All posts for the month April, 2025

Genesis 23 – Sermon Manuscript

-If we get coffee, I will most likely order a 16 oz Americano with an extra shot and a little heavy cream. It’s been a big debacle trying to figure out the best way to order this drink at various coffee shops, but what I learned while I was in Europe last summer is my drink has a name over there! It’s called “The White Americano,” which when I learned change my life and made ordering WAY easier.

-But then my friend, who was traveling with me started muttering under his breath each time I’d order: yeah you are, and I suddenly was reminded that I was an outsider! I really enjoyed my time overseas (and even started looking for McDonalds just to feel like I was home), but I knew it wasn’t home. They drove on the wrong side of the road, in many places they spoke a different language, used different money, and even ordering coffee was a reminder that I was a foreigner.

-Today’s text is Abraham’s reminder that he is a foreigner.

READ/PRAY

-Brief overview of where we’ve been the last few months following Abrahams’s life:

-God called him as a pagan to leave his homeland and go to a new land that the Lord would show him so that he would be a blessing to the ends of the earth. This blessing will come about through 3 things: land, seed, and blessing. However, Sarah, his wife, was barren.

-We’ve seen Abraham’s various responses to trusting in God – sometimes he does really well, and other times he utterly fails. But God remains true to his promises to Abraham, despite him acting faithless. We saw this in Gen. 15 when God enacts the covenant with Abraham. Cut some animals in half, then Abraham falls asleep and God walks right through the middle of it, saying that if the covenant is broken, the penalty for that will fall on Him instead of Abraham:

–2 Tim. 2:13

-Keep this idea in mind as we continue over the next 3 weeks to finish up the life of Abraham: it’s a good thing that God’s promises are dependent on him and not us, because if it were up to us, we would completely ruin it.

-We then saw a seed finally born to Sarah & Abraham when he was 100, after waiting 26 years for God’s promise to be fulfilled, so God did prove to be faithful. Then we saw the way God blessed Abimelech through Abraham, so we’ve seen 2 of the 3 promises from God be fulfilled, but there’s 1 missing: land. Today will be the downpayment of that promise.

-We’re going to go through this text fairly quickly today to get to the final point, because the NT has a lot to say about this idea of Abraham being an alien and sojourner that we need to be reminded of in our lives today.

Sarah’s Sojourn Ends (1-6)

-Interestingly, Sarah is the only woman who is given an age in this book. She had Isaac when she was 89, meaning he would now by 38.

-Died in Kiriath-arba (Hebron) parenthetical note to signify which place Moses is referring to here, places can change names! Think of the lake formerly known as Lake Calhoun (now known as “be-DAY me-KAH skah”) or the Gulf of America, or Mexico?

-This is in Canaan, where Abraham had been promised he would be given an entire nation

-Normal mourning period, then the body would be taken out for burial, has to ask the local people for the provision of a place to bury his wife

-But notice the way Abraham describes himself: alien residing among you. This isn’t his home, even though God has promised that this land would someday be his, it’s not his yet.

-Abraham is humbly approaching and asking this people to be kind and gracious to him, he’s also following the customs of this land.

-Where Abraham labeled himself a resident alien, look how they label him in vs. 6. “prince of God among us.”

-They’ve seen something different and unique about Abraham that sets him apart from the rest of them. Where Abraham comes almost groveling to them, approaching like a beggar, they have a much higher opinion of him! Abraham’s blessing from God is visible even to the watching pagans in Canaan.

-Which is a really good picture of what God wants for all of us, too. Do you think your neighbors would label you as a “prince (or princess) of God”? We’ll look at that more explicitly in a little bit, but keep that in the back of your mind.

-The Hethites go on: you can bury your wife anywhere you want! Because of his exalted status and their high opinion of him, no one would stand in the way of what Abraham wants.

Secure Foundations (7-16)

-Abraham proceeds to humbly respond to them and bows in front of them, he knows exactly where he wishes to bury Sarah: a cave that becomes the burial cave of all the patriarchs.

-Sarah first, then Abraham joins her in a couple chapters, then Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and finally Jacob requests that he be buried in the same cave, the same place where he also buried his wife Leah.

-Ephron, the current owner of the cave offers not just the cave, but the field attached to it as well, and to ensure its legally right, it’s done in the sight of everyone. AND Abraham won’t just take it for free, he wants to make sure there’s no question of who owns this land in the future.

-This is a fairly steep price for a field! But Abraham doesn’t want any discounts or credits, and we’ve established that he’s a wealthy man, so this wouldn’t be outside the bounds of what he can afford.

-Additionally, let’s think back to an account where he was given a bride price for his wife. Back in Gen. 20, Abraham pulled his classic trick of telling people Sarah was his sister (a half-truth). The Lord reveals to Abimelech that Sarah is married, and if he were to follow through on what he wanted to do he would face severe consequences, so in order to ensure nothing bad comes upon them, he gives Abraham 1,000 pieces of silver. I don’t know that’s it too much of a stretch to think that’s what Abraham uses to pay for this field cave.

Starting the Promise (17-20)

-This seems to have become somewhat of a homebase for Abraham, we’ve seen him in Mamre numerous times!

-Payment is finalized, whatever it looked like to write up a deed of contract to buy a plot of land is stamped. And remember something I mentioned from S&G destruction: the gate of the city is the place where the business of the city takes place.

-After all the T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted, Abraham buries his wife in the exact place that he was hoping to buy at the beginning of his interactions, and because he is now the rightful owner, it’s supposed to be his in perpetuity.

-Let’s think back to what I said at the beginning of this sermon, what God had promised to provide to Abraham: land, seed, and blessing. We’ve seen the seed (Isaac) and the blessing, but what about land? Here it is! A whole field and cave! Not too much, is it? Most scholars I was reading said that this serves as a foretaste or the downpayment on the greater land promise that God had given him.

-And this is where we now see some of the ways our lives today are similar to what Abraham experienced in his life, with 1 key difference.

–Eph. 1:14 tells us that we have something similar to what Abraham had here, a down payment of the promised land that would eventually belong to his descendants, but our downpayment is God Himself dwelling in us, bringing us spiritually from death to life, making us as new people. Look at what Paul says:

-The moment you believe you are: transformed, made new, radically changed, given the privilege and opportunity to actually pursue Jesus day by day.

-The Holy Spirit is literally the way we know we’re saved. I was always so terrified growing up that my salvation didn’t “take” so I must have “asked Jesus into my heart” 20 times! (which is nowhere in the Bible! Peter says to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, and that’s it)

-That’s not how Jesus invites us to live. Just like Abraham was promised an entire country of land, but as he approaches the end of his life all he has is a field, we are promised a life of abundance and flourishing, but it won’t be completed until Jesus returns or takes us home. All we’ll ever have on this side of eternity is the down payment.

-If you’ve ever bought a home you know this process is like! You save up for years for that downpayment, you finally find a house you like so you put the offer in and write the biggest check you’ve ever written in your life – but it’s not yet yours, is it? At least not fully, you’re still sleeping in your old house, spending WAY too many hours comparing the hundred shades of grey you could paint your walls, trying to find as many boxes as you can, but you start to worry less about your current place of living too. It starts to feel less and less like home because all your attention is on where you’ll eventually be living.

-And friends: that’s how Abraham viewed his time on earth, and that’s how Jesus calls us to view our time on earth.

-And that’s what we’re going to spend the rest of our time talking about! I mentioned this in last week’s sermon, but I don’t know if you caught it: Jesus said it’s better that he goes away, but for a really long time I struggled with that fact, and some of what we read about Abraham today points to this fact: Jesus is saying if he doesn’t go away, we don’t have our down payment. The reality is that this world isn’t our home, but our temptation is to act like it is. We put WAY too much work and effort into acting like this is our home, acting like nothing else maters but getting the most out of this life that we can. But here we see the reason Abraham is such a big deal is he didn’t try to make this world his home, he describes himself as an alien, which the NT writers pick up as a theme as well for us to contemplate today! We’ll look at a few different texts before getting to some things I’d like to encourage you to contemplate over the summer, some things I’ve been contemplating over the past year, and things I want us as a church to start thinking about how we can engage the world God has created in potentially some new ways.

-First, lets look at how the author to the Hebrews helps us to interpret this very event:

-Abraham was called to live by faith and not by sight. It took 25 years for him to get his son, there’s been some blessing, but nothing like a blessing to the whole world, and he just now got land (he’s 10 years older than Sarah, so he’d be 137 here). His whole life he is a foreigner, sojourning among other people. And why could he do that? Because he knew this world was not his home, he was living for a different city, a city that is build and sustained by God, an eternal city that will bring lasting peace and prosperity to the rest of the world.

-Faith is what led Sarah to become the mother of a multitude, who only saw 1 child born to her while she was alive, but today there are over 2.4 billion people who are spiritually descended from her. Do you think she would have imagined the implications her life would have on the rest of history, and the world?

-Then the author ends this thought by saying that even in death all these saints died, but NONE of them got the things promised to them.

-They were looking forward to a new day, a better day where they would finally have a home, but instead they were foreigners, and only temporary residents of earth. This world isn’t our home either, the home that’s coming will make the greatest places on this earth look like trash dumps.

-And the reality of this is we’re just called to live like our Savior, look how Jesus described his life:

-Obviously, he had places to sleep, he’s picking up this same idea that we’ve seen with Abraham: this world was not His home, He was looking toward a better home. And what’s ironic is the entire world only existed because of and through Him, but He still didn’t have a place to call home while He sojourned on earth.

-Which gets us to the last passage which tells us this is also true of us today. Look how Peter describes the church: strangers and exiles, other places refer to us as “ambassadors.” These are here to describe how we’re supposed to engage this world: as outsiders who are pointing to a different reality. If we’re strangers here, that should be noticeable. If we’re ambassadors, our job is to faithfully represent our homeland (which is heaven). And I’ve been thinking about this particularly in relation to the idea of generosity over the last couple months, and generosity in 3 ways: time, talents, and treasures.

-In the church, when we talk about generosity, we often jump to finances, but generosity is far more than that. Here’s something Paul says about generosity, notice: where does it come from? God himself! God gives us literally everything, and He rightfully expects us to respond with generosity toward others with the gifts He’s given us.

-Which is what Peter gets to in the rest of the section I just mentioned: abstain from sinful desires (sin is putting yourself at the center, only worrying about yourself without caring about anyone else). Sin is literally the opposite of generosity.

-I’m just going to go through time talents and treasures briefly, because I’m planning to talk about them in MUCH greater detail this Fall, but let’s start with time:

-In a book about Geneva during the Reformation (mid 1500s), the author shared how the church bells marked time for the entire city:

-What marks time for us today? Apple, Google, Amazon? What SHOULD mark time for us today? How can we steward the time God has given us, and not just steward it, but look to be generous with our time? To do that I think it’s going to take some changing of patterns in our lives so we don’t just adopt worldly patterns in our lives.

-Have you ever heard of Blue Laws? Certain activities used to be banned on Sundays because it was marked as a sacred day, unique from the other 6. But when most of shopping goes online, does it even matter?

-What about talents? Have you ever considered that God has uniquely wired and gifted you in a way to be generous to others with your skills?

-I’m so glad that not everyone is wired exactly like me! Just yesterday, Micah and I were moving a fridge and getting it set up at his house, and we broke the water line going into the fridge. Thankfully, we both have HoJo’s number, so we amateur movers sheepishly called him, and he fixed it much quicker than we could have! And I know many of you have stories just like this.

-And treasures: I would argue this is more than just money, we also have possessions (house, car, other “stuff”).

-Did you know that those who give away 10% of what they make are happier, healthier, have less problems with depression, and live more satisfied lives? A professor I had described social science as scientists discovering the ways God made us.

-Not only that, but did you know that when you give generously to others, it releases dopamine, which makes you cheerful? So not only does God love a cheerful giver, God literally makes you cheerful when you give. Isn’t it amazing how God has created us to operate?

-This is what Abraham was pointing to: living a generous life that demonstrates that this world isn’t our home, that we were made for a different country, a better country, where the God who made everything out of nothing provides everything we need in abundance.

John 20:1-31 – Sermon Manuscript

-The resurrection is the single most important event for every single one of us to believe in. In fact, when I’m tempted to doubt, the empty grave is what I come back to every single time to remind me what’s really true.

-I can still remember the first time I dug into studying 1 Cor. 15,

-especially vs. 14 “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” 19 “we are of all people most to be pitied”

-Some people have gone so far to say that if Jesus’ body was found it wouldn’t change anything about their “faith,” who’s to be pitied now?

-Which option is most likely, makes sense of all the evidence and therefore to be believed? Which book do we rely on as the most accurate representation of what happened in the 1st Century?

-NT Wright

-Friends, the resurrection of Jesus is historically verifiable, it makes the most sense of the evidence given, and to just dismiss that claim is, as Wright say, to enter into a fantasy land! You have to find some way to account for the belief of the early apostles, the sudden growth of the early church, the change in approach by the disciples, and the way both Jews and Greeks responded to this news!

-We’ll see in John 20 – 4 different responses to the reality of the empty tomb, and as we’re looking at them, be thinking about which response you’re most prone to.

READ/PRAY (pg. 963)

Peter and John (1-10)

-It’s fascinating that Mary Magdalene is the first person at the tomb.

-This is another piece that testifies to the reliability of the resurrection

-Women’s testimonies were viewed suspiciously in the 1st Century (no offense to the females in the room, but it’s a VERY different context than today!) this also served as one of the reasons Christianity was so attractive to the watching world – they honored people regardless of gender, ethnicity, creed, political leaning, sickness, they treated every person with dignity

-Other Gospel accounts share that Mary came with others to the tomb to add spices to Jesus’ body (way of honoring/respecting Him)

-But something unexpected happened as Marry arrived

-As she gets closer (it says it was still dark outside) she sees the stone is gone.

-Maybe she is hallucinating, Luke 8 tells us she had demon possession in her past, is that still affecting her today?

-So she runs to get some other disciples to see if they see the same thing

-Quick note – “The other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved” is most likely referring to John, the son of Zebedee, who wrote this book. We have writings from the 2nd Century that list John as the author of this Gospel, 2 generations down (John – Polycarp – Irenaeus)

-John was so concerned with putting the focus on Jesus, he wouldn’t even list his name in the book he wrote about Jesus! We talked about this at our Maundy Thursday service, we’re supposed to have the same mind as Christ Jesus, always looking to others interest about our own, it’s why I have a tattoo to remind me that Jesus must increase, but I must decrease.

-Getting back to the story – she goes and tells Peter and John. Apparently grave robbing was a pretty serious offense in the 1^st Century, so again, first instinct would be that’s what happened here.

-So they take off! Have a footrace to get to the tomb, John wins, scholars believe this is because he’s younger. Gets to the tomb and is so shocked he becomes paralyzed!

-If you’re a golf fan, I picture this a bit like Rory McIlroy last week when he sank his final putt, because remember who the author is here? John! John’s writing in Scripture that he won the footrace. Mic drop on Peter for eternity!

-But don’t worry, Peter’s hot on his tail! Impulsive Peter runs straight into the tomb.

-Something weird about the burial clothes. You’d think if a grave robber came, they’d have just taken everything as quickly as possible, but Jesus’ clothes are still in there, almost as if not even clothing can constrain him anymore

-But notice a couple things about these clothes: linen clothes, and the piece on his head folded up.

-There’s some slight irony here, because Jesus was crucified naked, but John also tells us that when they took Jesus’ clothes off to crucify him, they didn’t tear his tunic. That word is used to describe the priestly clothes in Exodus and Leviticus, and it first appears in Gen. 3:21 as the clothing God uses to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness. The fact that this tunic wasn’t torn is significant because priests weren’t allowed to serve God if their clothes were torn. Jesus, the perfect high priest fulfilled all of God’s laws, but he did it uncovered so that we today could be covered.

-Then John says the burial linens are carefully laid out. First this should make us think of last week where Lazarus needed help with his linens. That’s not the case for Jesus! This tells us the “swoon theory” (passed out but didn’t die) has no merit, Jesus was strong enough to take his linens off. But secondly, this points us back to the Day of Atonement. Aaron is commanded to take off his linens once the atoning sacrifice is done, he’s supposed to leave them behind as he goes back out. This is Jesus’s way of saying the atonement is done! The linens are left behind, just like the sacrifice for sin and death is now left behind.

-After Peter dives in, John follows (and another dig against Peter “who had reached the tomb first) and (as one commentator translated it) “Began to believe” but they hadn’t yet put all the pieces together.

-Maybe this is a good description of you today! You’ve started to believe in Jesus, but haven’t yet put all the pieces together on what it means to follow him. That’s fine! There’s a reason Jesus says your faith only needs to be as big as a mustard seed.

-John then shifts from his focus from himself and Peter and moves on to the first person to witness the risen Lord

Jesus and Mary (11-18)

-She could have easily followed Peter & John back, then stuck around weeping, grieving.

-Not only had Jesus died, now his body had been stolen and there was nothing she could do about it

-Remember, they don’t have the same privilege looking back that we do! This is totally unexpected, neither Jews nor Greeks thought this was ever going to happen! But at some point Mary leans over again to look into the tomb, but it’s not empty anymore.

12 -The position of the angels is telling – Do you know of anywhere else in the Bible do we see an example of 2 angels sitting at both ends of something? Ex. 25 when God is giving his people instructions on how to build the ark of the covenant.

-Ark of the covenant is to be placed in the Most Holy place

-On top of the ark is to be built the mercy seat, and on both sides of the mercy seat were 2 angels engraved in gold.

-Significant because the mercy seat was where God would descend to meet with His people, where the priest would come 1/year into God’s presence

-These 2 angels are pointing to the reality that there’s now a new mercy seat that’s not dependent on the old sacrificial system.

-But Mary doesn’t know that yet, so when the angels ask her why she’s so sad, she answers the only way she could know how – Jesus is gone, so she doesn’t know what to do.

-And Jesus is standing there and asks her a question.

-Could still be dark, could be the sun shining in Mary’s eyes, could be supernatural (there’s other instances of people spending time with Jesus and not recognizing him), but she thinks he’s the gardener who managed this area.

-Notice how Jesus responds. 1 simple word. He just says her name. But that’s all she needs. How do you respond when someone you love and care about calls your name? It’s not like being at church and hearing “Mommy” and watching 10 moms turn and look, this is more like when you’re growing up and in trouble and your dad calls you by your full name! You know exactly what’s going on!

-And that’s all it takes for Mary, her weeping turns to rejoicing! Her fears disappear, her tears of sadness turn to tears of joy as her Savior is standing right in front of her

-I don’t think it’s too much of a guess to think that she fell at his feet in worship

-But Jesus gently rebukes Mary, who’s trying to desperately cling to Him and not let go. She doesn’t want to lose him again. Jesus is communicating that something is different now than it was on before the resurrection, in fact, it’s something that he had promised previously, in John 16:7 “It is for your benefit that I go away.” His ministry is now shifting from ministering with his disciples to ministering through his disciples, but we’ll get there in a bit.

-Then Mary serves as the first witness to the resurrection and she tells the rest of the disciples this good news.

-Maybe you relate to Mary today! Maybe you feel like you’re trying to hold on to Jesus as tightly as you can, but you feel him slipping away. Even in the midst of her fears, she still is obedient to Jesus.

Jesus and the Disciples (19-25)

-The first 18 verse take place on Sunday morning, John then skips ahead a few hours to the evening.

-I would conjecture the disciples were wondering if the previous verses actually happened to them. Doesn’t our mind tend to play tricks on us like this? One of my favorite verses in the Gospels related to the resurrection is Luke 24:41. It shows the entire range of human emotions in the way the disciples respond. I don’t think the disciples really believed that Jesus rose from the dead.

-The reason I think they still weren’t convinced was because of the rest of this verse: they’re in a room with a locked door because they’re scared of the Jews

-It makes sense! The Jews just killed their Teacher, wouldn’t it make sense for them to take care of his followers too?

-Suddenly, Jesus joins them!

-Basically 2 Harry Potter options here: either Voldemort where the doors fly open, or he apparates straight into the room

-First words out of his mouth make it seem like he’s oblivious to what’s going on

-“Peace.” Really Jesus? You think it’s peaceful right now? His body was just beaten to a pulp, he was hung on a cross, and he’s focused on peace? This is such an important theme, he mentions it a second time in vs. 21.

-Wouldn’t it be nice if there were true & lasting peace in our world? Can you even begin to imagine what that would look like? Ukraine, China, Taiwan, Houthis, Sudan, Somalia. And what about different wars, like maybe a family conflict, conflict at work, or even internal conflict?

-Jesus came to make peace possible. Apart from him dealing with the sin of the world there’s no hope for lasting peace, lasting reconciliation, or even a smidgeon of hope that peace can come.

-Part of the reason He talks about peace is because He’s aiming straight for the hearts of the disciples, do you think they’re feeling like things are peaceful right now?

-Everything they’d been hoping in had broken, everything they’d banked on disappeared, and then his body was gone! In the midst of all that chaos, Jesus

cuts through it all to bring peace.

-Then he goes for their heads and demonstrates that it’s really him, shows them his scars, this makes the disciples glad.

-Lastly they’re commissioned. Just as Jesus was sent by the Father, his disciples now need to carry on the exact same mission.

-This theme carries through vs. 22-23. There are some weird things in these next couple verses, so it helps to keep the idea that Jesus is sending his disciples out.

–22 First weird thing, he breathes on them. What is Jesus doing here?

-Referencing back to 2 OT passages: Gen. 2:7, God breathes into Adam’s nose and brings him to life. Then Ezek. 37 where Ezekiel is brought to a valley of dry bones and told to prophesy over them, but they’re not alive until the breath of God is in them. Just as in the first creation God breathed into his creatures, in this new creation that Jesus is enacting through his sacrifice, so again God breathes into his people and makes them a new creation, filling them with the Holy Spirit.

-Then there’s another weird verse (23). What Jesus is doing here is getting back to His commissioning of His disciples. Jesus was tasked with bringing the kingdom of heaven down to earth, so now as His disciples share the gospel message in word and deed with the world, the response people give to this message will be as if Jesus was really there. The way God’s message goes out now is through his people, we today have the same authority as Jesus to preach the gospel, to tell the world how to have their sins forgiven.

-Unfortunately, 1 disciple misses this event:

Jesus and Thomas (26-29)

-Thomas has a normal response. Again, I think there’s a tendency today to miss the shock of the resurrection.

-“Doubting Thomas” doubtless would have thought he was the only one who was clear headed about this whole thing! Everyone else is losing their mind

-He needs to witness it with his own 2 eyes, otherwise he’ll never believe.

-Thankfully, Jesus is accommodating.

-A week later, the disciples are doing the same thing they had done when Jesus appeared the first time. Doors locked again.

-Again, Jesus joined them and began the exact same way, but this time Thomas was with them, and then invites Thomas to fulfill his wish. Then exhorts Thomas to believe instead of faithless. The Greek uses the same word with a negative; “don’t unbelieve, believe”

-Because Jesus himself shows up, Thomas then acknowledges that Jesus truly is God.

-Maybe you’re like Thomas, and you don’t actually believe the resurrection, and you think maybe you’d believe too if you’d seen Jesus come back to life. But did he really?

-This gets us to the last part of this chapter – this reality demands some kind of response.

-Jesus’ last statement in this chapter is a blessing to those who haven’t seen, but have believed. That’s any Christian today! Anyone here who has believed in Jesus did so without seeing him in the flesh. But someday we will see Him!

Jesus and You (30-31)

-John, the narrator, adds some commentary here, reminding us that not everything Jesus did is recorded in the Gospel stories. John was selective on which stories/signs he used, and the ones he picked were done to either urge you to believe, or if you already believe to encourage you to remain faithful, which will leave to eternal life, a life of peace.

-All of us today are called to be like one of these disciples in this story. Which one are you going to be like, how will you respond to the reality of the resurrection?

John 11 – Sermon Manuscript

-Break from Abraham to follow the church calendar (ordering the year around significant events in the church, most of the year is called “Ordinary Time”)

-John’s Gospel is probably my favorite of the 4. Emphasis on the Jesus being God. Gospels are all about the same story, centered on the same person. One author has described them as “extended passion narratives.” Have you ever noticed the way they’re structured: only 2 of them talk about his birth, only 1 of them adds any information between his birth and the beginning of His ministry (Luke at the temple). And then it feels like it rushes through the 3 years of his ministry and then spends a TON of time on the last week of His life (Matt. 21-28, Mark 11-16, Luke 19-24; John 12-21)

-John’s Gospel is a beautiful work of literature, centers on 7 signs, contains Jesus’s 7 “I Am” statements (1 of which we’ll get to today)

-But John’s Gospel also has 2 significant resurrection stories. John brackets his passion narrative with Jesus raising someone from the dead, and then Jesus being raised from the dead. This week, we’re going to look at the first one:

-A couple things to look for throughout this passage:

-Jesus is jealous for His glory. This event is in here to model/demonstrate that He is worthy of worship.

-Jesus interacts with people based on what they need, not what they think they need. Every interaction is different, every response is different

-The end goal is for people to believe in Jesus.

READ/PRAY (pg. 953)

Jesus and His Disciples (1-16)

-This section serves as a bit of a background to this unique relationship.

-One of the things that should stand out to us as we walk through this passage is the humanity of Jesus. Yes, as I said at the beginning, I love this Gospel because it emphasizes the divinity of Jesus, but Jesus is also fully human, living a fully human life with all of the implications that come with being human.

-John gives us a little more info on Mary, apparently when he was writing this Mary anointing Jesus’ feet was well known! Doesn’t happen until the next chapter so if you want to read that account keep going beyond where we’ll be today!

-John also assumes you know the account from Luke 10, Martha the worker bee, and Mary the lazy one who just listens to Jesus and doesn’t help prepare the meal

-Then find out Lazarus is Mary & Martha’s brother – I’m going to guess Lazarus was the middle child. The neglected and overlooked one.

-Because Lazarus is sick, they decide to reach out to Jesus to ask for help

-Jesus, who knows everything (including what will happen in the future) says what seems like a weird phrase “will not end in death” Most likely Lazarus was already dead at this point, it took a bit for the messengers to get to him. The ultimate outcome isn’t death, but it sure goes through death before the end!

-Jesus says something similar to the situation back in John 9, blind man, disciples ask whose sin is responsible for the man’s handicap, Jesus says in vs. 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him.”

-Jesus will stop at nothing to ensure He is receiving glory

-With that said, look how Jesus responds. Vs. 5 tells us that Jesus loved this family. This is one of those instances I wish John had more info. What kind of a friend was Jesus? How close of a friendship was this? Back in vs. 3 Lazarus is described as “he whom you love.” Jesus had close friends – people he enjoyed spending time with and who enjoyed spending time with Jesus.

-Now, what would a normal response be when you find out your best friend is sick and you could help them? Drop everything and go! Look at vs. 6.

-Jesus waits TWO EXTRA DAYS! So much for loving them and wanting what’s best for them! The Greek is actually even more explicit than the English, it says “Jesus loved them, THEREFORE he stayed longer” explicitly connecting the love for them with His actions of staying longer.

-Remember what I said earlier, about Jesus stopping at nothing to be glorified? Here’s why Jesus did this:

-There was a Jewish superstition connected to death. How do we know someone’s dead? We have machines that tell us their heart stopped, Dr. tells us they’re dead. They didn’t have that in the 1^stcentury. Sometimes people would be declared dead, funeral would be held, and then on the way to bury them they would wake up. How would you feel carrying a coffin, and then you heard someone knocking from the inside? This led to this Jewish superstition that after someone dies, their soul kind of lingers or hovers around the body for 3 days to see if they resuscitate, and only after 3 days is someone actually dead. If he hadn’t waited, people wouldn’t have believed it was a miracle. Jesus waited to demonstrate that even death is defeated by Him!

-So Jesus brings his disciples into his plans, and they remind him of what he appears to have forgotten! (referring back to John 10:31 after his Good Shepherd speech, “Again the Jews picked up rocks to stone him.”)

-Jesus uses a seemingly weird illustration here. Look at vs. 9-10

-He’s saying that it’s not his time to die. As long as it’s “during the day” (walking according to His Father’s will) he doesn’t need to be afraid, he’s untouchable!

-“The disciples (and all Christians) could not be more secure as they enter life-threatening situations (e.g. Judaea), than when they are right where they are supposed to be: “In him.”” (Zondervan, Klink, 499)

-Isn’t that incredibly comforting? We have nothing to fear when we’re “In Him”

-The confusion worsens, because Jesus tells them Lazarus has fallen asleep, which they think is good news! A little rest is always good for a sick person! So he has to explain again, Lazarus is dead.

– Thomas, on behalf of the whole group, sarcastically responds “might as well go die with him!” (Him is referring to Jesus here) Little does he know exactly how prophetic this is! Lazarus is dead, Jesus is going to die, why not all join in the fun?

Jesus and Martha (17-27)

-This section begins with more back story. Bethany was near Jerusalem, and apparently this family was pretty well known, so many Jews had come to console Mary and Martha.

-Customary to hire professional mourners. Group to come grieve with you. Jewish customs demanded that even a poor family was to hire AT LEAST 2 flute players and a professional wailing woman. Since it appears that this family was well off, they would most likely have had a much larger wailing group.

-Martha’s response in vs. 20 is abnormal, as typically those coming to mourn with the family would go to the house. Perhaps it’s for privacy, perhaps Jesus is avoiding the crowds, but either way Martha hears Jesus has come and goes to find him while Mary stays home.

-Notice what Martha says here “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” She’s accusing Jesus of not caring enough, yet just a breath later she realizes what she said and admits God will answer whatever Jesus asks.

-So Jesus assures her that Lazarus will rise again. Common to Jewish thought, at some point, he will rise again! Jesus corrects her – that future resurrection is already here, because I’m here! Jesus is both the resurrection and the life, just as you don’t need to fear as long as you’re “in Christ” so we don’t need to fear death as long as we’re “in Christ.”

-“What to the Jews is a future hope is to Christians a present reality.” (Zondervan, Klink, 504)

-And all you need to do to live forever is believe in the one who is the resurrection and the life. Just as Jesus asks Martha here “Do you believe this?” Is a question every person in the world needs to be asked. Because if you believe (like Martha) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, you don’t every need to be afraid!

-Jesus is jealous for his glory, so even in the midst of Lazarus dying, he points Martha to himself

Jesus and Mary (28-35)

-Martha then leaves to go tell Mary that Jesus is here (in private!), so now it’s Mary’s turn to go talk to Jesus. There’s a lot of background info here (Jews follow, assuming she’s going to the tomb to mourn some more, Jesus doesn’t go into the village but stays at the same place Martha and he met)

-Notice what Mary says in vs. 32. It appears that Mary and Martha had decided the best way to approach Jesus. But Mary stops there. Where Martha continued on acknowledging that he was God, for some reason Mary doesn’t. She does however, fall down at his feet, it’s almost as if her body can’t help but worship Jesus, but her mind can’t keep up

-Sometimes it seems like the hardest thing in the world is to get up to go to church, or read your Bible, or spend time praying. We need to remember we’re complex creatures, we can’t segment our lives into various components. Sometimes we just need to go through the motions and wait for our mind to catch up!

-Sometimes it is a white-knuckled, grimace, and get through it. In the midst of those difficulties, look back to how God has provided for you in the past, because that’s the same precedent that will carry you into the future. Quote I heard “I speak the truth in the light so I can whisper it in the dark.”

-Jesus then responds a little differently than he did to Martha earlier

-“Deeply moved in his spirit” is better translated as angry, so Jesus was angry in his spirit and greatly troubled. Jesus was worked up over what was going on. Then the question is: why was he angry? Was he angry at the group of mourners? Was he angry with Mary for her response?

-2 options: angry with the sin brokenness and fallen world, or angry toward the unbelief of the people in front of them, who are grieving like pagans who have no hope.

-Jesus reconciles both anger and love at the same time. Jesus can be angry toward the broken, fallen world, AND angry at the unbelief currently demonstrated in front of him, while at the same time being completely loving toward them. Just as the world can be at enmity with God (James 4:4) yet God still loving the world (John 3:16). God can say that with no contradiction.

-We need to remember how Jesus acted in the midst of grief taking place around us! There is something so unnatural about death. Something screams within us that this isn’t right, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be! And it’s not. We don’t grieve without hope, instead we grieve with hope.

-I was listening to a sermon from Tim Keller on anger recently, and he pointed out some things that Jesus’s anger in this passage can teach us, too.

-We’re actually commanded to be angry. I’m guessing you’ve never heard that at church before! But the direction to our anger matters GREATLY! In fact, Keller actually says that no human emotions are sinful. God created us as emotional, God Himself gets angry, but the way we direct our anger can either be holy or sinful.

-When my children sin, I can get angry with them and direct my anger AT them, or I can direct my anger at their sin. One makes my kids the problem, the other gives us a common enemy to attack. Jesus here is angry at sin and its’ consequences, but he still responds with love towards people, serving as as model for the way we should respond to sin.

-And look at how Jesus responds to his close friend in the tomb, the shortest verse in the Bible! Jesus wept, which the Jews take as a sign his close friendship.

-Jesus isn’t weeping for Lazarus, he’s gonna be alive again in just a couple minutes! No sense weeping for that, Jesus said all the way back in vs. 11 he was going to wake him up, Jesus is weeping because of the state of the world. Death isn’t normal! Sickness, sadness, cancer isn’t the way things are supposed to be! We’re made to have life to the full, life in perfect union with God and each other, anger directed at our sin not at other humans.

-Jesus is the 1 true perfect human to ever live. He’s more human than any of us! Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to know what this world could be like, but all you see if death, despair, and grief?

Jesus and Lazarus (36-44)

-Jews (as is typical) have 2 responses: some saw Jesus’ weeping as how much he loved Lazarus, others said he should’ve saved him.

-We begin this section with the same word from vs. 33, Jesus is angry once again when he comes to the tomb. More background description (cave)

-Jesus orders the stone be removed. He also will order the people on unbind Lazarus after he’s raised. Why doesn’t he move it supernaturally to have it automatically done?

-It’s not “let go and let go” it’s trust God and get to work!

-Carson, For the Love of God

-Dallas Willard

-Martha jumps out again at Jesus and tells him not to have the stone removed because (as the KJV says) he stinketh!

-Don’t forget, Jesus will stop at NOTHING to receive glory – so that’s what he tells Martha. Then he prays. But his prayer is a little different, don’t you think?

41-42

-Apparently he’s already prayed for the Father to raise Lazarus, so he just jumps straight to the point, he’s praying for other people.

-Sometimes, prayers are done to serve as a model to those around you. Yes, prayer is primarily you talking to the Lord, but sometimes prayer is done to strengthen and encourage those around you.

-Then, finally, Jesus calls out to Lazarus “with a loud voice.” Many scholars quip that it’s a good thing Jesus specifies a person, because otherwise every dead person would have obeyed!

-The text doesn’t even make mention that it was Lazarus, instead “The man who had died.” Lazarus isn’t the point of the story! And then the story ends. Jesus’s fame continues to spread, the Jews continue to plot against Jesus to eventually kill Him, and someday afterwards Lazarus will die again.

-But did you notice the other resurrection? Look back up at vs. 25

-Jesus says whoever believes in Him will never die, and then he asks Martha a question: do you believe? And does she? Yes!

-Friends, this is the bigger deal, and the bigger miracle than someone raising physically from the dead. The physical resurrection is actually meant to point to what’s taking place spiritually here with Martha. This is the moment where she’s spiritually brought from death to life, and we went by it pretty quickly earlier because we almost take it for granted that this is possible.

-If you have been saved, if you confess with your mouth what Martha did here, and believe in your heart (your innermost being) that God raised Jesus from the dead, you are saved. You are made alive in Christ, and best of all, you never have to be afraid of death ever again. Lazarus is just the picture, what Martha experiences is the substance. And we can have that exact same experience today!

-We get to celebrate this reality today through baptism: the reminder that those are saved are laid in the water like Jesus was laid in the tomb, and then brought up into new life to never die again. Have you believed in Jesus, and taken this step of obedience? Have you been raised from death to life? Because if you have, you are now “In Christ,” you have nothing to fear, not even death!

Pastor Mike's Musings

All posts for the month April, 2025

Genesis 23 – Sermon Manuscript

John 20:1-31 – Sermon Manuscript

John 11 – Sermon Manuscript

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