t say, “Tada!” or “What do you think of me now?” He simple said, unbind him.
You see Lazarus was raised to life but he wasn’t free. And there was no way he could go on living a healthy, productive life in the clothes he was buried in.
The point is, there are many people like this in our churches today. What do I mean? They have been made alive by the grace of God but they continue to wear their grave clothes. They are still bound.
Let me give you some examples.
We can be bound by all sorts of things. Past hurts, bad habits, or hang ups. These are some of the grave clothes we might need to remove.
Other grave clothes could be unbelief or fear. Things that keep us from moving in the directions that God desires for us to move.
More examples of grave clothes could be not reading or studying the Bible, not taking time to worship God, not tithing to God your first fruits or your time. Not being a good witness for him in action or words.
Grave clothes could be beating yourself up time and time again for past sins that have already been dealt with.
What we need to remember is that Jesus came to give us new life but He also came to help us remove the grave clothes!
He came to forgive us of our sins, heal our past hurts, help us deal with our bad habits and hang up.
He came to take away our fear and disbelief. He came to give us direction.
He came to give us strength and purpose.
He came and put a spirit of gladness in us and he came to free is from all the grave clothes that hinder us from moving forward and walking with Him.
People get so bound up in these grave clothes that they forget, that anyone who is in Christ has become a new creation and the old has passed away and all things have become new.
Church it is time we begin to remove the old grave clothes! It is time that we become unbound by them. It is time that we begin to walk in the freedom that God has called us to.
(Have those who wrapped the person unwrap the person)
As a child of God you don’t have to stay in the grave clothes.
In Romans 6 the Apostle Paul explains to the readers how we are dead to sin but alive in Christ. He said, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Romans 6:4 NIV
There was no doubt about Lazarus being dead and there was no doubt that Jesus was dead when they crucified Him.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ… Col. 2:13 NIV
He continues to share his experiences with us and associate with us in every way including giving us new life and removing the grave clothes from us.
But you might be thinking that sometimes it is difficult for us to get rid of the grave clothes. Some of them have been on for a long time. It is a struggle that you are not alone in. There are times that I struggle with grave clothes and times Debbie struggles with them.
We all struggle with them. What is so awesome about being a child of God is that we do not have to go through those struggles alone.
Did you notice something about what Jesus said? 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” John 11:44 NIV
Jesus lets us help others take off the grave clothes.
Remember what I told you Jesus said earlier? “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12 NIV
Here is where it applies. Jesus lets us be a part of helping others and lets others be a part of helping us.
Many of us are still wearing the grave clothes that we were buried in when we gave our hearts to Christ and when He raised us to life we kept the same clothes on. Some of us may have even went back and put those grave clothes on, whatever the case is, we need to get rid of the grave clothes and start living in His freedom!
And we need to be there to help others get rid of their grave clothes. Not to be there in judgment or condemnation cause there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. We need to be there for each other, supporting, listening, helping and praying.
Are you still wearing grave clothes?
Are you willing to help others remove theirs?
