Powerful Hope
Join us as Pastor Ben asks us some important questions: Do you believe? Do you trust Jesus to lead your life?
Look at what John is telling us about Jesus:
You will stand judgement before God one day. Jesus’ requirement for your rescue from judgment is that you trust what he says.
He asks that we believe in him, we trust in him. We let him be God and we choose to be his people. Have you made that choice? Have you made that decision to BELIEVE in Him? Do it today.
April 28, 2024
John 11:17-44
“Jesus Has Authority”
By Ben Caldwell
Please turn in your Bibles to John 11:17. Our passage can be found on page 1063 in the pew Bibles.
This week, we are talking about one big event that we started discussing last week. So… just in case you missed last week… let me try to quickly recap. There were these three siblings, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. And Lazarus got sick. So Mary and Martha send word to Jesus, “Hey Jesus, Lazarus is sick.” The implication is: “and it doesn’t look good.” Well, Jesus knew that God was doing something powerful. So John 11:4 says, “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.” And then Jesus does something strange. He intentionally stays away for two more days. Why does he do that? His followers tell Jesus that it could bedangerous for Him to go back to that area, but Jesus says he is seeing everything clearly. And so in John 11:11b Jesus says, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” The disciples don’t get what Jesus is saying, so Jesus tells them explicitly. John 11:14 says, “So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
So Jesus and his disciples head to this little town called Bethany to wake up Lazarus in order to bring Glory to God the Father and the God the Son and to do something that will help the disciples believe… to place their faith and trust in God. Let’s read John 11:17 and following:
JN 11:17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
The little town of Bethany where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus live is only two miles from the city of Jerusalem, so there are a lot of mourners. Scholars are not really sure what is going on here: Maybe Jesus is swamped by all the mourners and can’t get through all the people to get to the house. Maybe Jesus stays outside to see how Mary and Martha respond. Maybe Martha sees Jesus coming, but Mary doesn’t even know he has arrived. Whatever is going on, Martha comes out to meet Jesus; Mary does not. Why doesn’t Mary come greet Jesus? I mean, they sent for Him, and Jesus came. It may be nothing. But I would assume that Mary and Martha are upset that Jesus didn’t come right away, and their brother died. I would think that the two sisters are angry and handling their upset differently: one confronting Jesus and the other avoiding Him.
JN 11:21 "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."
Is she asking for Lazarus to make it into heaven?Possibly. Is she asking that her brother be favored in God’s kingdom? Maybe. But as we read through this text, we don’t get the feeling that she knew how it was all going to turn out.
JN 11:23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." JN 11:24Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." JN 11:25 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?" JN 11:27 "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
Jesus tells Martha that He is “the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” What a strange thing to say. Jesus is life. He is the resurrection. What could that possibly mean? Jesus told the disciples what he was going to do. But he hasn’t told Martha. So it doesn’t seem like she knows what is going to happen.
JN 11:28 And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 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. JN 11:32 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." JN 11:33 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.JN 11:35 Jesus wept. JN 11:36 Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" JN 11:37 But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
So here is a strange scene. Lazarus is dead, and while everyone acknowledges that Jesus has some kind of supernatural power, they are saying negative things. “Wow, he was useless in this situation. Seems like, having that great power, He could have done more.” And Martha herself doesn’t seem to understand what Jesus is capable of. She trusts him. She thinks He is the promised one and that Jesus can still do something powerful to help Lazarus. But her comment is: “Oh sure, I believe Lazarus will be raised to life again… ONE DAY, eventually… at the resurrection.”
But to me the real question is: Why is Jesus weeping? Why is his spirit troubled? Over Lazarus’ death? That can’t be it! He knows what’s coming!
Over the fact that the people don’t know who He is? Maybe. Sometimes Jesus is frustrated over people’s lack of faith. That could be part of it.
How about this: His spirit is troubled over the fact that Mary and Martha are grieving so deeply? His heart is broken, because their hearts are broken. Mary is weeping and so Jesus weeps with her. Isn’t it good to know that God cares about us. In our most troubled times when our hearts are broken, Jesus cares for usand mourns with us.
JN 11:38 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." JN 11:40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" JN 11:41 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." JN 11:43 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."
The Jewish people in Jesus’ day had a belief that a spirit would linger near its body hoping to come home. It is how they explained people being unconscious and coming back. But after three days they believed there was no hope of the spirit returning to the body. Once decay set in, it was said that the spirit would permanently leave the body, and their logic was built on their experience. Jesus has just defied their logic. He has just demonstrated the power of God… he’s demonstrated that he is indeed LIFE itself.
What are the big lessons that we learn from this event in Jesus’ life?
1. Jesus Has Authority: Over Resurrection and Life
A missionary named Gregory Fisher writes about his experience teaching the Bible to West Africans in a Bible College. He says: A student was asking about the second coming of Christ and asked Fisher, "Reverend, 1 Thess. 4:16 says that Christ will descend from heaven with a ‘loud command.’ I would like to know what that command will be." The missionary says, “I wanted to leave the question unanswered, to tell him that we must not go past what Scripture has revealed, but my mind wandered to an encounter I had earlier in the day with a refugee from the Liberian civil war. The man, a high school principal, told me how he was apprehended by a two-man death squad. After several hours of terror, as the men described how they would torture and kill him, he narrowly escaped. After hiding in the bush for two days, he was able to find his family and escape to a neighboring country. But in the attack two of the principle’s children were killed.” The missionary said, “My heart ached for the man. The stark cruelty unleashed on him, his family, and his community made me so sad.” In his mind he then pictured the beggars that he passed each morning on his way to the office. He thought of how poverty destroys dignity. He thought about all the people he had come in contact with the sick, the hungry, the homeless, the vacant eyes of people who have lost all hope. "Reverend, you have not given me an answer. What will he say?" The question hadn’t gone away. "Enough’" I said. "He will shout, ’Enough’ when he returns." A look of surprise opened on the face of the student. "What do you mean, ’Enough’?" "Enough suffering. Enough starvation. Enough terror. Enough death. Enough indignity. Enough lives trapped in hopelessness. Enough sickness and disease. Enough time. I think God will say, “Enough!"(http://www.
There will be a day when Jesus will come back to us. And he will take his own home to be with him. It will be unexpected and sudden. And life will be given to all those who are his. But to those who are not his own, those who have chosen to live without God, those who have denied him, those who want their own will to be done over His… there will be suffering and difficulty. If you don’t give your heart to God then, then you will find death and hell. Folks, Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Without Him, there is no resurrection AND there is death. Won’t you please begin serving Him today!
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The second Big Lesson here is:
2. Jesus Has Authority: Over the Physical World
Imagine for just a minute if I walked into your work place. And I said, Ok, everyone gather around. You, go make some coffee. The rest of us are going to brainstorm ways to makes things more efficient around here.” What would people say? What would they think? “Who in the world is this guy?” And they would realize at some point that I don’t work there. And when that happened, they would think I was a nut! Why? Because I don’t work in your office, so I don’t have any authority in your office to tell anyone what we are going to be doing.
James 5:16-18 says:
16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. JAS 5:17 Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
Where did Elijah’s power come from? Positive thinking? No! From stars aligning themselves in the galaxy? No! From God. Why are the prayers of a righteous man powerful and effective? Because a righteous man or woman is submitting him or herselfto God. Why do we see prayers answered just the way we ask over and over again here at this church? Because where two or more are gathered, Jesus is with them. Why is prayer in the church important, because it puts us in contact with an all-powerful God, THE all-powerful God who created the universe simply by speaking it into existence, who loves us and invites us to come to him with our needs. There is no physical issue that God doesn’t have control over.
In our passage for today, both Mary and Martha tell Jesus, “If you had been here, our brother wouldn’t have died.” They mean: we know you have authority / power to heal sickness. But they really have no idea who they are dealing with. Jesus isn’t just some powerful person. He is an all-powerful God. He has power over everything, including life and death. He could have come and healed Lazarus, but then they wouldn’t have known that Jesus had authority to stand outside a tomb, four days after someone died and call them back to life.
But this kind of talk does raise a question… If Jesus is so powerful and cares so much about us, why do we pray for people, and they sometimes DON’T GET HEALED?
Tim Keller gives us some insight. He says: If God came to you tonight and said, “I want you to know that from now on, anything you ask for sincerely, with good motives, in complete faith, I will give it to you without condition”—if God actually said that to you, if you have any brains in your head at all, you would stop praying immediately and never pray again. And your friends, if they had brains in their head, would come to you and say, “Please never pray for me again.” Why? How many times have you sincerely sought after something you felt sure was good for you, only to find out later it was quite destructive?
Knowing what we already know from experience… is there a reason that believers think God should answer their prayers without qualification? There is this passage in the book of James… James 5:13-16 that says:
James 5:13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Pastor JD Greer has said, “Some people think it means that the prayer of faith is one characterized by incredible certainty—the one praying has no doubts that God is going to give them what they’re asking. In other words, they’re demanding something from God.This proves to be a horrible way to pray, because if the healing doesn’t come, the only explanation is that the praying person’s faith is deficient. So now, in addition to needing healing, there’s judgment heaped upon the validity of their faith.
Similarly, many think that the prayer of faith means to slip into some kind of command mode: “I rebuke this sickness in Jesus’ name and command it to leave your body!” … And while it’s true that Jesus and some of the apostles sometimes did [heal people] that way, the New Testament never tells us to replicate that kind of thing. Plus, James here is referring to prayer, which means talking to God [not to the sickness].
It’s also important to note that the prayer of faith is by no means a guarantee that God will heal. Some use verse 15, “15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well,” as a divine promise that if we pray right, the healing will come. But it can’t mean that. Here’s how we know:
In 1 Timothy, Paul had to leave one of his most trusted companions, Trophimus, recovering from sickness. In the same letter, he recommended that Timothy take some medicine to treat his illness. Paul didn’t just tell Timothy to pray in faith. He didn’t say, “Ugh, Trophimus, still not believing. He needs to pray a little harder to get healed.” And then there’s Paul himself! We know that he prayed earnestly for healing from his own physical afflictions repeatedly—and was turned down.”
So what do we do with James 5:15? “15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well,” in the original language, there is just one word that the NIV translates “will make well.” It is the word sozo. And it means, “to save.” So a literal translation would be: “the prayer offered in faith will save the sick person.” God’s primary interest is in our soul’s well-being. Not in my body being strong. Over and over again in scripture what we see is that the important things are the eternal, not the temporal.
Matthew 6: 19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
As believers our emphasis should always be on the eternal, the immortal, the imperishable. Those things that last forever in God’s kingdom. In Genesis when sin enters the world, Adam and Eve get kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Is that because God doesn’t like Gardens anymore? No! Its because he doesn’t want them to live on and on, forever in a fallen world. He has a plan. The plan is that when we sin, we die physically. If God always healed people of faith, we would go on and on, forever being healed again and again in this world. That’s not what God wants. So eventually we will die, everyone, all of us. And the believer will go on with God in Heaven. The non-believer will not.
Why Doesn't God Answer All Our Prayers for Healing? | JD Greear Ministries
But this passage teaches us that Jesus has authority over this physical world and he wants us to know it.
Jesus Has Authority Over the Physical World
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The third thing is:
Jesus Has Authority: To Change Tragedy Into Triumph
I am borrowing this point from a Christian song, but I believe it says exactly what is going on here. Think about this: What are you going through in your life? What hardships have rocked your world?
I want you to see something about our passage of scripture. Did you know that Lazarus’ death wasn’tsudden? His health declined over time, and they sent word to Jesus to come and heal him. But Jesus didn’t go. Let’s take a look at John 11:4. It says:
JN 11:4 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." 5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.
The word that the NIV translates “yet” is actually “therefore.” And when you see a “therefore” you need to know what it is there for…. This is a conclusion statement. Because Jesus wanted to show God’s glory. Because Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus… because of that, he stayed away… instead of going and healing Lazarus. What I want you to see is that Jesus is setting something up here. It was more loving of him to put Mary and Martha and even Lazarus through death and mourning … so that he could reveal his glory.Jesus was ok with them suffering for a little while, so that they could know the Joy of seeing the power of God at work.
What this tells us is: It is all going to be worth it. When you get to the end, if you’ve invited Jesus into your life to be Lord, then when it’s all over and you stand before him in the fullness of his glory, EVEN IF YOU HAVE SUFFERED YOUR WHOLE LIFE HERE ON EARTH, you will be able to say, “Yep. That suffering, that little bit of temporal hardship, that difficulty I went through for a time, it was worth it, because now I know Jesus in his glory in a way I wouldn’t’ know him otherwise. There is a bigger picture. And this passage teaches us that Jesus turns Tragedy into Triumph to Give God Glory!!!
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The fourth is:
Jesus Has Authority: To Require Us to Believe
So the real question is: Do you believe? Do you trust Jesus to lead your life?
Look at what John is telling us about Jesus:
You will stand judgement before God one day. Jesus’ requirement for your rescue from judgment is that you trust what he says.
He asks that we believe in him, we trust in him. We let him be God and we choose to be his people. Have you made that choice? Have you made that decision to BELIEVE in Him? Do it today.