The Great Physician’s Patient Dies - Part B

Why would Jesus say Lazarus is dead?

I am glad. I can think of three reasons. There's really one reason in the text, but I can think of three reasons. Number one, Lazarus was a believer, and Jesus understood what the death of a believer meant. You know, the Bible says in the Old Testament precious in the sight of God is the death of the saints. When a saint that he has taken care of on earth finally gets to come home to heaven, God rejoices in that.

Welcome to Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. Some may ask what kind of hero willingly let someone die. In fact, that's often the very question some ask of Jesus.

If he's so good, then why does he let people suffer and die? There probably isn't a better story to tackle this issue than that of Lazarus. So that's what we're going to look at today in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. Turn once again to John chapter 11, and as you do so, we'll join Skip Heitzig as he resumes our study today. Delays mold our errant wills to conform to his perfect will. You want to jot that down.

Here's an example. Do you know how long it should have taken the children of Israel when they were in bondage in Egypt? You know how long the trip was from Egypt to Canaan? 11 days. They could have made it in 11 days. They got up the coast.

It's a direct route. You know how long it took them? 40 years. They wandered around for 40 years. God let them wander in the desert for 40 years, and they complained, and like every 10 minutes.

They got good. They were like complaining they had turned into an art form, and so God needed time, and he took 40 years to crush their errant will to conform to his perfect will so that by the time they got into the land, they were ready. Number two, delays build faith. Have you ever thought about this, that your faith wouldn't grow if every time you needed something, wanted something, prayed for something, demanded something, it came at that time? You'd just be a petulant, spoiled child. I claim it. I demand it in Jesus' name. If that happened, okay, yeah, here, you did it.

I owe it to you. You wouldn't grow at all, so God delays things so that your faith might grow. Case in point, Abraham. That guy waited, didn't he? Remember God promised Abram, was his original name, Abram.

Abram, you're gonna have a son, right? That was a promise. What happened after the promise?

Nothing. He got older and older and really old and really, really, really old. I mean, how many of you think 100 is really, really, really old?

I do. And when he was almost 100, 99 years of age, he has a son. Now, during the time of that delay, that waiting, did Abraham's faith diminish? Did he just become burdened and burn out and hardened and walk away or did his faith actually grow?

It grew. God built his faith. So here's the lesson, so important. Learn to interpret your circumstances by the love of Christ rather than interpreting the love of Christ by your circumstances. If you get that reversed, what will happen is you'll never understand your circumstances and you'll always doubt God's love. You'll never understand your circumstances, you'll always doubt God's love.

And that is what we so often do. Jesus didn't love me very much because I prayed for that long time. He didn't come.

Instead of interpreting your circumstances by Christ's love, you've interpreted his love by your circumstances. So they prayed and they said, your friend is sick and you love him. And so Jesus really, really loved them. So he didn't come.

He stayed two full days. And then in verse seven, he said to his disciples, let us go to Judea again. Jesus' friends get sick. Jesus' foresight gets seen.

And here's the third, and we'll close with this. Jesus' followers get schooled. A part of this process, Jesus is, as I mentioned, he's not doing public ministry. This is private ministry. He wants to train these guys. He's going to set them loose on a world and say, go out and preach the gospel to every living creature.

They need to be ready and their faith needs to grow. Now, I don't know how you've seen the apostles in your mind. Some people think the apostles sort of glowed, emitted a kind of a light wherever they went.

I mean, they had halos, all the pictures show them that way, halos wherever they go. Now, these guys so often weren't spiritual and were even rude. You know, if a PR firm were to have selected the best earthly representatives and helpers to surround the son of God for his initial contact with humanity, these guys wouldn't show up on the radar screen. But Jesus picked them.

It's as if he went out of his way to pick the least likely and most incompatible. On the same team, the same apostles, the same disciples, there's a tax collector. Everybody hated them. Matthew was a tax collector and a zealot. Simon was a zealot. Zealots typically murdered tax collectors. It would be like having Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush on the same team.

Not a good strategy. Jesus picked them. I was looking through my annual this week and I was looking at my high school picture and other people that I knew high school picture and remembering a whole other world so long ago and I came to the page where it was most athletic, best dressed, most likely to succeed, best all around.

I was in none of those categories, by the way. And I looked at Scott Zalaha and Jan Webster's picture, most likely to succeed. Then I thought about these disciples and I thought if they had a high school annual, most of them would be in the category most unlikely to succeed. Jesus picked them. After a night of prayer, he chose this rough group of people and notice how enthused they are about following Jesus up to Judea when in verse seven, Jesus says, let's go again to Judea. Look at verse eight. The disciples said to him, Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone you.

And you want to go there again? See, they're not too crazy about the idea of going with Jesus to Judea because it's a physical threat. They remember John chapter 10, when they took up stones to kill him, they were there.

They remember it. Besides that, they knew something about Jesus. Did Jesus have to physically travel to get a job done? Did he have to physically travel to heal somebody? No, because they were there in John chapter four, when Jesus said to the nobleman, whose son was like 15, 20 miles away, go away, your son's alive. Jesus performed a long distance miracle from Cana to Capernaum.

He wasn't even there. So disciples are thinking, why should we go to Judea? They want to kill you. All you got to do is say some spiritual stuff and he'll be fine and we'll live here.

They weren't very enthused. Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of the world. But if one walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.

What does that mean? It was a common Jewish example. The Jewish calendar divided up every day into two 12-hour segments. And the first segment was the segment of daylight. Actually, it was from night and then morning. But the daylight hours, the typical 12 hours of daylight, were the hours the people worked. You didn't work when it was night because you can't see at night. You stumble into things. But during the day, you don't stumble.

You get your work done. So while it's day, you do your work and it's got to get done by the daytime because at night, you don't work. The daylight, the sunlight, represents Jesus' earthly life as prescribed by the Father in heaven. The night typifies the end of Jesus' earthly ministry. So the disciples are concerned, well, let's not go up there again.

They want to kill you. What Jesus is saying is, I have a work that the Father has for Me to do while it's daylight. Your concern for Me, is it going to add another hour or day to My life? And their threats and desire to kill Me, is it going to take it away? I am invincible until I finish the work the Father has for Me. When the night comes, it's over.

That's how He answers it. It's a great thought here, by the way. Do you know that you're invincible until God's done with you? You can walk into danger, into threatening situations, and as a believer, you are absolutely invincible until the moment God has done with you in your prescribed work plan and it's time for you to go.

Now what throws us off is we think that our work plan should continue until we're 120. When people die younger or something happens, we think, oh my goodness, and God is saying, I'm done. And honestly, as a believer, when I'm done, I don't want to hang around here. When the night has come and I can go home, I want to. But you're invincible until your work is done.

None can thwart that. Verse 11, these things He said, and after that He said to them. Now, why does John write that?

Because Jesus speaks, and then Jesus speaks. I think Jesus spoke, and then He waited, and He let what He said just sort of sink in. And after it sunk in, these things He said, and after He said that to them, He said, our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up. Then His disciples said, Lord, if he sleeps, he'll get well. In other words, if he's sick, that's what they're presuming, if he's sick and he's asleep, that's a good thing.

When people get sick, they ought to rest. However, Jesus spoke of His death, but they thought He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus said to them, plainly, Lazarus is dead. I want you to know that Jesus wasn't speaking about some kind of soul sleep, some dormant state that happens when a person dies. Unfortunately, there are those who call themselves believers who say that when a believer dies, they go into soul sleep. They're dormant. Nothing happens. No consciousness whatsoever until the resurrection.

Well, that's not true. Paul said to be absent from the body is to be what? Present with the Lord.

Paul said, I have a desire to leave, depart from this earth and be with Christ, which is far better. What Jesus is speaking about when He says He's asleep was a euphemism, a metaphor, an analogy of death. When a person dies physically, they give the appearance that they're asleep. But more than that, sleep is temporary. If a person is asleep, they will what?

Wake up. And a person who's a believer is dead, he will wake up. There'll be a resurrection. Lazarus is asleep. I'm going to go wake him up. That's what physical resurrection is. He awakens them from the dead.

So that's what He means when He says He's... I remember when I was a kid, and my mom used to say, it's nap time. I hated nap time. It was like a punishment.

What did I do wrong? You need to take a nap. Now, as I've grown older, a nap? Did somebody say a nap? I get to take a nap?

It's a reward. My point is that as a Christian, you don't need to fear death any more than you need to fear a nap. You go to sleep, you will wake up.

You go to sleep, you will wake up. I want you to notice something in verse 14 and verse 15, because in those days, there weren't verses. Jesus didn't say, now, verse 14. And now that I'm done with that verse 15, this is His conversation. People added that years later. Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I am glad.

Stop. Don't those words form a striking expression? Jesus announcing the death of somebody He loves and saying, I am glad. Lazarus is death, and I am glad. We don't expect Jesus to say that. What we expect is Jesus to say something like, Lazarus is dead, and I am sad. Or Lazarus is physically sleeping, and I am glad, because it means he's going to wake up. Why would Jesus say Lazarus is dead, Lazarus is dead, I am glad? I can think of three reasons.

There's really one reason in the text, but I can think of three reasons. Number one, Lazarus was a believer, and Jesus understood what the death of a believer meant. The Bible says in the Old Testament, precious in the sight of God is the death of His saints. When a saint that he has taken care of on earth finally gets to come home to heaven, God rejoices in that. He's home.

She's home with me. I can now pamper that person and bless that person eternally in a way I could never do it on earth. Number two, because Jesus knew He was going to raise Him from the dead. He was glad about that. That's what verse 11 implies. He's asleep.

I'm going to go wake Him up. Number three, He was glad because He knew what it would do to the disciples, and that's the point when He said, Lazarus is dead, I am glad for your sakes that I was not there that you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go to Him. Jesus knew that when these disciples who believed already would see a resurrection from the dead of Lazarus after four days, four days of being in the grave, their faith would move forward in leaps and bounds. Not only that, Mary and Martha whose heart was broken at the death of their brother, their faith would move ahead leaps and bounds. Not only that, there were unbelievers who were watching this event or hearing of it who didn't have any faith in Christ at all who would come to faith because of it. No wonder Jesus said, Lazarus is dead and I am glad for your sakes that I wasn't there that you may believe.

And He says, let's go. Well, verse eight are the disciples and everything we've read so far is Jesus and the disciples, plural, the group. Now John wants us to know about one disciple, one we all know about. His name is Thomas. Verse 16, then Thomas who is called the twin said to his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die with him.

Love to have him on your team, wouldn't you? What is Thomas known for typically? Doubt. And what do we call a pessimist? A doubting Thomas. As if Thomas is the patron saint of all skeptics. You know, and he's sort of been cast that way, right? He's got, he's sort of been to, and I'll admit what he says here. It's not a happy thing, he said.

It's not a positive statement. It's the dark side of truth. One thing about Thomas, he always saw the darker underbelly of situations. I think if this were a Winnie the Pooh cartoon, he would be Eeyore. That's Thomas. Let's go to Judea that we may die with him.

He would just, he fits that role so perfectly. But here's what I want you to see. These are not words of doubt. These are words of love. These are words of faithfulness. These are words of loyalty.

These are words of courage. Nobody else wants to go. Lord, why do we have to go?

They want to kill you. Thomas goes, let's go. Don't let him die alone.

He's predicted his death. Let's go and die with him. These are words of courageous loyalty. A lot of times we want to knock Thomas's faith, but we can't even match his love.

A lot of us still can't even live for Christ. He says, I'm willing to die for him. That's loyalty.

That's faithfulness. Something else about Thomas. You know what I love about Thomas?

I think we need to get this because we're going to get into the doubting part later on. Thomas was honest. He wasn't the kind to wear a mask and just say, hallelujah, praise the Lord. When everybody think I'm spiritual, he was honest. And in John 14, the upper room, and I say it now because John 14, we could be five years before we get to that.

In the upper room, Jesus gets his disciples around him and he says these words, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house, there are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you. I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I will come again and take you into myself.

That where I am there, you may be also. And where I'm going, you know, and the way you know. One guy piped up. His name was Thomas. Thomas said, excuse me, we don't know where you're going and how can we know the way? And I think the other disciples are sort of listening to Jesus, kind of nodding their heads going, yeah, amen.

Yeah, that's good. Having no idea what he means at all. Thomas was going, I don't get it.

Don't know where you're going. How can I know the way? I admire that.

And I'm glad he brought that up because that's when Jesus said one of the most famous things ever. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the light. So I like Thomas.

Honest. That's the end of this paragraph. Verse 17 that we'll pick up next time shows the next event. Now Jesus, the great physician, takes his interns, goes up to Judea and performs a miracle, a work that is greater than anything ever. And although doctors are able to fix people while the engine is running, Lazarus' engine stopped running. He's been dead for four days and Jesus does what no doctor could ever do after four days, resurrects that body and gives it full life.

But in the meantime, in the meantime, that's what we're dealing with this morning. In the meantime, Lazarus, Jesus' friend, gets sick and sicker and dies and Mary and Martha's heart gets broken because Jesus didn't answer their prayer the way they wanted. And it's all because Jesus loved them so. Ruth Graham, who was the wife of Billy Graham, used to say on many occasions, in fact, I asked her about this personally at her house years ago. She said, if God had answered every prayer of mine, I would have married the wrong man seven times. She saw a guy and she wanted to marry him. She saw another guy and God said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's seven.

I counted. One day she saw Billy. She prayed again and God said, yep, that's a one. And so she said, I'm glad God didn't answer all my prayer.

Now the truth is, God always answers your prayers, Christian. Sometimes the answer is no. That's an answer. More often, it's not yet, not now. Wait. That's a delay.

No, it's not. It's a perfect time. There probably isn't a greater challenge to the Christian life than waiting. We don't like to do it.

We feel like being told to wait is the same as being told no. However, if we're willing to wait in the Lord, we'll see that He truly does make all things beautiful in His time. That's just about it for today. But before we go, let's find out more about this month's Connect with Skip resource offer. Attention moms, dads, and anyone who's looking to help children understand the message of the Bible. This month, we're offering the book Soaring Through the Bible for Kids.

God's Word can be a challenge to read and understand, even for adults. And this kid-friendly version of Pastor Skip Heitzig's popular book, The Bible from 30,000 Feet, gives young children and tweens a panoramic overview of all 66 books of the Bible, helping them see the context and significance of each. Soaring Through the Bible is a travel guide from Genesis through Revelation for Kids. Each chapter provides a flight plan for exploring a portion of the Bible, along with a brief synopsis that shows what the chapters are about and language kids can understand. Creatively designed with kids in mind, Soaring Through the Bible also features fun illustrations and fascinating facts to keep young minds and hearts engaged and interested.

Soaring Through the Bible for Kids will prepare a child for takeoff on a lifelong journey of learning and loving God's Word. We will send you a copy of this unique book, along with a booklet for you by Skip titled Why Truth Matters. Simply make a donation to support and expand this radio program with a gift of $50 or more. Call 1-800-922-1888 or order online at connectwithskip.com. Connect with Skip Heitzig exists to connect listeners like you to God's truth, strengthening your walk with Him, and bringing more people into His family. That's why we make these teachings available to you and so many others on air and online.

If they've helped you connect more closely with Jesus today, would you consider giving a gift to encourage others around the world in the same way? Just call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. If you'd like a copy of today's message, you can find it at connectwithskip.com. Or you can call us and order one at 1-800-922-1888.

Each copy is just $4 plus shipping. Next time, we'll take a closer look at the similarities and the differences of Lazarus' two sisters. So I hope you can join us right here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing.

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