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That's ConnectWithSkip.com. Now let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. I was in grade school at the time. My first experience was somebody that I knew, a classmate especially dying, and it was very unnerving. And to make it worse, for whatever reason, they made all of the students parade up to the open casket and see the dead child inside that coffin. And that can be quite unsettling for a child's first experience of death to see somebody he or she knew as a classmate.
And then now in that condition, the music was creepy, the flowers smelled bad, the lighting was weird. So those are the reasons I grew up just having an aversion to funerals. Now, I'm a pastor, so I do funerals, and I don't mind doing them.
I love walking with people through the stages of life and being a comfort to them. But there have been some strange funerals that I've done, and I won't go into more detail than to say one funeral that I did was a strange funeral because a gal came up to the open casket and lifted the loved one out of the casket to give it a final embrace. And it was just really awkward. And of course, the corpse wasn't cooperating in terms of being bendable and hugging the person back.
So it was just, you know, they had to, we sort of had to rush the casket to get her to release the corpse. And it's an odd way to start a funeral service. I did a little reading and found an article about the weirdest funeral services on record. And I'll tell you, funeral directors can tell you stories. One funeral director said that he has known families who have requested that their loved ones not be in a casket but assuming a pose that they would have seen in real life. So for instance, one gal sitting in her chair with her sunglasses on with a cigarette in her hand and a wine glass off to one side, just sitting in this position in a chair with a table. Imagine coming into a room and seeing that.
That'll wig you out. One funeral director said the strangest request I ever got was a wife who asked me to duct tape the casket on top of closing it to duct tape it shut. And the funeral director asked why and he goes, I don't want that creep to get out.
What do you say to somebody like that? We enter a funeral service in John chapter 11. But you know, whenever Jesus went to a funeral service, it ends up very different. The dead people don't have a chance around him. And it's the story, a familiar story, one that is shared at many funerals, one that I have shared at many funerals.
And it's going to end up very, very differently than how it begins. It's the funeral service of Jesus' close friend, good friend in life, named Lazarus. He has two sisters, Mary, Martha. Mary, Martha and Lazarus were a close-knit set of siblings who lived in a house close to Jerusalem in a town called Bethany. Now some who have been to Israel go, Bethany, Bethany, I don't think you took us to Bethany, Skip, I wish you would have. Well, when you stand on the Mount of Olives and you look toward Jerusalem, that's where everybody looks, if you were to stop dead in your tracks, sorry to use that dead in your tracks thing, and then turn backwards, do a 180 and look behind you as the Mount of Olives slopes toward the east side down toward the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, just on the other side of the Mount of Olives facing the east would be the little village of Bethany. It was Jesus' home away from home. We know that Jesus' home was in Nazareth and then his next home was in Capernaum, that's where his headquarters was in living with Peter in his house.
But while he was in Jerusalem, he stayed on the Mount of Olives with his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus. They were close friends and Jesus is not there at the time that the death takes place. This miracle sets Jesus apart from everyone else. Now, Jesus has healed other people who were dead. He has raised them from the dead, but they were all different than this.
You go, how different? Once you're dead, you're dead. They were different in this. When he raised the daughter of Jairus, Jairus the ruler of the synagogue up in Galilee, when he raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead, she had just died. When Jesus raised the son of the widow of Nain in Galilee, he had just died because they buried the same day as death.
The funeral service was going on. But by the time Jesus gets to this funeral, he has been in the tomb four days. Decomposition has already set in. There was Martha's complaint when Jesus will say, roll away this stone, and Martha will say, and you really have to read it in the old King James to get the flavor and the punch of it. Martha said, Lord, by now he stinketh.
In other words, that process has set in. It's nasty business to open the tomb. The decomposition has done its work, and there is a mighty stench. So the others, they died, but Lazarus has been dead four days.
This separates anything that could be considered as a parlor trick to something that was legitimate in anybody's eyes. Everybody knew Lazarus has been dead. He's been dead now for four days. Whereas before they could say, well, maybe that child wasn't dead all the way.
Maybe he was just dying around its last breath. But Lazarus, the decomposition process had set in. Now, where we pick up in chapter 11, verse 1, is somewhere between December and April. How do we know this? We know this because the Feast of Dedication, which we read about in the previous chapter, takes place in December. We know that in chapter 12, it will be the Feast of Passover, that is April.
So somewhere between December and April, Lazarus gets sick and he dies. Jesus is down by the Dead Sea, we read last time. In chapter 10, verse 40, he goes back to the place where he had been baptized by John the Baptist. So he's there with his disciples. He's in that place until the Passover, but he will get word about this sick friend of his.
Now, I just want you to grasp something. What chapter are we in? Eleven. How many chapters are there in the Gospel of John? Okay, well, you could turn the page and find that out.
Twenty-one. So we're about halfway in the book, right? The very next chapter, chapter 12, it's already the last week of Jesus' life. So that should give you an indication how the Gospel writers did their work.
Let me frame it for you. If you were to tally up the number of chapters in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, last count that I counted was 89 chapters in those four Gospels, 89 chapters. Of the 89 chapters that present the life and ministry of Jesus, 85 of the 89 are focused on the last three to three and a half years of Jesus' ministry. Of those 85 chapters, 27 deal only with the last eight days of his life.
And the reason for that is quite clear. The whole purpose of the Gospel is to tell you the Gospel. That Jesus died, was buried, and rose again. So you're going to find the Gospel writers focus in on that.
Those are the high points. That's the big stuff, his atonement, his suffering, his death, and his resurrection. So how Jesus spent his child years isn't important to the authors. What is important is what he said and what he did, especially when it comes to his death and his burial and his resurrection. So here we are halfway in the Gospel of John, and John will spend as much time on the last week of Jesus' life as he did on the first 33 years of Jesus' life. That's the focus.
That's the emphasis. So it says in verse 1, Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister, Martha. Let me refresh your memory. The most famous story we have of Martha and Mary comes from Luke chapter 10. It says that Jesus came to their house for dinner, Martha welcomed Jesus in, and it says, Martha was serving while Mary sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word.
Do you remember that story? And it says, Martha was distracted with her much serving, and she came to Jesus with a complaint. She said, Jesus, my sister's just sitting around and I'm doing all the work. She has left all of the serving to me.
Tell her to help me. And you know our Lord responded and said to her, Mary has chosen the better part which will not be taken away from her. Martha, you are distracted and troubled with much serving, and Mary has chosen the better part.
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To give your year-end gift to help meet the $120,000 need, go to connectwithskip.com slash give or call 800-922-1888 and make an investment that will have eternal returns. Now, let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. That is not to say that serving the Lord is wrong and sitting around is better. Some people like that story for that reason.
And you can make anything a proof text in the Bible. In fact, I like Martha. I like the fact that she's on her feet serving the Lord.
I like people who are active serving the Lord. Anybody can pontificate and be an armchair pastor. You know, if I was in charge, I'd do this. Well, there you are sitting on the couch eating your Fritos.
Get up and do something. Armchair quarterbacking happens every week when there's a football game. Stupid player.
When was the last time you tried that run on the football field, buddy? So it's not that Martha's serving was wrong and Mary, what she did was the best apart from serving. I see a combination of both, a balance of both as important. Jesus' point was this. I'm here, Martha. I'm here. And while I'm here, that's where your sister is. She's worshiping me.
She's hearing what I have to say. But if you can strike a balance in your life between serving the Lord and sitting with the Lord and hearing His word, it's a good balance. That's the most famous story. And so they're brought up because that's a point of reference. It was that Mary, verse 2, who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore, the sisters sent to Him saying, Lord, behold, He whom you love is sick. When Jesus heard that, He said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Tragedy has pushed its way into this family. We don't know what it is.
We don't know what the sickness was. But some sickness happened and immediately the girls thought of Jesus. Bring Jesus here. If Jesus were here, He could take care of this.
He would take care of this. And of course, it was awesome to be around Jesus, was it not? Think of all the things Jesus did that blew His disciples away. And so you're always on the winning team when Jesus is there.
I love the story in Galilee. When they were collecting taxes and Peter says, Lord, we have an emergency. They're collecting taxes. We don't have any money to give them. Jesus said, Sure, you do. Go down to the lake, pull out a fish, and the first fish you pick up will have a coin in it. Go pay your taxes with it.
Handy guy to have around, especially around April, tax season. But Jesus is not there. They're distressed. Their answer, go get Jesus.
And notice the basis of their appeal. Lord, the one whom you love is sick. Hey, that's a good model for you when you pray. If you're sick, say, Lord, the one whom you love is sick. Don't you love that?
That's how you ought to view it. The one whom you love, Lord, is sick. We know that John calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. He refers to himself as that. Hear these girls say, The one whom you love is sick. It's not John. This is Lazarus, which gets me to think that Jesus probably often said to people, You know I love you.
You know I love you. And so they refer to him as the one whom you love is sick. So I love the basis of their appeal. It's not, Lord, we who love you or he who loves you is sick. The basis for their appeal is not, Well, you know, Lord, whenever you're in Jerusalem, you do stay at our house quite often, and we do feed you lots of meals. That's a lot of food at our own expense.
We never charge you for a room. And, you know, the gals, they listen to everything you've said and taught. So we think you owe us one.
It's simply, Lord, your property is in danger. The one whom you love is sick. And I love the basis of that appeal.
And it could be that they were surprised. Behold, like, hey, somebody that you love is sick. Now, I want you to notice this, because some of you may be suffering from a wrong theology that says, If Jesus loves me and I love him, I as a Christian believer should never experience sickness. That is a popular teaching.
It has been for years. So here we see it's possible for Jesus to love someone and for that someone that Jesus loves to actually experience physical sickness. It's important that you realize that. Sickness happens to all people, all people. Even faith healers who say, If you have enough faith, you never have to be sick.
Hallelujah. But just follow them and watch them and find out what they die of. Everyone dies of their last disease. There's some condition that the medical record would have as to why that person perished. They didn't just float up to heaven with a smile on their face. Everybody experiences death. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. People that Jesus love, they get sick.
Tragedy happens to them. Jesus heard that, and he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Verse five, Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
Lord, this guy that you love is sick. Well, Jesus loved Lazarus and Martha and Mary, loved them all. Now you notice the word love is used twice. There are two different words here for love. The first word, the word they use in the letter to Jesus to summon him is the word phileo, which means friendship love. The word where John says Jesus loved Lazarus and Martha and Mary is a different word. It's agapao. It's a divine, unconditional, godly, incessant, sacrificial love.
Okay? And that second use of the word love is in the imperfect tense in the Greek language, which means it is unending, it is never ceasing, it is ongoing. So let me translate it for you. They send him a note or a messenger comes.
Lord, your good buddy, your friend, the one that you are fond of in a friendship manner, he is sick. Now, Jesus continually, incessantly loved with a sacrificial deep love Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. Okay? So that's important. Look at verse 6. So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. The word so could be translated therefore.
Now listen to how this sounds. Jesus, with an ongoing, sacrificial, incessant, godlike manner loved these people. Therefore, he didn't come when they called him.
Therefore, he stayed put for two more days. That doesn't make sense to us. We think it ought to read something like, since Jesus loved them so much, he immediately did what they asked and went to the aid of Lazarus to make sure he wouldn't die or get sicker. No, it's because Jesus loved them, his delay is tied to his love for them.
Here's what you need to know. God's delays are not denials. In fact, if you start evaluating a delay from God, first of all, that's a misnomer, there are no delays from God. What you perceive as a delay from God doesn't say anything about his timing, it says a lot about yours. God is never late.
You're early. He's always on time. Peter said the Lord is not slow concerning his promise as some men count slowness. He does things with a perfect timetable. So he loved them in an imperfect tense or an ongoing incessant, unconditional manner.
Therefore, he stayed two more days, stayed where he was. And then after this, he said to his disciples, let us go to Judea again. Wanted to make sure that Lazarus is not just dead but good and dead. Really dead.
Not mostly dead, all dead, right? Mary and Martha are going to get angry when they see Jesus, especially Martha. Mary not so much, I'll show you why, but Martha will. She'll be angry and you'll hear it in her voice.
And here's her mistake and I wonder if it's yours, it's sometimes mine. We have a tendency to interpret the love of God through our circumstances rather than interpreting our circumstances through the love of God. You see what I'm saying? Well, Jesus didn't show up. He must not love me.
No, no, no. He loves you and so he's going to delay. Learn to interpret your circumstances always through the lens of the love of God. God loves you, therefore he's allowed this to happen. Well, why would he allow this to happen? This is bad. Oh, be careful what you assign is bad.
It actually may be good. You don't know the whole story. You don't see the big picture.
They didn't see the big picture. What they wanted was a resuscitation of Lazarus. Jesus wanted a resurrection of Lazarus.
Which do you think is better? Yeah, I mean, which is like super cool? A resuscitation. Well, that'd be awesome because he'd never die. Oh, awesome. But a resurrection.
That's the big picture. We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, if you've been blessed by this ministry and want to bless others with the kind of teaching you've heard today, please consider a generous year-end gift to help meet our financial goal by December 31st. Through your support, you'll help encourage and equip more people with solid biblical teaching that takes them verse by verse through Scripture and connects them with Jesus. To give a tax-deductible year-end gift today, call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash give. For more from Skip, be sure to download the Connect with Skip Heidzig app where you can access messages and more content right at your fingertips. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heidzig. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast your burdens on His word. Make a connection. Connection. Connect with Skip Heidzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.
