Latest / Chapter and First- Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church / 60+ Luncheon - Pastor to 60+ Dave Skorupa - October 29, 2026

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60+ Luncheon - Pastor to 60+ Dave Skorupa - October 29, 2026 · Chapter and First- Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, I'll be starting in verse 1.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now a man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Mary was one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it was her brother Lazarus who was sick.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the sister sent a message to him.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, the one you love is sick.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus heard it, he said, This sickness will not end in death, but it's for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, thank you, Ryan.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: So many of us know this story.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you grew up in church or you've spent any time in church, you have heard this story.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: It is one of the most amazing miracles that Jesus performs during his ministry in the time of the Gospels.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned, this story, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, is only included in the Gospel of John.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's not included in the other three Gospels.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of speculation as to why that may be.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Those of you who have read the story, you know that at the end of the story, after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, that Lazarus actually has a target put on his back by the same people that wish to kill Jesus.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: They wish to kill Lazarus too, because he becomes a walking testimony for the power of Jesus.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And many speculate that because of Lazarus having a target on his back, that perhaps the other gospel writers did not share this story because they didn't want to put Lazarus' life at risk after Jesus had ascended into heaven.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that John, by the time he writes his gospel, perhaps Lazarus has died, and that is no longer an issue.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: But we can only speculate.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: We can only speculate.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: What we do have, however, in John's Gospel is a very detailed telling of this miracle that the other three Gospels do not cover.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: So let's review the area that Ryan read, and then we're going to go further into the chapter.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 1 says, A certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just in these three verses we get a lot of information.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: We are told the town that Lazarus and his sisters lived in.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're told that Mary is, this is the same Mary who the next chapter, chapter 12, she will anoint the feet of the Lord with her hair using a very expensive perfume.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: John is writing this chronologically, but he also has the liberty to make mention of things that happen later in the story, earlier if he wants to.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we see then in verse 3, the sisters have a sick brother.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: He is very, very sick.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: They send word to Jesus saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: This tells us that the relationship that Jesus had with Lazarus was very close.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Lazarus wasn't one of the twelve apostles going from town to town with Jesus, but nonetheless, Jesus had a very, very close relationship with this man, Lazarus.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: He is sick, he is at the point of death.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And at this point, perhaps our minds go back to family members, loved ones, friends, as they have been there at that point where they don't look like they're going to get well.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the family is doing everything they can to try to bring the family together.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And they send word to Jesus because he's that close to Lazarus.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: They want him to be there.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 4, Jesus hears this and he says, This sickness is not unto death.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, those of us that have read the story before at this point begin to scratch our heads a little bit because we know what's going to happen in a few verses.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus says, this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if we look at this, this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: What's happening to Lazarus is happening for the glory of God.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know what Lazarus' sickness was, but if it's like any other sickness that we're familiar with that often leads to death, we can imagine that perhaps fever is going on, maybe even pain on some part of the body.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: When a person is sick unto death, it is never a relaxing time for a person or a family.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's a time of great struggle, great confusion.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And yet we see that Jesus himself says this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 5 says, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is close to the whole family.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So when Jesus heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place that he was.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the most confusing verse, perhaps, of the entire reading.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I had Ryan stop right there.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus hears that one of his close friends is sick unto death.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: He loves not only the person who's dying, but he also loves the sisters.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: He loves the whole family.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus gets this news.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is only a couple of hours away walking from the place where he is to where it is that he needs to go.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And yet he stays there for two more.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Can we imagine what must have been going through the minds of Martha and Mary when they expected to see Jesus later the same day after they sent word that their brother was sick?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Can we imagine the following morning when they were expecting to see Jesus and Jesus did not show up?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Morning turns to afternoon, afternoon turns to evening, Jesus is still not there.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Can't help but wonder if they called the person who sent the message and said, Did you really tell him?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Did you tell him how important this was?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Only to be told, yes, I told him.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: I made it certainly clear that your brother was very, very sick.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then the following morning, still no sign of Jesus.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And yet we're told in verse 5, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: But verse 6 says, So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 7, after this, he said to his disciples, Let us go to Judea again.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: The disciples said to him, Rabbi, lately the Jews have sought to stone you, and you are going there again?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in a day?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: If any one walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world, but if one walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: These things he said, and after that he said to them, Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: The disciples said, Lord, if he sleeps, he'll get well.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that he was speaking about taking his rest in sleep.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Then Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, let us go to him.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Pause here for a moment.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Can't help but wonder what the apostles thought as Jesus first says he's asleep, and they think to themselves, oh, well, if he's sleeping, he's going to get better, only to have Jesus immediately say plainly to them that Lazarus has died.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus says, Let's go to him.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 17, when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Let's take a look at a little bit of ancient Jewish culture at this point.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: The Jews of Jesus' time believed that when a person died, that the person's spirit would stay around the body for three days.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: But then at the end of the third day, they believed that the spirit would go ahead and go to wherever it was that the Lord had assigned the spirit to go.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess that this was possibly in part because back in that day, medicine being what it was, someone would appear to die only to get better.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they would say that the spirit had departed from the person, but then it came back.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the way that they would explain someone being resuscitated from some sort of near-death type of experience.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so the Jews would have this time of mourning, a period of mourning where they would have someone sit with the body for three days after the person had passed away, before they would put the person in the grave.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so Lazarus has been put in the tomb because it's been four days now.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And in all of the Jews' minds, they're thinking, well, it's four days, so the Spirit has gone to be with the Lord.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when Jesus was crucified, you see again and again in the Gospels that it talks about him being in the tomb for three days, right?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so some people say, well, why did God wait three days before raising Jesus from the dead?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it was to convince everybody that Jesus was officially dead and that his spirit would have been gone from the body.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Lazarus here has been dead for four days.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 18, Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Martha, verse 20, as soon as she heard Jesus was coming, went and met him, but Mary was sitting in the house.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: So from this, what we understand is that Martha leaves the house, leaves the area, and goes to meet Jesus before Jesus can come to the house.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I can't help but think that Martha wanted to have a few words with Jesus in private.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't want to make a scene in front of everyone that was there in the house.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: She thought she would spare Jesus some embarrassment, perhaps, by meeting him somewhere in between to talk.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: You've never run into a situation where you wanted to talk to somebody one-on-one before getting in front of a crowd of people, have you?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Especially you mothers.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: You've never wanted to talk to your kid one-on-one before letting the kid come back into the house.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, no.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Martha's got some words to share here.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that Martha is so much trying to lecture Jesus, but I think she's confused.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: She wants some answers because she doesn't understand exactly what's going on here.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 21, Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do you believe this?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to pause here for a moment.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of biblical commentators who try to take what Martha said, and rather than giving her credit for acknowledging who Jesus is during a time of great sorrow and great mourning, instead they try to say that Martha's faith in Jesus isn't all that complete or strong.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of take issue with them because here is Martha.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Her brother has been in the tomb.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's been dead for four days.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: She has confusion about Jesus and what it is that, where it is that he's been, and yet she answers in the affirmative.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: She says, I believe you're the Christ, which is the same thing as saying, I believe you're the Messiah.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then she goes further and says, the Son of God.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: She believes that Jesus is the Son of God who is to come into the world.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: She's basically saying, all those readings from the law and the prophets that have pointed to the Son of God.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: You are him, you are the Son of God.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: When she said these things, she went her way and secretly called Mary her sister.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now remember, Mary's back at the house.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: She calls Mary her sister and says, The teacher is come and is calling for you.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Did Jesus say, send Mary over here?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is that part of the record that we have?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: But what Martha's doing is the thing that perhaps we all should do is that after we have a revelation and an understanding that Jesus is the Son of God, our first instinct should be other people need to be brought to Jesus.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so she sends word to the house, the teacher has come and is calling for you.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 29.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as Mary heard that, she arose quickly and came to him.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met him.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Pause here for a moment.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: All this is happening away from the house.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: All this is happening in an area, a private area, if you will, where Jesus and his followers are meeting first Martha and then Mary.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 20 says that Jesus had not come yet into the town.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 21.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Some Bible translations say that Mary got up and ran to go where Jesus was.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 32, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of Bible translations don't use the word groaned in the spirit.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: King James does, New King James does.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably what you guys are most familiar with hearing.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Many Bible translations say that they was deeply moved.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Some Bible translations will say that he felt their sorrow.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: The idea here is that Jesus, when he sees them weeping, his emotions begin to rise to the surface.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I remember as a kid having to go to lots of funerals as my grandparents' friends, who were part of the extended family in a lot of ways, as they began to pass away.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm a young kid.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm probably all of maybe I'm younger than Ryan for crying out loud.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm a real young kid.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm probably all of 13 or 14.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And all these people that I did not know, didn't know these people that were around.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: They were all crying, sorrowful.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And even though I didn't know them, just seeing all of those people being upset caused me to be a little upset.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I was having to choke back the emotion a little bit because I was a 13-year-old boy, and by golly, I wasn't going to cry at a funeral for someone I didn't know.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: But there is something about seeing other people weep and seeing other people be sorrowful that even if you're not connected, it can create emotions in you.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter how strong you are, it doesn't matter how emotionally strong you are.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: When we see people weeping, we we feel something.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: In this case, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were well known to Jesus.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Probably a lot of the people that were there were people that Jesus also knew from his time growing up or living in that area.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: He sees his friends weeping.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: He sees these people weeping.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we see that Jesus groans in himself.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: He is troubled.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 34, he said, Where have you laid him?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: They said, Lord, come and see.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have the most famous, shortest verse in all of Scripture, verse 35.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus wept.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus wept.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now there have been many commentators and preachers down through the years that say that Jesus wasn't weeping because of the people were weeping.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus wasn't weeping because he was sorrowful.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: What they say is that Jesus was weeping because he saw in the death of Lazarus the penalty that mankind has to pay because sin is in the world, and that is what caused him to weep.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that may be, however, the apostle John was quite capable of writing those things down in the scripture if that's what he wanted us to come away with.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think that it's much more likely that Jesus wept because his friend Lazarus had gone through that period of sickness and died.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And even though Jesus knows what he's about to do in the next few verses here, he wept because people that he loved were feeling pain and feeling sorrow.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus, as all God and all man, he identified with that pain that people were feeling.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus wept.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Jesus wept being by itself as an individual verse is not part necessarily of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Someone came along later and put those verse numbers next to the words in our Bible.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: But the person who did that editing was so overwhelmed by the idea that Jesus wept that he made that a verse all by itself.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: We owe that man a little bit of thanks in this case.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: We complain about him in other ways, but in this case, we should give him thanks because he thought that Jesus wept was such an amazing thing that he gave it its own verse number all by itself.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let's keep reading.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus wept, verse 36.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Then the Jews said, See how he loved him.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 37.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them said, Could not this man, they're talking about Jesus, could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept this man from dying?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Then Jesus again, groaning in himself, came to the tomb.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was a cave.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: A stone lay against it.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Pause here.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was a cave and a stone laid against it.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Not every tomb in the Gospels was this type of a tomb.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Not every burial in the Gospels was this type of a burial.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Here we see Jesus confronting a tomb with a stone rolled against it.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And in his own mind, I can't help but wonder if he thought that someday soon he was going to be placed in a tomb.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Tomb with a stone rolled against it himself.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: We can ask when we get to heaven.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 39, Jesus said, Take away the stone.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who was dead, said to Jesus, Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to her, Did I not say to you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: They took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me, and I know that you always hear me, but because of the people standing by, I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now when he said these things, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, his face was wrapped with a cloth.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to them, Loose him, let him go.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary and had seen the things that Jesus did, believed in him.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now this is normally where the story ends, but I want to go and look at two verses of the next chapter.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus, who had been dead, whom he had raised from the dead.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: There they made him a supper.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with him.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, that's where we'll end our reading.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Let's look at some takeaways and some expansions of some of the ideas that we've been presented here today.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: First off, Martha and Mary were sorrowful and they were confused about why Jesus was delaying in his coming.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Martha says in verse 21, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Mary says the exact same thing word for word in verse 32, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, despite the fact that they're grieving, despite the fact that they have questions, we see that they have great faith, Martha and Mary.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Before Lazarus was raised, we have this great proclamation from Martha in verse 27.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: If we had everyone in the world agreeing with that statement, we wouldn't have any of the problems that we have today.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: After Lazarus was raised, we see what Mary does.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: We see in the next chapter, chapter 12 and verse 3, that as Lazarus is there at the table with Jesus, that Mary comes into the room and breaks open a perfume jar and anoints the feet of Jesus using her own hair.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: You might remember that John started chapter 11 telling us that that was the Mary that was involved in this story.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: We see the faith of these two women, great faith.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And yet when the delay happens, we see that they were sorrowful.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: We see that they did have questions.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: We see that Mary in verse 33 is that Jesus sees Mary and she's weeping.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in verse 39, as Jesus comes to the tomb and says, roll away the stone, we see Martha has questions.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, by this time there'll be a stench because he's been dead for four days.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so these questions happen because of Jesus' delay, because he waited two days to come.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 37, the people that were there at the tomb, they said, Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind, couldn't he have kept this man Lazarus from dying?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we see that these doubts and these questions and this sorrow of the people cause Jesus to groan in his spirit, we see in one verse, and then we see the same idea that he groans in himself in verses 33, and then again in verse 38, this emotional reaction that we see from our Lord.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: And as I mentioned before, there's lots of different ideas and teachings about the groaning of Jesus.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: But what is clear is that when Jesus was presented with the sorrow of the sisters, when he was presented with the sorrow of the people that were there, he was deeply moved.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: He was deeply moved.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Before Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, he tells Martha, Did I not say to you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we begin to see in this story is that Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is less connected to making the sisters happy, less connected even than making himself happy.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's directly connected to this idea of the glory of God.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead as part of his mission to bring glory to God.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And how does this apply to us today?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we lose loved ones, don't we?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: We lose loved ones.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we go through trials and we go through sorrows.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And when that happens, more often than not, we probably mourn a lot like Martha and Mary did.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: We don't understand why God has allowed the tragedy, the sorrow to occur.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: We don't understand why things have to be so challenging when it comes to things like this.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Ideas come into our mind.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: We say, surely Jesus can stop this sickness, surely Jesus can prevent this death from happening.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Or perhaps we say, why didn't Jesus just come again in glory?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Why didn't the rapture happen before this took place?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if Jesus really cares, if he really cares about me, he really cares about my family, then why is he allowing this pain to go on for so long?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, we've all been there, right?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: We've all been there.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who says that they haven't will lie to you about other things too.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: We've all been there.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to notice that Mary's suffering, Martha's suffering, the suffering of the people there that were friends of theirs, that suffering did move the heart of Jesus.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus was not critical, he wasn't unloving, he wasn't distant.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, what the Bible tells us is he wept.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: He wept.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: He did remind Martha and Mary, your brother will rise again.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we would think that perhaps knowing what he did in this story, that he would have been freed from any type of emotional response.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: John goes out of his way to say, not once, but twice, that Jesus groaned within himself, groaned within his spirit.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus doesn't turn away from our sorrows, ladies and gentlemen.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: He knows that we feel them, they affect his heart.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: When Jesus worked miracles of the healing in the New Testament, when he works miracles of healing today, I've been to the hospital a handful of times over the last two weeks and had times where I've prayed with people about healing.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: I've prayed with people here at the church who are going through rough times, and I've stopped and prayed with them about healing.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And when Jesus is going to return at some point in the future, all of you that are going through the Revelation book study on Wednesday nights, you're talking about this.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: We know that Jesus is going to return for his church.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: When Jesus comes with the spirit of the saints, and the bodies of the saints are lifted up into the air during the rapture, it's going to be a glorious day.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: But make no mistake, that event is happening for the glory of God, first and foremost.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: That event is happening so that people that are left behind will see and they'll have to make a decision whether to believe in Jesus who has come and raised his church up or whether to disbelieve.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as believers, as believers, we have to remind ourselves as we go through times of struggle, times of pain, times of uncertainty, we have to remind ourselves we can trust Jesus and we can trust his timing, even when it doesn't seem to make sense to us.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: We can trust that what Jesus is doing has a reason, and that reason behind it is the glory of God.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, finally, you know, as we look at this story, who had the biggest reason to question Jesus' delay?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Wasn't Martha, although she had reason to question, wasn't Mary, although she had reason to question, it was Lazarus.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Lazarus is the one who's sick.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Lazarus is the one who's dying.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone had a reason to ask Jesus, why did you wait two days before coming to Bethany to visit the family, it was Lazarus.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: And if anyone had a reason to go up to Jesus and say, I'm not happy with the delay that you presented.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not happy that when you got word that I was dying, you stayed there for 48 hours.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone had a reason to complain, it was Lazarus.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I brought up chapter 12 and the first few verses.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because six days before the Passover, Jesus returns to Bethany, and we're told that Lazarus, who had been dead, who Jesus had raised from the dead, was sitting at the table at suppertime with Jesus.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that tells us that there was no ill-will feelings between Jesus and the man he had raised from the dead, Lazarus.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sitting at a table together in biblical language is a sign of peace and understanding and friendship.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so we see that Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with him.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, as we think about our loved ones who have already gone forward, or perhaps our friends and relatives that are going through times of sickness and trial and challenge today, it can be tempting for us to doubt whether or not God has our best intentions at hand because we suffer.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And suffering causes us to doubt.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we may say, well, God, you must not love me very much because you're letting me go through this hard time.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: God, you're not really showing up for us when we need you.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: God, why are you delaying?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you not, why does it seem like you're not doing anything in this particular time?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, why don't you come again and remove us from all of this suffering and misunderstanding and confusion?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, what's going on?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, the glory of God is going on.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: God has a plan, and although God waited two days for Lazarus, he is waiting longer for us.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: God waited two days to work a miracle with Lazarus, and he's waiting so far two thousand years to work a miracle with the people of his church.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: But make no mistake, Jesus is coming, and all those who have died in Christ are going to rise just as Lazarus rose.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, we're going to rise better than Lazarus arose, because when Lazarus arose, he just rose right back into the body that had been put into the tomb.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas the Bible tells us that in a twinkling of an eye, in an instant, in 2 Thessalonians chapter 4, we are told that our bodies are going to be transformed like that of the risen Jesus Christ Himself.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: And at that point, at that point, we will spend the rest of eternity, and we can either complain about how long it took for the Lord to get here, or we can sit at the table with Him in fellowship and friendship and enjoy the rest of eternity having joy with our Lord.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when we have the temptation to doubt, when we have the temptation to think that maybe God's timing isn't quite right, let's remember that while we're waiting a little more than two days, we're going to be able to enjoy sitting with the Lord for the rest of eternity and not just at a Passover festival a short time later.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Amen?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's close in prayer.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, I know sometimes that even after hearing a message like this, there might be someone here who still is feeling anger or doubts or frustration because of what they're going through.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, I just I just want to remind myself and remind the people here.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus wept.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: You do come alongside us in our time of sorrow, and you are not distant, you are not critical, you are not condemning us for feeling sorrow, but rather, Lord, you feel that sorrow right along with us.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we thank you that you're a loving and a caring God who loves us so much that you died for us.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, we praise you that one day we will be raised again if we have salvation in you and what it is that you've done.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, let us focus less on how many days or years it may be, and let us focus more on the day when we will sit at that table with you in fellowship and love throughout the rest of eternity.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: We love you.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: We thank you.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: We thank you for this reminder that you care for us, and it is in your mighty name, Jesus, Messiah, Son of God, that we pray.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: And God's people said Amen.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we are dismissed.