John 11:1-45 - Jesus’ Purposes In Bad Times

Main Idea: Accept that Jesus will never do everything you want, but He’ll give you everything you need.

GOD ALLOWS DEATH SO THAT HE WILL BE GLORIFIED THROUGH RESURRECTION

- He is glorified as the Giver of new life.

- He is glorified as the Victor over death.

- He is glorified as the Rescuer of families.

GOD ALLOWS DELAYS BECAUSE HE LOVES US ENOUGH TO GIVE US HIS BEST

- His best means you experience salvation & new life.

- His best means you see God do the impossible for you.

- His best means people learn about Jesus.

GOD ALLOWS DISAPPOINTMENT SO WE’LL TRUST IN HIM ALONE

- We learn He’s better than people.

- We learn He’s better than circumstance.

- We learn He’s better than our emotions.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

But we are resuming our study in the Gospel of John. We started this study back in 2024, and we looked at John chapters one through four at a series called The Word Became Flesh.

And then last year, we spent 10 or 11 weeks in a study of John five through 10, looking at the series Pick A Side. And the Gospel of John was the last Gospel account that was written.

It was the last written accounting of Jesus' life and ministry while he was here on this earth. And it was written from the perspective of an old man who had been a young man back in the time of Jesus, that he was one of Jesus' disciples, John.

And, but now when John wrote this Gospel, he was an old man who had lived for decades in the churches all across the Roman Empire, being persecuted, exiled, beaten, and hunted for his faith.

His message, however, in his Gospel was not, hunt down the unbelievers, or if you follow Jesus, your life will be awful.

Instead, he writes this Gospel account in his words, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.

We saw in John 1-4, that Jesus truly was the Son of God, the eternal Word who made all things, who became flesh and blood 2,000 years ago, and lived among us.

We saw that people didn't understand Jesus' message, and they thought he was concerned with just physical things, like the temple that was there, or water, bread, or human birth, rather than his true message, which was about our souls and the thing

that will last forever, our relationship with God. We saw in John 5-10 that Jesus made it clear what he came here for, and what he did not come here for. Some people wanted Jesus just to give an endless supply of food.

Some people wanted him to perfectly obey their religious preferences. Still other people wanted him to overthrow the government of his time.

But Jesus came simply to declare God's kingdom, and our need of forgiveness through belief and repentance in his righteousness alone.

This caused many people to reject Jesus, including in John 5 and John 10, people attempting to stone Jesus to death in Jerusalem. They were mad that he did not fall in line with what they wanted, and so they were actively trying to kill him.

This brings us to our new series in John 11 through 13, A Rejected Savior. Jesus was rejected by the political leaders of his own day, by the religious leaders, by many of the normal people of his time, and even by some of his own disciples.

What we'll discover over these next six weeks is that our God does not do what we want, but he accomplishes everything that we truly need.

And also in this series, we'll see how to deal with rejection in our own lives, by seeing how Jesus dealt with rejection in his life. Today we are in John 11, verses 1 through 45, and the title of the sermon today is Jesus' Purposes for Bad Times.

Jesus' Purposes for Bad Times. All of us go through difficulties in our lives. Sometimes it's a financial struggle, sometimes it's a health struggle, sometimes it's a struggle in a relationship.

Other times it might be just needing provision. Sometimes it's even within our own mental health that we just find ourselves in difficult moments.

And what I want us to see from this account of scripture is that Jesus knows the hardships that you are going through better than anyone else.

And he cares about them, and he has a purpose for them, that there is no difficulty through which you will walk in your life that God does not have a distinct purpose for.

Now, as I mentioned, the problem comes because he doesn't always do what we want. He does what we truly need in our souls. So we're going to see that as we look at our passage for today.

But there's this main thought that I want you to see. It's there on your sermon handout in your bulletin for today. But I want you today to accept that Jesus will never do everything you want, but he'll give you everything that you need.

He'll never do everything you want, but he will give you everything that you need. Let's pray together. We'll dive in to the passage, and I'll try to preach Bryon's shortest sermon.

Dear Lord, thank you for today. God, you are good to us, and Lord, we don't always see it that way. We're so focused on the here and now, we do not see your eternal perspective.

So God, today as we look at your word, may you make it clear to us that you do love us, that your plans for us are for our good and for your glory, even when we can't see it. Lord, we love you.

We pray that you would be glorified even during this time in your word. We love you and pray this in your name. Amen.

5:29

Lazarus Raised from Death

I'm going to read through the passage. I'm not going to spend much time exegeting this for you. If you have any questions, I am a pastor.

I am paid full time to have you pester with as many questions as you want. And I would love to talk about this passage. There's a reason I cannot exegete everything today.

It's because we would be here till like five o'clock. It is an amazing, amazing portion of scripture. But the word says this.

Now, a man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This is right on the heels of people trying to stone Jesus to death. So this seems like an odd now statement.

People get sick all the time. What's special about this guy? Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair.

And it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. We're actually not going to learn this story until John chapter 12.

So John's put in the cart before the horse a little bit, but he wants to say this is a family that gives selflessly of themselves for Jesus. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, Lord, the one you love is sick.

What a treasure that we can be those beloved by God. God is not indifferent to you. He loves you.

When Jesus heard it, he said this sickness will not end in death, but is for the glory of God, so that the son of God may be glorified through it. Now, Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. So what do you guys think?

It says Jesus loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. What do you think is going to be the action that he takes? Lazarus is sick.

He loves them. So what do you think the immediate action he's going to do is? Shout it out.

Yeah, you're going to go to her, you're going to heal her. So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. Then after that, he said to the disciples, let's go to Judea again.

Rabbi, that's teacher in Aramaic. Teacher, the disciples told him, just now the Jews tried to stone you and you're going there again? Bethany is like two miles from Jerusalem.

It's very short distance to go. Aren't there 12 hours in a day, Jesus answered. Think 12 hours, 12 disciples that he's got with him.

If anyone walks during the day, he doesn't stumble because he sees the light of this world. In John 10, you guys might not remember it because it was many months ago. Who is the light of the world?

Jesus. So he says, Jesus is the light that needs to go into the darkness. And he says, right now, you've got me.

He says, but if anyone walks during the night, he does stumble because the light is not in him. He said this and then he told them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I'm on my way to wake him up.

I know we've got some people that are very familiar with medical things. When someone is sleeping, someone that was sick, do you go and you wake them up? No, let him sleep.

Then the disciples said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well. I love here. He says, they say Lord, that's the term master.

But they're not treating him like he's in charge. They're like, I don't know if you knew this, God made flesh. But if he's sleeping, he's fine.

Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought he was speaking about natural sleep. So Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. And then he says, I'm, what's that word?

I'm glad for you, that I wasn't there so that you may believe. But let's go to him. Then Thomas, called Twin, said to his fellow disciples, let's go to them so that we may die with him.

This is the reason that Thomas gets named doubting Thomas. It's just a total Debbie Downer. When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

Bethany was near Jerusalem, less than two miles away. So John here is letting you know, you know, Jesus is in the danger zone. Everyone just started thinking of, what is it, Top Gun Maverick?

Yeah, yeah. Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house.

Then Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. This is another one of those things in the passage where she's saying, master, and then she goes, why didn't you do what I told you to do?

It's her assuming the role of master and demanding things of him. But she says, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. Yet even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.

I think it's interesting here. She parses out a difference between Jesus and God. She says, Jesus, you have to physically be here in order for some miracle to take place.

But I think that God can even now raise Lazarus from the dead. You can't do it, but God can. But you're closer to God than I am.

And so I'm going to ask you to ask God. It's kind of like when we were kids, I think I mentioned this before. My brother Sammy is like eight years younger than me.

And so whenever we wanted something, we had Sammy ask my mom, because he was way cuter than we were. And so here, this is what Martha is doing. She's using Jesus as a tool to try and get what she wants from God.

She's not surrendering to Jesus' will. She's not asking, why did you delay? She's saying, you need to accomplish what I want you to.

I'm going to use you as a tool to get my brother alive. So she says, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give to you. And Jesus tells her, your brother will rise again.

This was something that was mentioned in Daniel 12 and in the Book of Job. The Jewish people at this time believed in the resurrection at the end of time that people would be raised.

And so Jesus says, all right, you want God to raise your brother from the dead? He's going to rise again. God's already told you he's going to do that.

Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. There's kind of an unspoken question here, but what about today? Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Jesus says, what you need is not a undead brother. What you need is me.

And then he says, everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? Now, I want to just put it out on the table here.

This never dying is your soul, always living with the Lord. There is resurrection that is promised to us when Jesus comes again and our soul will ever be with the Lord, as we're told in scripture.

This is not saying you are immortal if you believe in Jesus. Don't test that out. It will not go well for you.

Here, Jesus is not talking about the physical. He's talking about the spiritual. Martha's response to Jesus' question, do you believe this, that Jesus is the resurrection and the life?

Yes, Lord, she told him. I believe you are the Messiah, the son of God who comes into the world. Here, now, now it clicked for her.

Okay, this is God. This isn't just some prophet. This isn't just some, you know, amazing human.

This is God himself who came into the world. Having said this, she went back and called her sister Martha, saying in private, the teacher is here and is calling for you. As soon as Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.

Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw that Mary got up quickly and went out.

They followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there. As soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.

Same thing everyone's been saying all the way through. When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. This word moved very often in scripture is translated like stern or scolding.

It is Jesus got serious about what was happening as he saw these people weeping and wailing. Now, there's many reasons that people have put through the years.

This could have been because he saw that there was not a belief in him as Savior, and so maybe that caused some righteous indignation.

Some people think it might be that Jesus had a resentment and anger towards death that had wrought this devastation in this family and in these relationships. And so he had some anger towards that.

This word could also just mean here as it has deeply moved that he's shaken up as a result of seeing this outpouring of love and emotion. Where have you put him, he asked. Lord, they told him, come and see.

And then the shortest verse in all of the Bible. Can you guys read it with me? Jesus wept.

Your tears, your crying, your grief, are not a sign that you do not love the Lord. It's not a sign of spiritual weakness.

If the perfect, incarnate Son of God could weep here at this tomb of his friend, weep in the middle of people that were weeping, you can cry too.

When you lose a loved one, when you lose a relationship, when you experience loss in your life, it's okay to cry. It's okay to be deeply moved by even your emotions. Your emotions are given to you by God.

Now use them right. Don't allow them to dictate what you do. Let them be the lights on the dashboard that warn you that there's a problem.

Don't let it be your GPS. So then, verse 36, the Jews said, see how he loved him. Their automatic thought, as soon as they saw Jesus weeping, was he loved Lazarus.

Can I ask you, is it clear to others around you that you love the people in your life? Is it clear to others that you love those within your church? Jesus experienced this, and it was obvious to others that Jesus loved Lazarus.

Is your love obvious? But some of them said, couldn't he who opened the blind man's eyes also have kept this man from dying? Here, there's doubt, there's ridicule that happens.

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. This is John's little like, hint, hint, you guys are going to meet a cave and a stone again later in the story.

Remove the stone, Jesus said. Martha, the dead man's sister, just in case you forgot Lazarus was dead, told him, Lord, there is already a stench, because he has been dead four days.

A man dead four days stinks way worse than any of the teens that we have in the room with us today. Jesus said to her, didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? So they removed the stone.

Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you heard me. I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here, I said this, so that they may believe that you sent me.

Jesus' public prayer to the Father was so that other people would believe that God had worked, and so God could be glorified, and other people could believe in God.

You are not called to just have a private Christian faith where no one knows that you are a believer. No one knows what you are praying or asking the Lord for. No one knows what God is doing in or through you.

You are called to have a Christian faith that spills over so that others may believe based on what they hear from you, that as you talk about the Lord, as you talk about your local church, as you talk about your devotions that you're reading through,

or a song or a hymn that's been encouraging you, that other people would learn about God, that they would believe as a result of your faith. Then verse 43, after he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. You got kind of the whole mummy thing going here.

I have in my head, if any of you have seen VeggieTales, I've got like a Larry the Cucumber situation going on here, where Lazarus is all wrapped up and he's like doing the hop thing. That's what I mentally have as he comes out.

Lazarus didn't raise himself from the dead. But when Jesus says, Lazarus, come out, the dead are walking out. You may not be physically dead yet.

I don't think we have anyone like that in the room. If you don't know the Lord, scripture describes you as spiritually dead in your trespasses and sins. But scripture says that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Scripture says that we were spiritually dead. We were enslaved to what we wanted to do. We were enslaved to this world system.

But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love that he loved us with, even while we were sinners, he has made us alive together with Christ, and he has saved us by his grace. I don't care what your sins have been.

I don't care what your failures have been. You can experience resurrected new life through Jesus, through his Holy Spirit moving inside of you, that like this dead man, you can become a dead man walking.

I think David Crowder has a song with that title. Jesus says, Unwrap him and let him go. I would be remiss if I didn't, you know, Pastor O'Reilly would have this a little bit.

Some of you are still wearing the grave clothes from your dead sin days. You need to unwrap them. You need to let them go.

That anger that once used to define you before Jesus, it's got to get out of here. That lust that once consumed you, it needs to go for Jesus' sake. That bitterness that you've been just continuing to have wrapped around you, unwrap it, let it go.

Then verse 45, Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he did, believed in him.

21:09

God Glorified in Resurrection

Jesus' purposes for bad times. We see this story. It's wonderful.

It's amazing. What can we learn from it? Very quickly today.

Number one, God allows death so that he will be glorified through resurrection. We saw this back in verse number four. Jesus said, This sickness will not end in death, but is for the glory of God so that the son of God may be glorified through it.

God is glorified in resurrection. And so he allows death to be with us for a time. God is glorified in resurrection as the giver of new life.

You see, we need the new creation, not the old. We need the new world that God is making, the new bodies, the resurrected bodies that he will give us. We don't need these ones for eternity.

I know we have many people in here that struggle with, what do you call it when it's constant illness? Chronic illness. Thank you.

I was going to say critical illness. And I was like, that sounds bad too, but chronic illness. And I'm thankful that the resurrection means God's giving us a new life.

He's giving us a better life. He's giving us a life in which we will never die. Death is not good in and of itself, but death reminds us of our need for Jesus, our need to obey God here on this earth.

Death encourages us to seek God's kingdom instead of this earth's kingdoms. And so God can use even death for good. God is glorified in resurrection as the victor over death.

It is our universal enemy that is defeated. The best movie villains are the ones that everyone wants to fall. And our favorite heroes are those that overcome the greatest evil.

Think about the Avengers versus Thanos, or you think of Frodo versus Sauron. The bigger the bad guy is, the more you cheer for the victors. And God is the one that overcomes our greatest enemy, the enemy that we will all face one day, death itself.

So God is glorified as the victor over death. God is glorified as the rescuer of families in resurrection. I think here of that reunion between Mary and Martha and Lazarus was so much greater.

There was so much more joy, so much more glory that was given to God as a result of him raising from the dead than just if Jesus had healed him when he was sick.

The joy is greater, the reunion is grander as a result of the fact that it came from the impossible odds. What can we learn from that today? Grieve the loss of your loved ones.

Resent death's work on this world, even as Jesus did. Choose to live for the coming kingdom of God that will never end. One pastor in the 4th century, Augustine, said, man destined to die takes pains that he may not die.

And yet, man destined to live forever takes no pains that he may not sin.

24:12

Godʼs Delays Bring His Best

Thank God for the resurrection. Secondly, today, God allows delays because he loves us enough to give us his best. God delays because he loves us enough to give us his best.

We can see that in verse number five and six, that Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus, so he stayed. He loved, so he delayed. God's best for you means that you experience salvation and new life.

If Jesus hadn't delayed, Martha wouldn't have heard, I am the resurrection and the life, the one that believes in me, even though they were dead, yet they will live.

And Martha wouldn't have had the chance to say, I believe you are the Messiah, the son of God who comes into the world. For your life and mine, it might be that God is delaying so that we will come to faith in Jesus.

That he makes you realize that there is something that you need that is more than just needing a relationship or needing a new job or needing a new home, that God wants to draw your attention to your ultimate need, which is him.

So his best means you experience salvation and new life. God's best means you see God do the impossible for you. The most amazing sights in this life demand the greatest risks.

My dad's here. He remembers back in the Broncos days with Tim Tebow and those great comebacks that, well, actually, we did a bit of that this season too with Bonyx. But it was the come from behind victories that we thought all hope was gone.

And yet, despite the odds, they clung back forward. And when we see God do the impossible for us, that his delays can often be the thing that brings us the greatest joy and cheering.

The greatest joys in my life have been things that I thought that I would never receive or that I thought were gone forever. My brother let me know, so I had given him a Bible when he was going to college. A really nice Bible.

And he lost it this past May, and he just did not know where it was. He did not tell me that he had lost it, but he was just kind of nerve wrecked, whatever about it.

And then like the last week of school this semester, so seven months later, he randomly found it, came across it in a vehicle or in a room that he would never have imagined it would be.

Well, his joy in finding that Bible was so much greater than if he had found it seven months before. And it might be that God is delaying his best for you so that you can see God do the impossible for you, that he can bring greater joy.

Are you willing to not experience instantaneous satisfaction in every area you'd like, so that God can do the impossible in your life? Are you willing to wait and not get everything you want when you want it so that you can see God do the impossible?

If you're like, yeah, I'm willing to wait. How patient are you when things don't go your way or when those around you don't operate according to your timetable or your wishes?

You're like, yeah, I'll be patient with God, but I'm going to be impatient with every other person on planet Earth. No, let's not do that. His best means people learn about Jesus.

This is what Jesus says in Prayer to the Father, where he prays, God, I'm praying this. I know you always hear me, but I'm praying this so that they would believe. God's best means people learn about Jesus.

Because Jesus didn't simply heal Lazarus, but raised him, many more people believed in him. Sometimes the only good that comes from a hard time is that people learn about Jesus, the one who can redeem the most hopeless situations.

For you today, be willing to hear God say no or not right now to you. What are you praying for right now? Are you willing for God to never say yes to that?

Not to hold out on you, but for you to experience life his way, for you to see him do things that you never thought possible, and for others to learn about Jesus.

28:35

Trusting God Through Disappointment

If God answered every prayer of yours with a yes, you would only live as good of a life as you could imagine, not as good of a life as he has designed for you. And then lastly today, God allows disappointment so that we'll trust in him alone.

Here the only hope in the situation was Jesus doing something. When someone's four days dead, there's not really a whole lot of other options. And when God allows disappointment, we trust in him alone because we learn that he's better than people.

People let us down. People can't help our inmost needs, but God never lets us down. All of this world can fail us as they failed Jesus.

And yet God is still right there, not leaving us, giving us each breath, sustaining us with purpose and his presence moment by moment.

With this, pardon me, without disappointments from people, we would forget how good it is to have that everlasting Father who's always with us. When God allows disappointment, we learn that he is better than circumstances.

Our health, our jobs, our 401Ks, even our country, none of it is guaranteed. But when we experience disappointment, it can draw us to gratitude for the one who never changes.

And then when God allows disappointment, we learn that he is better than our emotions. Emotions are good. They are given to us by God because they reflect his character.

But the emotions aren't ultimate. And our anger, our sadness, even our joy, all things that we read about in this passage, that even Jesus himself experienced, those emotions cannot sustain our existence.

We can't always be sad, always be joyful, or always be angry. Each of those things will come to an end. But God can sustain our existence.

So disappointment can show us that God is with us, even in times of rage, times of weeping, and times of joy. Are you willing to have your hopes and your dreams dashed so that you can know God deeper and more thoroughly?

Do you lash out in anger at others when they don't accomplish everything you'd like them to? Do you reject God and his way when he doesn't accomplish your will? Jesus' purposes in bad times are this.

He's giving you everything that you truly need, which is himself. He's not guaranteeing you eternal health. He's not guaranteeing that that relationship will get back together.

He's not guaranteeing that the other person will apologize to you. He's not guaranteeing that everything will go smoothly. He is guaranteeing his presence.

He is the resurrection and the life. He is what we need. Can I ask you today, are you willing to accept that Jesus will never do everything you want, but that he'll give you everything you need?