The Resurrection Life

John 11:1-45

Have you ever experienced difficulty or hardship (maybe an illness, troubled relationship, or financial crisis) and in the midst of it turned to Jesus hoping for deliverance only to be disappointed? In spite of your petitions to the Lord, the financial pinch became bankruptcy, the troubled marriage became the bitter divorce, or the illness did not end until the loved one died. As most of us know painfully well, life can not only be very disappointing – our disappointments can be compounded by wondering why God did not rescue us when we seemed to need Him most. We can be left wondering where was God? Why did not He come when we called? Have we upset Him? Have we lost His favor? If He loves us so and He is all-knowing and powerful, why did He let this happen? Those who don’t believe don’t have this problem. Life stinks then you die, but those who know God need answers. Thankfully, our text has some.

First, let's look at God's big-picture timing. In an outtake from the movie Bruce Almighty, God (Morgan Freeman) calls Bruce's (Jim Carey's) attention to a painting. He compares the dark tones in the painting to the painful life experiences needed to create an overall masterpiece. From Mary's and Martha's perspective, it looked like Jesus arrived painfully late. God was painting a dark stroke in their part of life's big picture. They sent word to the Christ that their brother, His friend, was deathly ill, but Jesus did not show up until four days after his death. It gets worse before it gets better. Our text reveals that Jesus intentionally delayed His arrival in order to let Lazarus die. Why? The answer is that He was up to a greater (more God-glorifying, more faith-building, and more life-saving) good. He not only intended to save Lazarus' life. He meant to glorify God in a mighty way and save many others in the process. God, who did not even spare His only begotten Son the agony of suffering for other's good and God's glory, does not promise to spare us life's dark tones either. He does promise that He is always up to the greatest good and that He works all things, the painful and the pleasant, together for good to those who love Him. We also need to never forget that it is never too late for God. We need to remember time does not control God. God controls time and always uses it for the greatest good. So, when God's painful delays compound our painful experiences, we need to trust the reality that God, who has the whole picture in mind, is up to a greater good that we cannot see. Just as Mary's disappointment gave way to extravagant worship when she anointed Jesus with her expensive perfume, our disappointments give us a way to worship God with expectations of faith in the midst of His apparent delays. If we will seize these disguised opportunities to worship God, He will turn our dark days into beautiful displays for His glory, others good and our best.

Next, let's look at God's heart-rending love. Our text emphasizes Jesus' love for Lazarus and his sisters. His intentional delay had nothing to do with a lack of love, and we don't need to doubt God's love in the midst of our difficulties. God loves us with an everlasting, perfect, continuous love that never lets us go no matter what we are going through. Often times, we shut down and block out our emotions in order to cope with difficulty. We are too weak to emotionally deal with the toughest stuff otherwise. Notice Jesus does not protect Himself in this way in our text. He leaves His heart wide open. He fully experiences their pain, grief, loss and suffering with them. In the midst of the record of Him doing so, we find the shortest verse in the Bible - Jesus wept. Jesus does not isolate Himself from our pain. Instead of saving Himself, He saves us and loves us enough to go through the worst with us. He empathizes with His people so completely that at the Judgment He will say what people did to or for the least of His people they did to or for Him. He says that He will say that He experienced our hunger with us and He experienced our thirst with us and our loneliness with us and our illnesses and our grief with us! So, how else can we worship God in the midst of difficult disappointments? We can worship Him by trusting His unfailing love and by loving His hurting people. We can worship God by not sheltering ourselves from other's pain. Like Mary irrevocably sacrificed the vessel that held her perfume to show her love for Christ, we can be irrevocably sacrificed vessels that unleash a fragrant offering of love for Christ as we allow our hearts to break with others. We can also be living sacrifices whose hands and feet and ears and shoulders become instruments God uses to bring relief and comfort to others. As we worship God this way, He will grow us more and more into the likeness of Christ.

Finally, let's look at God's life-giving power. Again, it is never too late for God! When things look over and utterly beyond recovery, God can still show up and change everything. He is God! Nothing is too big for Him to do or too small for Him to care about. God tells dead people to live, and they live! I'm drawn to the point in our text just after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. He told the others to help Lazarus get his grave clothes off so that he could go free. I mentioned Morgan Freeman playing God in Bruce Almighty. He also played a prisoner in Shawshank Redemption. In that role, he was concerned about becoming 'an institutional man'- that is someone so accustomed to life in prison that they come to prefer it to a life of liberty. In probably the most famous line in the movie Tim Robbins' character scolds Freeman's for giving into that pull and says, "I guess that it's then - Either get busy living or get busy dying." God declares that before He gave us eternal life, we were spiritually dead and buried. Like Lazarus, it was over for us until Jesus called our name and raised us from death into life everlasting. This resurrection life is not just for then and there. It is meant to be abundantly lived right here and now! The problem for too many Christians is that we have been 'institutionalized' by the dead lives we knew in sin's penitentiary. We still have our grave clothes (that is our old rotten ways of living) on, and so we still look half-dead to the world around us. We need to worship God by helping each other get our grave clothes off so that we can all live transformed lives of freedom clothed in the righteousness of Christ. When people see God's people living genuinely transformed lives of increasing freedom from the death-grip of sin and fear and isolation, they see the life they are missing and find good reason to put their faith in the One who is the Resurrection Life.

The Son of God

John 10:27-42

Many people live with great insecurity. Life seems so unstable and often with good reason. Marriages, and thus families, fail daily rendering them an untrustworthy source of security. Economic situations can fluctuate wildly ending jobs, careers, and retirement plans. Even nations rise and fall. World maps today look different than they did just twenty years ago. All of this is not to even mention how fleeting good health and life itself can be. The fact is we can not find a solid foundation for true security anywhere in this world. That is not pessimistic. It is reality. Thankfully, there is a deeper reality - one that cannot be shaken or taken. If you are currently finding security in holding onto something that can possibly be lost or destroyed, the security you can enjoy is quite limited. If we will let go of the things of this world and take hold of the truth God reveals in this text, we will find unshakeable ground for true security.

First, Jesus declares that God gives (we don’t earn) His people eternal life. Lest anyone think this is just the quality of life people tap into and experience for a while, He adds the life He gives His people never ends. To drive home His ability to make good on such a remarkable claim, He emphasizes His oneness in purpose and power with God the Father. Since He is in perfect step with His Father's will, to mess with Him is to mess with God. Jesus declares that His people are in the supremely secure grip of almighty God's grace. Once our sin completely alienated us from God, but now in union with Christ God has dealt our sin the death blow, making us inseparable. I used to think of G.L.U.E. to keep this reality fresh in my mind. It stood for God Loves Us Eternally - us being everyone united with Christ and thus sharing the great common destiny of eternity in paradise with God. Of course, those not trusting Christ for salvation, including the religious leaders in the original audience, often find Jesus’ claims to be the eternal Son of God and Savior of the world ridiculous and offensive. In fact, they picked up stones to condemn Jesus for blasphemy. In response, Jesus directs them and all who doubt to seriously consider His works, word, and witness.

First, He directs them to the works, that is the miracles, that He has been doing. They not only authenticate His claims to have supernatural power over the physical and spiritual realms. They are also completely consistent with the goodness of God. Jesus’ works make sick people well, blind people see, hungry people full and even dead people live. Jesus’ works bless people with a foretaste of the future fullness the coming of His kingdom will bring, just as God’s written word declares.

Jesus calls the religious leaders to re-consider the written word they are using to justify their judgmental accusations and actions. He calls their attention to Psalm 82, where God gave the word to set people apart as judges over His people. In that text, He called them ‘gods’ or ‘mighty-ones’ in their positions of service. This is not to say they had any actual divinity - far from it. God who raised them up was about to humble them for failing to judge justly and help the helpless in their midst. In the last verse of that psalm, it is God Himself who will rule and judge. Launching from there, Jesus tells them that if it is acceptable for people who were set apart to be judges by God’s word to be called ‘gods’ how much more it is right to refer to Him, the eternal Word of God set apart as the One through whom God will judge and rule His creation and the One sent into the world to save and redeem it, as the Son of God!

Finally, God uses this text to call our attention to His witness, John the Baptist. John’s main mission was to prepare the way and point people to Christ. Thankfully, many of them took his message seriously and honestly examined Jesus for themselves. They found John’s testimony to be true and put their faith in Christ, who saved them from God’s judgment and gave them eternal life that can never be taken away. How about you? Are you convinced that Jesus is the Christ, the eternal Son of God? Are you trusting Him to rescue you from God's judgment? If so, the security described in Romans 8:38-39 is yours, and if you will rest in that reality, it will empower you to follow Jesus' example in the face of His accusers and share God's Good News with confident assurance when you face opposition. If you are not convinced Jesus is God's Son, I pray that you will prayerfully re-consider the evidence God has given with an open mind and heart. Your security and so much more depend on it.

The Good Shepherd

John 10:1-28

The Bible is not just a collection of disconnected stories and lessons about God and people. While it has many varied stories, overall it is one unfolding story of God’s plan to rescue His creation from the ruin of sin. Hundreds of years before Jesus’ earthly ministry, God revealed the following through His prophet Ezekiel.

1The word of the LORD came to me: 2"Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say even to the shepherds, “Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? 3You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. 4The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. 5So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. 6My sheep were scattered...with none to search or seek for them….11Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep & will seek them out. 12As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, & I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered.” – Ezekiel 34:1-6 & 11-12

In this OT text, God told Ezekiel to announce that He was coming in person to save His flock since the pastors who were supposed to take care of His people were too busy caring for themselves to care for others. In John 10, Jesus announces the fulfillment of that prophecy by stating that He is the Good Shepherd who has come to seek and save His own.

Since we don’t do a lot of sheep herding here these days, a little background may help us understand this parable better. Jesus refers to two different commonly used types of sheep pens. One was used for open fields. The other was used in villages. Village pens were communal. Shepherds mingled their sheep in a common pen that was watched over night by a gatekeeper. The mingling was no problem, because in the morning the shepherd would come to the gate and call his sheep, who would only run to his voice. If an unfamiliar voice called his sheep, they would run away. In the field, shepherds built pens that were little more than a circle of rocks, perhaps with briars on the top. They did not have swinging gates. Instead, the shepherd himself laid down in the pen’s opening and thus became its gate. Hopefully, this helps clear-up possible confusion about our text, which has mountains of material to mine. Let’s limit our focus today to motivations, authority, and security.

Jesus declared that His motivation was His love for His sheep and His desire to give them abundant life. He declared that He loved His sheep more than His life, which was the exact opposite condition of the hirelings’ hearts. When the going gets tough, hirelings (fair-weathered pastors in it for selfish gain) get going the other way. Hardship reveals they feel they’re not getting paid enough to loose their lives for sheep. So, Jesus is in it for love and life. Hirelings are in it for themselves, and Satan is only in it to steal, kill and destroy. Yesterday, a few of us got to go crabbing on the Puget Sound. From the vantage point of the crabs, we were acting a lot like the devil. We were only offering them easy access to fresh chicken, because we wanted to steal them from their home, kill them on the shore, and destroy them so we could eat them. Never forget that no matter how tempting the pleasure of sin appears, the motivation for offering it is your destruction and the harm of those you love. I am so glad Jesus has come that we might have life and have it abundantly and that He has the authority He needs to give it to us!

Apparently wanting to emphasize the depth of His love for His people, Jesus emphasizes His authority and the reality that He is voluntarily offering His life to save and protect His sheep. The Good Shepherd is also the sacrificial Lamb of God that takes away our sin, but He is never to be mistaken as a victim of more powerful opponents. He is the victor who conquered death, sin and Satan to save His sheep from the same! This could be legitimately doubted were it not for His authenticating demonstration of His authority over these enemies - His resurrection. He said He had the God-given authority to lay down His life (easy enough to say in the face of enemies who appear able to kill you) and the authority to take it up again (not easy to say and even harder to do).

By assuring us of His great love and authority, our Good Shepherd gives us great security. He goes even further to make sure we know we are safe with Him. First, He says that He knows each of us personally. Next, He says that He always protects His own. Finally, He says He gives us everlasting life that cannot be lost. During His earthly ministry, Jesus called His sheep by name. Matthew, Zacchaeus, and even Lazarus all left their lives (and deaths) and came to Christ in response to Him calling them by name. We believe and follow Jesus home because we belong to Him. So, if we foolishly take our eyes off our Shepherd and get our wool dirty, it does not mean we are no longer His sheep anymore than your children breaking rules means they’re not yours anymore. We are His, and we are going home to be with Him forever. In the meantime, He shields us to come into God’s holy presence without being destroyed by God's holiness and to go out into a morally filthy world without being destroyed by its corruption. Thus, He provides spiritual nourishment and protection as we share His Good News with others so that His lost sheep in the folds around us can also hear His voice, join His flock and follow Him home.