Christ Church at Grove Farm

Rev. Craig Gyergyo: That's when death was arrested and my life began. Let's talk about when life begins. We read about it all over the Gospels. As we prepare to get into the Gospel of John, chapter 11, I want to put a thought before you. It's actually something that I don't think that most times we say out loud, but it's one of those things that I think a lot of us feel or have felt, maybe even in the past week.

God, why are you not doing what I've asked you to do? I've been praying for healing. God, I've been praying for a child. God, I've been praying for a job. I've been trusting you for a spouse. Why haven't you shown up? That's a real feeling. You might say, "Jesus, if you had intervened, if you would act as I'm asking, then all this wouldn't be happening."

Here's what we're doing when we're thinking this way. I'm not necessarily attacking you with it, but here's what we're thinking. We're measuring God's presence by our preferred outcomes. That's what we're doing when we're thinking that way. We're saying, "God, surely you're not with me because I don't see an answer."

So here is what I ask you. What do you do when God delays, when you don't see the answer you're hoping for? What do you do? What do you do when the situation seems to be deteriorating? What do you do when what you fear actually begins to happen? I think ultimately you're left with one big question that frames what we're going to look at today. Can I trust the love of Christ when my life does not look like what I expected? God, can I trust you?

In the text today, in John chapter 11, we're going to meet two sisters who actually say what maybe you've been afraid to say. They say out loud, "Lord, if you had been here." So let's do this. Let's get into the Gospel. I encourage you to open God's word and open the Scriptures. We're going to work through most of this chapter, and it's powerful and beautiful. I pray God will speak to your heart and stir your faith today through this.

Now, a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus. They said, "Lord, the one you love is sick." When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. Let's rewind here and just make sure you're catching this. The message reaches Jesus that Lazarus is sick, and the appeal is really simple. "Jesus, the one you love, the person you really care about." And then we read this other bit, and this is what's confounding because it says, "Jesus loved them, but so he delayed."

He loved them, so he delayed. That word "so" in verse 6 is really critical because it tells us that when Jesus delays, he's intending to reveal his glory. He's not withholding from us what is best; he's working instead towards what's ultimate, something higher. There's glory, the glory of his Gospel, that can only be seen through his delay. But we can't see that yet in the story because we're not that far, only six verses in.

All you see early on here is deterioration. I think that hits home. That's where we live. It's the gap between what we know Jesus can do and what we see him doing. We live there. You're going to see here in a moment that Lazarus does die. When these kind of things happen, everything in us says, "Well, this is the end." Let's keep going. Follow this story.

Then Jesus says he's going to stay back for two more days. And then he says to his disciples, "Let's go back to Judea." "But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you're going to go back?" Jesus answered, "Are there not 12 hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world's light. It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light."

After he said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up." His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he'll get better." That sounds right. "Lord, if he sleeps, he'll get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death, but the disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake, I am glad that I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

Jesus moves, but you see here he's not moving urgently. Let this speak to you. This confuses the disciples, and so they openly begin calculating risk. "Jesus, if you go there, you could have trouble. We should just let him sleep." He's operating with purpose. This isn't lost on him, but he speaks in ways that the disciples cannot categorize. They're thinking about Lazarus's recovery, but Jesus knows of death.

He says something here that really rattles us. He says that he is glad that he was not there. Does Jesus lack compassion here? No. He's aiming at something deeper, and the deeper thing is faith. It's a faith that is anchored in who Jesus is, not just in what he does. That's what's going on here. He's aiming at faith, and it's a faith that is indeed centered and anchored in who he is.

The Lord will sometimes do this in your life. The Lord will dismantle what you're expecting him to do so that he can fix your trust on who he is. That can feel really confusing, even painful. But what if his distance, or at least what you perceive to be his distance, isn't an absence of his love? What if it's actually the way he's going to reveal his love to you?

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. "Lord," Martha said, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha answered, "I know he'll rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the light. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?" Martha replied, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God who is come into the world."

Jesus arrives on the scene and now you see a different kind of misunderstanding. The disciples misunderstood; they didn't have a category for what Jesus was doing or saying. And now Martha actually does have a category, but her category is way too narrow. She meets him with the words that I told you we already talked about. She says, "Lord, if you had been here."

This is not quite unbelief, but it's not full trust either. It's as if she knows what Jesus can do, but just not here. Martha's faith, I don't think it's absent. It's just her faith right now can't account for Jesus's delay. Her faith is anchored in what she believes God will do, not in who Jesus is right now. She's got past faith. She's got a future confidence about the last day. But she's got present hesitation, not trusting right now.

I know I'm talking to people who know what I'm talking about and are acquainted with this kind of mindset. God's worked before. We see it all over the Scriptures. I know he's coming, he's going to work again. But you are functionally saying, "But not right here, not right now." I'm thinking about this and there are places in my own life where I have already pre-decided this will not change. This situation is what it is.

These are areas where I have reduced my expectation of what Jesus can do, and I have concluded, "Well, not here, not this." Martha has some kind of grasp on the truth. We could see that. But she's confined it to the future, a narrow category. What she has pushed into the future is actually standing right in front of her. She's pushed the power of God away, and here he is standing in front of her.

Jesus says, "I am the resurrection. I am the life." He speaks to both sides of death, to those who have died and to those who are still living. He says, "Though they die, yet they shall live." In other words, death is no longer final for those who belong to him. That is a great comfort because everyone faces death, and he says that is not the end.

And then he says, "Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." That's not because death in this present reality disappears, but because death is now redefined. Jesus is redefining our understanding of it. What he is telling us is that what looks like an ending isn't an ending because where Jesus is, death does not have the final word. He has the final word.

What he's saying here is that's not all just in the future. It's not just later. It is now in him, in Christ. Because where Jesus is, where Jesus stands, resurrection, the power of resurrection, is present. Martha believes in resurrection, but she doesn't recognize him. So Jesus presses the question. He says, "Do you believe this?"

Martha answers with a beautiful confession. She moves away from thinking about outcomes, and in this moment she moves toward who Christ is. This is the move. She says, "Yes, Lord, you are the Christ, the Son of God. You are the one who's been sent by the Father into the world." In other words, she's saying, "I am no longer going to stand on what I think you will do. I am going to stand on who you are."

That's the change. What she does is this: she's professing and confessing her faith in God. Yet that confession will be tested. Hang on. But I want to show you this text. This is a dividing line. What happens is we see Martha crossing over from awareness to actual belief. We see her moving from proximity to devotion. We see her going from being a fan to being a follower.

The promise Jesus speaks is personal in application. He says, "He who believes." It's fair to say "she who believes." That means that this is not just about Mary or Martha or Lazarus. It is about you. It is about us. There's no second path to death. There is no alternate authority over the grave. If Jesus is not the resurrection, then there is none. He is.

After Martha said this, she went back and called her sister Mary. "The teacher's here," she said, "and he's asking for you." When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and she went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at a place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house comforting her noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in the spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" he asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied, and Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him." But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" Mary comes into the picture. Same words, different posture. She actually collapses at the feet of Jesus, and we read here that Jesus is deeply moved. This is an emotional moment.

And then you get that little verse: he breaks into tears. The original language indicates that's what this is. Jesus broke into tears. Now why? Why would Jesus weep? He knows what he is about to do. He knows that resurrection is only minutes away. He knows that the story won't end in death. Why does he weep? He does. He weeps.

Listen, some of you right now know grief personally. You're grieving. You've stood at a grave. You're feeling the pain of loss in some way. I want you to see this. Jesus does not rush past their grief to get to the miracle. It's beautiful. The one who delayed is the one who also meets them in their grief. So let me speak to your heart.

The delay of Jesus in your life is not the absence of his love. See this in God's word. Even when it feels like it, I'm telling you what's real. Jesus can intend resurrection and still share your sorrow. He can do both. He can be sovereign and he can be present. The same one who is about to call Lazarus out of the tomb is the one who stands and weeps in front of it.

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. "Take away the stone," he said. "But Lord," said Martha, "by this time there is a bad odor for he has been dead for four days." Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone.

Then Jesus looked up and he said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here that they may believe that you sent me." Jesus approaches the tomb. He asks for the stone to be moved, and then Martha, she pauses. She says, "Lord, don't. Don't do that, Jesus."

In other words, "This is too far gone. This situation can't be helped." This is functional unbelief. That's what this is. It's, "Jesus, I know what you can do, but not here, not now, not this, Jesus." Man, what have you written off as dead? We tend to downgrade our expectations. We tend to stop praying about things and give up.

Even without ever saying it, everything in us says, "This is the end. Nothing going to happen here." Functional unbelief. We forget that the one who delayed is standing right in front of us. So here's what Jesus did for Mary and Martha. He holds out a great reminder. He says, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"

He's saying, "Look, you're interpreting all this through what you see, through what you think you know." And he says, "I am calling you back to what I said. I'm calling you back to my truth." This is where our faith stumbles. This is where we falter. It's not the absence of truth in a lot of cases. You might have a sense of the truth, but it's forgetting who Christ is, forgetting his promises.

For many of you, when you're thinking about the thing you're like, "Oh God, I wish you would show up. Why aren't you answering my prayers?" you don't need more truth. You need to return to what God has already said, what Jesus has already put before us. And then Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"

The dead man came out, his hands and his feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face like a mummy. If it was nighttime, these people would have been freaking out. Lazarus comes out, and Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." Jesus had spoken his word. He had told them, and now he proves it. He shows them, and Lazarus comes out.

Here's the weight of it. When Jesus calls, the dead hear. When Jesus speaks, the dead arise. Four days in the tomb. No ritual from Jesus, no delay in this case. Just a word from his mouth. He's not working against death; he's the master over death. He's the master over the grave, and the dead man walks.

Now look, this is amazing. This is an incredible story, but this is not the climax. This is not the climax of the Gospel. No, it's the setup because Lazarus walks out of the grave, walks out of the tomb, but only because Jesus is about to walk into his. That's what's coming, and you know it.

Unlike Lazarus, no one will call Jesus out. He will absorb death fully. He will bear the judgment that was ours completely, and then he rises. He will rise. The authority that's on display in this incredible passage, it is not temporary. It's ultimate. "Oh death, where is your sting? Oh death, where is your victory?" Jesus conquered the grave.

The Hallelujah that you're feeling in your heart as you hear this proclaimed is because you cannot raise yourself. But he is able. The one who stood outside the tomb, he is still speaking. He's still saying, "Come on, come out." And when he calls, the dead hear. And by his Spirit, we are made alive. Made alive. Oh, thank you God.

Here's what I want to do with our remaining time. I want to give you an opportunity to respond. I'm going to put in front of you four summary thoughts or statements, and we're going to have a chance to reflect on these. Here's the first summary thought: trust the delay. Where are you in the "two more days"?

Jesus stayed back two more days when he heard that Lazarus was sick. Where are you in the "two more days" moment of life? Where have you assumed that what you perceive to be silence from God means that he's absent? Trust the delay. Secondly, confront your functional unbelief.

This is one to check yourself on. Where have you said to God, "Not here, not this, not anymore, God. This person will never change. This situation is irrepairable. This can't be reversed"? Where have you said that to God? Perhaps today you need to say, "God, forgive me because I have been operating in unbelief, not trusting that you can do anything. You want to redeem this."

Third statement: reopen what you have closed. This isn't a blanket statement. There are some things that are closed that need to be closed. You know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the things that, again, you're like, "This will never change." What stone have you sealed? What have you stopped bringing to God in prayer? That's what I'm talking about.

And then fourthly, respond to the voice. The same voice is speaking still, and it's saying, "Come on, come alive. Come out." So listen, we're going to have a moment of silence here. No movement, no music. I'm going to give you a minute. If you need to close your eyes, that's fine. If you need to write something down, okay.

Or if you just want to sit in the silence and reflect on this, just you and the one who stands in front of the tomb, ask him, "Lord, where have I declared something dead that you are not finished with?" Let's see what he says. Listen. Trust that the Holy Spirit is able to make this real to you. Let's just have a moment right now of quiet reflection before the Lord.

Lord, forgive us for thinking certain matters dead that you are not finished with. Oh Lord, make the truths of this passage real to us. Oh Holy Spirit, teach us. I want to tell you this. Faith is not confidence in what God can do on your timeline. That's not faith. Faith is confidence in who Jesus is.

Big difference. Martha got one thing exactly right. She stopped anchoring her faith in outcomes, and she anchored it in a person. That's the shift. That's the move. Maybe you need to make that move today. Some of you have concluded, "Well, that's the end of that relationship. That's the end of that hope. That's the end of that part of my life."

Jesus stands in front of it and he says, "That's not the end." Perhaps he's saying that. I know this. We are going to go back into real situations this week and you're going to feel pressure. You're going to feel temptation. You're going to feel fatigue. You're going to feel disappointment, all the stuff we feel. Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead. He's alive.

Remember this. It's not a concept, it's not a memory. It's present. He is present. He is resurrection. He stood outside of that tomb and he is with you. He is with you. So the issue is not to fix your situation; it is to direct your attention to the one. Your line of thought becomes not, "How will this work out?" Your line of thought becomes, "He is with me right now. I trust him, even when I can't see where it's going."

Because where Jesus is, death does not get the final word. He does. Remember that. The one who delayed is the one who is with you now. So here's the question: do you believe this? Do you believe this? And here's the command: come out. For some of you, that's not just a metaphor. This is your moment. This is your moment to step out of death, to step into life.

Jesus has given us a way to declare that publicly, by the way, and that's through baptism. Baptism is not just a symbol; it's a declaration. It says, "I have come out of the grave." Baptism says, "I belong to him." It says, "My old life is buried. I'm alive in Christ." Two weeks from today, right here in this room on this stage, we are going to celebrate resurrection.

We're going to do it in this room with our full hearts. There is someone here today, we're going to have baptisms here, and there is someone, I know this, here today who needs to step into the waters of baptism and declare, "You called my name, Lord, and I ran out of that grave." Lazarus came out of the tomb; you need to step into the water.

Come and talk to us in the mid-commons. We would love to connect with you and hear your story and to make a way for you to express that. Let's pray. Oh Lord Jesus, you who stand before sealed tombs, oh Lord, speak. Speak into what we have buried. Speak, Lord, into what we have declared finished. Speak, Lord, into what we believe no longer can change.

Teach us, Lord, oh teach us to trust your delays. God, confront our unbelief today. Lord, call us into life. Lord, we're seeking resurrection, the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the grave. Oh Lord, it's in his name we pray. Amen. Please rise. As we almost always do, we have a song. This is not just a convenient way to end the service.

It's an opportunity to express your heart to God. And so, as we sing this wonderful song, I want you to make statements of faith to our God who turns graves into gardens. Believe it and express your faith in Jesus with full hearts.