John 11:1-44
The Story of Lazarus
John 11:3
So the sisters sent word to Jesus,
“Lord, the one you love is sick.”
phileo – brotherly/sisterly love
John 11:4-7
When he heard this [that Lazarus was sick], Jesus said,
“This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory
so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So when he heard that Lazarus was sick,
he stayed where he was two more days,
and then he said to his disciples,
“Let us go back to Judea.”
Agape – unconditional love
John 11:14, 21
So then he told them plainly,
“Lazarus is dead….”
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus,
“if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
John 11:38-44
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.
It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
“Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man,
“by this time there is a bad odor, fr he has been there four day.”
Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said,
“Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew 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.”
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen,
and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
When God Interrupts: Finding New Life Through Unwanted Change
by M. Craig Barnes, pp. 124-125
Sometimes life gets overwhelming, and we realize we could use a little help.
So we pray for our health to get better, for our marriage to work out,
for success in our work that has taken a turn for the worse.
There is nothing wrong in praying for those things, but they are not
what our salvation is about. Don’t expect Jesus to save us by teaching us to depend
on the things we are afraid of losing. He loves us too much to let our health,
marriage or work become the savior of our lives. He will abandon every crusade
that searches for salvation from anything or anyone other than God.
So he delays, he watches as we reach down dead-end streets,
he lets our mission du jour crash and burn. To receive Jesus as Savior means recognizing him as our only help.
Not our only help for getting what we want. But our only true help.
When we ask for a savior, we are not asking for a boost.
We are asking for a miracle.
We cannot discover a miracle until Lazarus is dead,…
Do you believe that Jesus loves you?