The Exclusivity of Jesus, Part 8

Welcome to Leading the Way with Bible Teacher, Dr. Michael Yousef. You've probably heard the often used quote, Nothing is certain in this life except for death and taxes.

Words of inevitability that have brought fear to many. Thank you for making time in your day for the Bible teaching of Dr. Michael Yousef. Up next, Dr. Yousef guides you to a deeper understanding of the words of Jesus when he said, I am the resurrection and the life. This is a message of comfort and hope for Martha when she was experiencing fear at the death of her brother Lazarus. These words are also for you today.

So if your schedule allows, please keep listening for a dose of comfort and hope in a world overflowing with death. Listen along with me as Dr. Michael Yousef continues his life-changing series, The Exclusivity of Jesus, on this episode of Leading the Way Audio. Now I want you to turn with me please to this incredible chapter of John 11. In John 11, you find the entire atmosphere in this little town.

It's really not a very big town, a couple of miles outside of Jerusalem, Bethany. It was filled with death and decay and distress. A friend of Jesus by the name of Lazarus dies and was buried for four days.

His family and friends were in a state of shock and sorrow. Obviously, he was a young man because when the Bible mentioned a person first, that's the oldest, Martha, and he must have been the youngest in the family. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. But what happened before that day is of utmost importance, don't miss it. Several days before Lazarus died, Jesus was ministering in another town.

We don't know how far away it was, but it was a different town. And he gets the word that Lazarus was sick and dying. Soon after that came the word that your friend Lazarus died. Jesus says to the disciples, that's another one you don't want to miss.

He says to the disciples, Lazarus has fallen asleep. Think about this. Why is this so significant? The word sleep is of utmost importance.

You say, all of these things. Because that is new teaching. It does not exist in the Old Testament. It is not something that these Jewish disciples ever comprehended. They never understood this. In fact, they did not even understand what the term sleep means until after the resurrection of Jesus. You say, what's big about that?

I'm glad you asked. Lots of people fall asleep, right? But the reason why the disciples were really puzzled, because they did not understand how can he refer to Lazarus' death as sleep? As I said, only after the resurrection they began to comprehend it. For the Bible tells us that when the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, when he or she dies, it is just going to sleep. But when Jesus died, he died.

He did not fall asleep. He died and was buried. Only Jesus died so that the believer can only go to sleep.

Because he died our death. This is not just wishful thinking or denial of reality as those outside of Christ would accuse us of. It was like that secular, non-Christian man who was walking around in a cemetery and looking at some of the tombstones. And he saw a tombstone that read, obviously a believer in Jesus, it read as follows, not dead but sleep. And this non-believer shook his head and he said, man, you're not fooling anyone but yourself. That's how the secular world thinks. This is how the non-believing world thinks. Only those who know and love Jesus understand this amazing, this magnificent word, sleep.

Sleep. Jesus died so that we may only sleep. And when they comprehended that for the believer, death is only a sleep, they were happily dying for Christ. They considered it privileged to suffer and die for Christ. Only when they comprehended that amazing New Testament teaching. For the believer, death is a temporary separation.

For the believer, death is not permanent. When Jesus said Lazarus had fallen asleep and we're going to Bethany, I love Thomas. Don't ever call him doubting Thomas. He really is not. In my estimation, he's honest Thomas. And I thank God for him.

I really do. He heard the term Bethany and he got the tremors. Bethany, Bethany, Bethany, we're going to Bethany. It's a suburb of Jerusalem, right? Bethany, it's a couple of miles away.

And Jerusalem is where all the bad guys are who want to kill Jesus and who want to kill us. And he said, boys, we're dead. We're dead.

So what does he do? He said, it's all over. What does Jesus say? He decided to stay where he was, put for four days. Four more days after he got a word that Lazarus died. Four more days.

Why? Why four days? Why did he deliberately and specifically waited for four days?

Because there was an erroneous false teaching or erroneous teaching among some of the Jewish rabbis. It's really what we will call superstition today. It was erroneous teaching that says that when a person dies, the spirit hovers around for three days and then it leaves. So Jesus deliberately decided to wait for four days. So there'll be no doubt in anyone's mind, even those superstitious people, that this is a resurrection.

As I said, the Old Testament, there is nothing in the Old Testament remotely teaches stuff, that superstitious stuff. But our Lord in his infinite wisdom and his infinite patience, he waited until everyone knew that Lazarus really, really, really died. On his way to Bethany when he came into town, remember this is very small villages. He comes in the main road and the word goes to Mary and Martha and said, hey, Jesus is here.

Jesus is coming to see you. Martha, consistent with her temperament, consistent with her personality, she leaves the mourners and runs to meet Jesus on the road before he came to the house. I know psychologists will have an interesting analysis about this and probably say, well, these two sisters have just lived up to their birth order. Martha being the oldest, like first born, was a woman of action. She was a task oriented. She gets things done.

She organizes everybody and if she doesn't do it, nobody's going to do it. So Martha runs into the streets to meet Jesus as he was coming in and says to him, here's a use of paraphrasing, Lord, I wish you were here, you would have healed my brother. What is she saying? She believed that Jesus could heal the sick but not raise the dead. That's what she was saying.

You say, Michael, how did you get this? Well, look at verse 23. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again.

What was her reaction? Look at verse 24. I know that. I know he will rise in the last day. I know he will rise in the resurrection day. Like a good Pharisee, she believed in the resurrection.

The Sadducees didn't. How many times have you prayed for something specific and God did not answer the way you wanted or the way you expected? How many of you, don't raise your hand, who got angry with God when he did not answer the way you asked? How many of you here who are angry with God now to make it easier for you? I've done it.

I've been there. The times when I prayed urgently, the times when I prayed earnestly for something important, important to me but I also thought that was important to the kingdom. But the Lord did not answer it the way I wanted him to answer it and when I wanted him to answer. And yet, in his timing, listen to me, he gave me something far, far, far, far better and greater than I would have hoped for. I am grateful to the Lord to be here to testify. I don't take the fact that the Lord spurned me for this long for granted every single day. But I'm grateful that I could stand here today to testify to you about the Lord's goodness. Lazarus rising from the dead was the last thing on Martha's mind.

She did not comprehend that. And that's why my prayer life now is really transformed because of the experiences I've had with the Lord and I'm very careful how to pray. I want to plead with you. Listen to me carefully please. I want to plead with you. Do not live between the past and the future and miss out on today's blessing.

Please. Martha was thinking that in the past, had he come, her brother would have been healed. And she was thinking of the future when the day of the resurrection that he will rise like everybody else.

Listen, I believe with all my heart this is one of the lessons that our Lord was impressing on Martha. And that is why he tried to change her focus. He tried to change, and I believe he wants to change the focus of everyone at the sound of my voice.

Change it away from the fixation of the long range program, namely in the future with the day of resurrection. And from the past had he come to the person of Jesus. He was trying to shift her focus to who he is. He was trying to shift her focus on the exclusivity of Jesus himself. The exclusivity of Jesus is what most on his mind to get Martha to shift her thoughts from that to him. To focus on the mighty power of Jesus now.

Her level of faith was that Jesus could have healed in the past or he will raise the dead in the future. But I'm not really sure about the now. I'm not sure about now. And I'm no stranger to this, but I know that so many people often focus on my current pain, my current suffering, my current grief, my current sorrow, my current fear, my current hopelessness, my current confusion, my current uncertainty, and my current doubt. Have you ever been there?

I have. And that is why our precious Lord Jesus, ever so gently, ever so gently, he shifts her focus from the trap of finding herself caught between the past and the future. And Jesus gives her the greatest of the greatest of the greatest of the greatest of the greatest of I am's. He shifts her focus from everything else, from anywhere else, to where?

Himself. I plead with you, I really do. Please, please, please, don't make the object of your prayer to be your only focus. Say, Michael, have you lost your mind?

Have you lost your mind? What do you mean I don't let my object of my prayer to be my focus? What am I praying for? I'm praying specifically for this. I'm praying for that. How can I not make it to be the focus? Are you telling me not to make the object of my prayer to be my focus?

Yes! And that's precisely what we are praying for. Go easy on me.

Go easy on me. When Jesus shifted Martha's focus from her need to focus on Jesus, to focus on who he is, to focus on who the Bible said he is. Oh beloved, that's when the miracle began to happen. That's when the miracle began to happen. You start focusing on Jesus.

When you focus on Jesus, the miracle begins to happen. Can I get an amen? I am.

I am. I am the resurrection and the life. And he who believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? I'll have to do it again. It was Jesus asking Martha, but I can do it again with you. Do you believe this?

Yes! Praise God. Martha, focus on who Jesus is. Focus on his amazing love. Focus on his incredible grace.

Focus on his inexhaustible mercy. Why am I saying this? Because twice in this passage, twice in this passage. I'm not giving you my opinion or my ideas. I'm telling you what the scripture said.

Twice. He who believes in me. He who believes in me. It's all about me.

Jesus is saying. He who believes in me. Not he who believes in what I can do for them. Not he who believes in what they can get out of me. No.

He who believes I'm a sugar daddy to whom we run when we want something and then ignore him for the rest of the time. No. Or not he who thinks that I'm a Santa Claus in the sky who's looking down and seeing who's nice and who's naughty.

Oh my goodness. He who believes in me say it with me. Oh beloved, when Jesus is the focus, when Jesus is the object of prayer, when Jesus is the center, when Jesus is first and foremost, then you will discover that everything, everything, everything that he does for you is what we say in the colloquial language, the icing on the cake.

Are you with me? I know in this modern day, this is hard word to accept, but let me tell you, until the Lord takes me home or cease to stand in this pulpit, I will preach the word. I will only preach the word. And once Martha's focus shifted, once Martha's focus shifted, she was able to make this magnificent declaration.

Let's look at it. Verse 27, underline it in your Bible. Yes, Lord. Can you say yes, Lord? She told him, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who was coming to the world.

Praise God. She's got it. She's got it. Look at her confession just a little closely. Okay. It's a threefold confession of shifting.

Now that we know the focus has shifted. Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the son of God who is to come into the world. Yes, Lord. You are the Christ, the promised Messiah. Yes, Lord. You are the divine son of God. Yes, Lord.

You are the one that all the prophets for a thousand years have prophesied about coming. What is she saying? She's saying, yes, Lord. Now my focus is on the one who is the great I am. Yes, Lord.

Now my full trust is the one who is the great I am. Yes, Lord. Now I am the I am. This one, the I am, is the object of my faith and my worship. Yes, Lord. Now the I am is the center of my universe.

Yes, Lord. The I am is whom I live and die for. Don't clap for me. Clap for the Lord if you want to, but give him glory.

All right. After this short introduction, now I'll get to the message. By the way, when Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life, he was declaring his exclusivity in regard to a very, very, very important contemporary item, contemporary situation in which we live. Because I can tell you, it is pure ignorance. It's pure arrogance that some false teachers and some church leaders say that all the founders of the religions, of all religions are all the same, or that all religions will lead to the same place.

It's pure arrogance, pure ignorance too. Why do I say this with passion? Because none of those guys who founded this religion, none of them claim to be the resurrection and the life. Only Jesus did. Let's look at Jesus' exclusivity as the resurrection and the life.

Three things I want you to think with me very quickly. First, Christ is the only creator of this physical life of our body. He's the one created us physically. Secondly, only Christ is the re-creator of our spirits, our spiritual life. And thirdly, only Christ, the guarantor who can guarantee our eternal life in heaven.

Let's look at this very quickly. Christ is the creator of our physical life. God is the one who makes babies in the mother's womb. Acts 17, 25 says he gives all mankind life and breath and everything else. Secondly, he's the only one who can recreate our dead spirits. All of us were born with dead spirits on the inside of us.

He's the only one who can cause us to be born again. In John 10, 10 Jesus said, I came that they might have life and have it to the full. The full life can only be experienced when you are spiritually reborn.

Listen to me. When we're physically born, we're born alive, but spiritually dead. And God had to breathe into the nostril of every repentant sinner a new life in the spirit.

We're all born spiritually stinking, worse than Lazarus' grave. And Jesus breathed his Holy Spirit into our spiritual nostrils and he raised us from our spiritual death. Christ is the only one who can give us the physical life. Christ is the only one who can give us rebirth and spiritual life. And thirdly, Christ is the only one who guarantees our eternal life in heaven. Listen to me. When Jesus said, I am the resurrection, that word literally means I am the one and the only one who can cause you to stand, cause you to stand up.

How does this happen? Well, Ephesians 2 11 says that we're all born dead in our transgressions and sin. We are spiritually horizontal, flat on our back, but he caused us to be vertical, to spiritually rise and stand up. You see, God said to Adam, the moment you disobey me, you'll be dead spiritually. And Adam did and Eve spiritually died. They physically were alive. They physically were still kicking, but spiritually died. And you and I and every person in the world inherited their DNA, inherited their genes, inherited their death, their spiritual death. And that is why David could say in Psalm 51 5, I was sinful by birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. And that's why Jesus said to Martha, whoever believes in me, whoever believes in me shall not die, shall not die, shall not die.

Or to be sure, physically we'll fall asleep, but spiritually we'll live forever. Because Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. And he raised Lazarus from the dead. And then few days later, he himself rose from the dead, never to die again. We can be absolutely certain that when we leave these shores, we'll be more alive than we ever have been before. Thank you for joining Dr. Michael Youssef for this episode of Leading the Way. Have you turned to Jesus who has conquered death?

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