You know, we're in a series of messages entitled, People Jesus Met. And today we're going to talk about one of the most famous people Jesus ever met, a fellow named Lazarus in John chapter 11. And you know, Jesus just didn't meet this man. Jesus did a whole lot more for this man than just meet him. We're going to go back and read and see what it was that Jesus did for Lazarus. And then we're going to wind all that forward and we're going to talk about, well, what difference does that make for you and me today? So that's the plan. As I said, John chapter 11 is our passage.
So here we go. Verse 1. Now a man named Lazarus was sick.
He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. So the sister sent word to Jesus, because of course he wasn't in town, saying, Lord, the one you love, Lazarus, is sick. And when Jesus heard this, he said to his disciples, this sickness will not end in death. No, Jesus said, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it. Jesus says to his disciples, hey fellow, you remember how I said in John chapter 9 that the man born blind, that that was so that I could display my glory in healing him? Well, I want you to know that what's happening to Lazarus is happening for the very same reason.
It's going to give me a platform to display my awesome power as the Son of God. Verse 5. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, yet when he learned Lazarus was sick, Jesus stayed where he was for two more days. Now this is a key element in the events of John chapter 11, and I want us all to see this, namely that Jesus made Mary and Martha wait for two days before he responded to their situation. Does everybody see that? Do you see that?
Good. Okay, verse 11. Then Jesus said to his disciples, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, I am going now to wake him up. And the disciples replied, Lord, if he sleeps, he'll get better. Now Jesus had been speaking of Lazarus' death, but his disciples thought Jesus was speaking of natural sleep. So then Jesus told them plainly, verse 14, Lazarus is dead.
And I'm glad for your sakes I was not there so that you may believe, but come on, let's go to him now. Verse 17. And upon their arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, so many Jewish people had come to Martha and Mary to console them in the loss of their brother.
Verse 20. And when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. And Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
But I know that God will give you whatever you ask for, and so implied in that is, so how about asking God if he'll raise my brother from the dead? Now let's stop and take note here that Martha makes a huge theological mistake in what she says in the beginning of this verse. She said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And the mistake that she makes is that Martha assumed that Jesus had to be physically present in order to heal somebody. But folks, we've seen Jesus demonstrate throughout the New Testament that that's not the case.
You remember Luke chapter 7, for example. The centurion had a sick servant, little servant, and he sent a word to Jesus and said, I am not fit for you to come under my roof. Lord, you don't actually need to come here physically, but just speak the word and my servant will be healed. And Jesus spoke the word and the servant was healed, and Jesus never even went to the man's house to see the servant. The point is that Jesus' miracles of healing were not limited by whether Jesus was physically present or not. Friends, if Jesus had wanted to heal Lazarus before Lazarus died, he could have done it from a thousand miles away if he wanted to do it.
He didn't actually need to be in Bethany. Verse 23, and Jesus said to Martha, he said, Martha, your brother shall rise again. And Martha answered, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. And Jesus said to her, Martha, I am the resurrection and the light. Martha had said, remember what she said, she said, Lord, I know God will give you whatever you ask, so please ask him to raise my brother back to life. And Jesus responds here and says, Martha, I don't need to ask God the Father to do this.
I have the power to do this all by myself. John 5 26, Jesus said, for as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. Jesus said, John 5 21, for just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.
See, and this is so important, when it came to the resurrection, Jesus wanted to convert Martha from believing in a doctrine to believing in a person, namely himself, the living risen Lord of life. You know, the other week I was out in the lobby, shaking hands between services, and this individual came up to me and said, Hey, you're Jewish and you believe in Jesus, right? And I said, Yes, I do. And they said, Well, I'd like to know, do you still celebrate Passover? Do you still celebrate the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur and all the other Jewish festivals? And I said, No, I don't.
And I'll tell you why. The reason is because of what the Apostle Paul said in Colossians 2 17. He said these festivals, Yom Kippur, Passover, all of them are a shadow, but the reality is found in Christ. And I turned to this individual and said, You need to understand Jesus Christ is my living Passover. Jesus Christ is my living atonement before God. And friends, I said to him, My friend, why should I celebrate the shadow when I have the reality in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in my life? And let me tell you, the same thing is true of the resurrection.
As followers of Christ, we don't believe in a doctrine of the resurrection. But as followers of Christ, we are joined at the hip with the living resurrection himself. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Huh? He went on to say to Martha, Martha, he who believes in me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. You say, Yalom, what does that mean? Well, friends, it means exactly what Jesus just said it means.
That's what it means. It means that as believers in Jesus, our human bodies may die, but we ourselves, our spirits will never die. Instead, we go immediately to be with the Lord in heaven forever.
This is why Paul said, 2 Corinthians 5, 8, to be absent from the body. Okay, the body dies, but what happens to us? We are present with the Lord. We're not in soul sleep or some other ridiculous place. The Bible says we go right to be with the Lord. We don't die. This is why Paul said, Philippians 1, 23, I desire to depart and be with Christ, because that's what happens to a believer when you leave here. Friends, this is God's mighty promise here in John chapter 11, His promise over death to every true believer in Christ.
If we are living, we shall never die, and even if our body dies, we shall live forever, and God wants us to ride this promise like a surfboard right through the grave and onto the shores of heaven. Hallelujah! I'm telling you, there's a lot of hallelujah in this chapter.
There's a lot of hallelujah here. Verse 26, Do you believe this? Jesus said to Martha. Yes, Lord, she said, I believe you are the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world. Now Martha's right.
Now she's where she needs to be. She's not believing in some doctrine of the resurrection. Now she's believing in the person of the living resurrection, the living day of atonement, the living Passover, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where Jesus wanted to get her, and that's where He got her. Well, verse 28, After Martha had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside and said, The teacher is here and is asking for you. And 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.
Does that sound familiar? Well, yeah. Do you think Mary and Martha had been talking about this?
Well, yeah. And when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jewish people who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in His spirit and troubled. And He asked, Where have you laid Him? And they replied, Come and see, Lord. Verse 35, Then Jesus wept. And the Jewish people said, Look how He loved Him.
How could this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, how come this man couldn't keep his friend that he loved so much from dying? And Jesus once more, verse 30, a deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone across the entrance. Verse 39, Jesus said, Take away the stone.
But Lord, said Martha, by this time there will be a bad odor, for He has been in there in the tomb four days. Jesus said to her, Martha, didn't I say to you that if you believe you will see the glory of God? Now girl, roll away that stone.
So they removed the stone. Then Jesus looked up at heaven and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard Me. And I know 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. And when He had said this, Jesus called out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. Then the dead man came out. Hallelujah.
Hallelujah. His hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and with a cloth around His face. And Jesus said to the people there, Unbind Him and let Him go. Therefore, many of the Jewish people who had come to visit Mary and who beheld what Jesus had done believed in Him. Well, I guess so.
I guess so. But some of them went to the rabbis and told the rabbis what Jesus had done. Therefore, the chief priests and the rabbis convened a meeting and said, What are we accomplishing? This man is performing many miracles. If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him. Well, wouldn't that be wonderful?
Huh? And then the Romans will come and take away our position and our nation. So from that day on, verse 53, the rabbis plotted to take Jesus' life. And just for the sake of completion, John chapter 12 verse 10 says, The chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well for, on account of him, many Jewish people were going over to Jesus and believing in Him. So friends, did Jesus turn Lazarus' death into glory for Himself like He said He was going to do at the beginning of this chapter? Did He do it?
You bet your life He did. You bet your life. Well, that's as far as we go in the passage because we're going to stop now and we're going to ask our most important question. So is everybody prepared? Mm-hmm. Okay.
Well, that did inspire me with great confidence, but it's okay. So all of you out there on the Internet, I hope you're ready. Let's all take a deep breath. Here we go.
One, two, three. Oh, yes. You say, Lon. What a great story.
What an amazing event. But you know, honestly, I'm not sure I see how all of this relates to my everyday life tomorrow. So can you help with that? Oh, certainly we can. Remember we said a little while earlier that a key element in the events of John chapter 11 is that Jesus made Mary and Martha wait for two days before responding to their situation and coming to Bethany. And you know, Mary and Martha were both pretty unhappy about it. Let me read you what they said. You remember what they said to Him when they went out to meet Him? But let me give you the emphasis that I think was really on this when they said it.
Martha said to Him, Lord, if You would have been here, my brother would not have died. Lord, I think that's exactly how she said it. And I think that's how Mary said it too. Now what exactly were Martha and Mary saying by saying it that way? Well, they were saying two things. Number one, they were saying, Lord, You are late. Where have You been?
You're late. Number two, they were accusing Him and saying to Him, Lord, You messed everything up. We had this perfectly planned out, Lord.
Lazarus was sick. We send You a message. You come to town.
You heal him. The plan was perfect. You messed the whole thing up because You're late, Lord.
You're late. And the reason they were so upset is because He didn't do what they wanted Him to do when they wanted Him to do it. Now friends, this is not just a problem that Mary and Martha have.
This is a problem Lon Solomon has. I know in virtually every situation in my life exactly what I want God to do. And I also know in almost every situation exactly how I want God to do it. And I always know when I want God to do it, which is right now. Not tomorrow or the next day. Right now.
That's when I want it. And you know, just like Mary and Martha, God often delays and makes me wait and it drives me crazy. Can any of you relate to that? Amen. All right.
Well, you say, Yeah, Lon, I can relate. So my question is this. First of all, why didn't Jesus immediately go to Bethany and heal Lazarus? And far more important, why doesn't God immediately step in and solve my problems when I ask Him to do that? Well friends, the answer is found in Isaiah 55 verse 8. Here's what God says. He says, My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways. And I would like to add, neither is your timing My timing, says the Lord. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, says God, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.
And may I add, My timing, God says, higher than your timing. You see, friends, the reason God delayed in coming to Bethany was because with God, timing is everything. Jesus didn't want to get to Bethany while Lazarus was still alive and just heal him. Jesus wanted to get to Bethany when Lazarus was stone cold smelling in the tomb dead and raise him from the dead because he got maximum glory from doing it the second way.
Hey, to come to town and heal somebody that's sick, well, that's glorious. To come to town and raise somebody who's been in the tomb for four days dead, well, now you're talking maximum glory, maximum glory. And this is the lesson that we need to learn as followers of Christ from this passage from John 11. Listen, for God to get maximum glory from our lives, our lives must run on His timing, not on our timing. And this means that often we must be willing to wait for God's perfect timing to mature in our lives. Hey, God tells us this over and over and over in the Word of God. Psalm 27 verse 14, King David said, wait on the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait on the Lord. Psalm 37 verse 7, David says, rest in the Lord and wait, what's the next word, say it with me, patiently for Him.
Wait patiently for Him. Now there is an un-American word, patiently. We don't have patience about anything in America.
We have instant oatmeal, instant grits, instant cream of wheat, instant iced tea. We don't want to wait for anything in America. This is an un-American word. And yet it's a very biblical word. Hey, how about Psalm 130 verse 5, David says, I wait for the Lord and in His word, while I'm waiting, I do hope. And finally, God's promise, Isaiah 49 verse 23, those who wait on me, God says, shall never be put to shame. You know, folks, we need to remember God is never early. Now that's really sad because we all want Him to be early, you know. But did you notice none of these verses we read, none of them said, catch up with God because He came through and you missed Him.
Did you notice that? God doesn't come through and you miss Him. We don't have to catch up with Him. And let me say on the other hand that God's never late. Mary thought He was late.
Martha thought He was late. We often think He's late. Friends, God is never late. And when you accuse Him of being late, you are impugning Him for no good reason. He's never late. Friends, God is always right on schedule.
His schedule and He's always right on time, His time. Now the Bible is full of examples of this. How about Moses and the Israelites at the Red Sea? I'm sure when they were trapped there against the Red Sea and all of a sudden Pharaoh's chariot showed up and got ready to swoop down on them and wipe them out. You know what this looked like.
You saw the movie. I'm sure Moses and the Israelites said, Oh my gosh, God is late. Where is God? But friends, God showed up right on schedule, didn't He? Listen, I want you to think about this. God wanted to destroy all those chariots of Pharaoh.
Why? So that they couldn't follow the Israelites across the Red Sea and chase them in the Sinai and kill them and recapture them. But listen, if God had opened the Red Sea the first moment Moses and the Israelites got there, Pharaoh's chariots weren't there yet. So we had to wait. Moses did. Until everything was perfectly set up. So when God closed the Red Sea, He didn't close it on mud.
He closed it on the chariots of Pharaoh. God wasn't late. God was right on schedule, friends. And I think of David. You know, King Saul chased him around seven years in the wilderness. And I'm sure David thought God was late in rescuing him.
But after God removed King Saul without David raising even a little finger against him, which enabled David to consolidate his kingship over Israel, without a bloody civil war, David realized that God was right on schedule. And I think of Ruth and Naomi when they wandered back into Bethlehem as destitute widows. I'm sure they both thought that God had been late for them. But hey, hey, hey, then came Boaz. And Boaz was right on schedule, my friends, for Ruth. And he married her. And Ruth became the great, great grandmother of King David. And the great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother of the Lord Jesus Christ. Was God late for Ruth?
No, no. He was right on schedule. And finally, Mordecai. Man, when Haman started building those gallows for him, and Haman went to the king of Persia and got permission to wipe out all the Jews in the Persian Empire, I'm sure Mordecai looked around and said, God, you're late. Where are you?
What are you doing? But hey, Esther went to see the king just right on schedule. And it all worked out. Now, can we be honest for a minute here? And can we admit that just like Moses, and just like David, and just like Ruth, and just like Naomi, and just like Mordecai, and just like Mary, and just like Martha, as followers of Christ, every one of us struggle with this conflict between God's timing and our timing.
Hey, you know what? Many of us plan to be married at this point in our life. But in God's timing, we're not.
Many of us plan to have a new job or get that promotion. But in God's timing, we didn't get it. Many of us plan to be financially secure by this point in our life. But in God's timing, the economy tanked and we're not. Many of us plan to have a household full of children running around by this point in our life. But in God's timing, we don't.
Many of us plan to go to a certain college or to make a certain ball team or make a certain cheerleading squad or to have our career a lot farther along than it is. But in God's timing, it's not. So, as followers of Jesus, what do we do with this? Well, friends, we go to the Bible. And the Bible tells us, Proverbs 16, 9, the mind of man plans his way. I don't know about you, but I do this.
I'm good at this. I've got my whole way planned exactly the way I want it. But the Lord directs his steps. By the way, the Lord directs the plan too.
Amen. And friends, true men and women of God believe this verse. True men and women of God believe that God has better ways of getting us where we need to be, when we need to be there, than we could ever plan, than we could ever dream up ourselves.
And therefore, true men and women of God have no problem waiting on the Lord, even if they have to wait for years, because they are totally confident. Listen, that not only is God's will for their life perfect, but also God's timing for their life is perfect. And that's why so often the question we need to ask is not just, have I discerned God's will for this situation? We must also ask, have I discerned God's timing for this situation? Because friends, we can get God's will correct, and if we mess up God's timing, we will still make a mess out of the situation. You say, all right, Lon, I'm with you.
I got it, but I got a question. And my question is, how do I know when God's asking me to wait on Him? How do I know when God's saying, act? And how do I know when God's saying, you need to wait?
Well, good question. Friends, there are three tools that God uses, or a combination of them, to tell us to wait. Number one, tool number one are circumstances, like when you don't get that promotion, we don't get that new job, like when we don't get in to that college, like when we're not able to get pregnant. Hey, and when God uses circumstances to tell us to wait on Him, if we want God's best, if we want God's finest, it is critical that we submit to God, and it is critical that we resist the temptation to run out in the energy of the flesh and take matters in our own hands. We wait.
Number two, the second tool God uses to tell us to wait is people in authority over us. It could be our boss. It could be our parents. It could be our husband. It could be some government authority.
It could be someone else telling us no. You know, that's where I am with the Uptown Theater. You guys know that I am passionate about opening a campus from Acclaim Bible Church down at the Uptown Theater, but when the Acting Zoning Director of Washington, D.C. a couple of years ago said no, I had to accept that as God's timing being not yet. Now, I haven't given up on the Uptown Theater.
I want you to know that. I am still waiting on God for the Uptown Theater, and I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I believe in my spirit. One day, Acclaim Bible Church is going to be meeting at the Uptown Theater, but it needs to be on God's timing, not on Lon's timing.
Amen? And so we wait. We wait. The third thing that God uses to tell us we need to wait is His own communication directly to our heart. And most often, this is the way He tells us. Psalm 32, verse 8. God says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and guide you. You say, well, where does all that happen?
Friends, it happens on our knees. And you say, well, exactly what does it sound like? I mean, exactly how does God tell me all of this? Friends, I can't answer that for you because God communicates uniquely to every unique individual. The way He communicates to me is not the way He's going to communicate to you. And that's why we urge you to be in quiet time. That's why we urge you to study the Bible and read the Bible and memorize the Bible and be in prayer and seek the face of the Lord so that you grow in your intimacy and your relationship with God and you begin to learn how God speaks to you so that you can hear Him say it's time to move or so that you can hear Him say, uh-uh, it's time to wait.
So let's conclude. When God made Mary and Martha wait for Him to come to Bethany, folks, it wasn't because He had forgotten about them. He hadn't forgotten about them. And it wasn't because He was uncaring about their need or insensitive to what their prayer was.
No. It was because He was setting everything up so that, Ephesians 3.20, He could do for them something exceedingly, abundantly beyond all that they asked. What did they ask for? They asked, please come heal our brother. What did Jesus do?
He did something exceedingly, abundantly beyond what they asked. He raised the man from the dead. And by the same token, if you're a follower of Christ here today and God has told you right now to wait on Him in some area of your life, God wants you to know that He has not forgotten about you any more than He forgot about Mary and Martha. God is not insensitive or uncaring about the need that you're praying about any more than He was with Mary and Martha. God is making you wait for the same reason He made Mary and Martha wait so that He can get every detail into perfect alignment to give you His maximum blessing. And so let me leave you with David's great advice. He said, Psalm 27.14, wait on the Lord. Be strong.
Let your heart take courage. Friends, waiting on the Lord is not a wimpy thing. You can be strong while you're waiting on the Lord. You can be courageous in your waiting on the Lord. Wait on the Lord, David said patiently. And how can we be strong and courageous as we wait on the Lord? Well, because we got a promise.
We read it earlier. Isaiah 49.23, those who wait on me, God says, they shall never be put to shame. Man, you grab a hold of that verse, hold on to it, and while you're waiting on the Lord, what did David say? I hope in His Word. I got to tell you as your pastor today, I take heart in God challenging me to rely on His mighty wisdom for my life instead of trying to run my life my way. And folks, I hope you'll take great comfort in God challenging you today to rely on His wisdom in your life and His timing in your life.
So here's a question for we could talk about with friends over lunch or that we could think about on our own. And that is, where is the Lord asking me, or if you're talking to friends, where is the Lord asking you to wait on His timing instead of our own? Where is that in my life? And once you identify that, I guess the follow-up question is, am I willing to obey God and do it?
Friends, I believe the toughest spiritual discipline of all, Bible study, prayer, witnessing, seeking the Lord, fasting, memorizing Scripture, the toughest of them all is waiting on the Lord. Why? Because we're Americans.
That's why. And we don't like to wait on anything. But you see friends, our goal is not to be American Christians.
Our goal is to be Biblical Christians. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, as I just said, waiting on you is hard, really hard. And the longer we wait, the tougher it is. So Lord Jesus, my prayer is that you would encourage our hearts today and make us Biblical Christians who if you say wait, we are willing to wait for weeks, for months, for years, for decades, we wait as long as you say wait. And Lord Jesus, remind us that you haven't forgotten about us, but that Lord, your timing is perfect and we must, if we want your best, we must wait for your timing. And so for those people here today who are waiting and they've been waiting and it's hard, God encourage their hearts today with the Word of God and make us men and women who are willing to act with courage when you say act. But make us men and women of God who are willing to wait with courage when you say wait. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And what did God's people say? Amen. What did you say? Amen. Amen.
