Life & Death

We continue our Ministry of Jesus series this morning by looking at one of my favorite stories in the Bible. In fact, there are three moments in John’s Gospels that I believe have become my favorite. People say that I say a lot of things are my favorite, but this is the truth. Three accounts that I’m personally inspired by and challenged by so far in the series. We’ve covered two of those accounts.

The first one was in John, chapter three, Jesus’s interaction with a man named Nicodemus, where Jesus says to him, You must be born again. He says Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to the spirit. Don’t be surprised that I tell you you must be born again. I love that account. We studied that several, like a year ago.

And then the second account was in John chapter four, where Jesus has a conversation with the woman at the well. The woman comes doing the most mundane activity. She’s just getting water, and while she’s there, she comes face-to-face with God. I love that story. We’ve covered both of those accounts.

And the third account that I just have a specific love for is right here. And it’s found in John chapter eleven. If you have a Bible, you can turn to it with me. I want to show you what the crown jewel of this text is. The crown jewel of John, chapter eleven is this verse 25 and 26.

This is what it says. This is Jesus speaking to Martha after Martha’s brother Lazarus has died. This is Jesus speaking to Martha. This is what it says. I am the resurrection and the life.

Let me tell you, we could just preach from that one line. We can build our whole years, our whole life around just that one idea. The one who believes in me will live even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Then he turns to her and says, do you believe this?

These verses give us a snapshot and tell us what this account is all about. Let me just break it down. For us, the account is about death. It’s about the pain, the agony, the sorrow, and the heaviness of death. Death is a heavy subject.

And then in a moment, the story switches from becoming about death to becoming about the one who boldly declares to be its victor. The story switches because the man standing there says, you know what? This story may seem like it’s about death, but in fact, I am the resurrection and I am life. In a moment, we’re going to look at this story together. But in order for us to really, really get it, we’re going to have to do some theological background.

So you’re going to have to stay with me. I know that all of us aren’t necessarily in love with being a Bible student, but you’re going to hopefully enjoy at least this portion of it. I put some pictures up there, so I don’t know, maybe I’ll make it easier. There’s an issue. This is the issue.

You only need to talk about resurrection if there’s death. So here’s a question for you. Why is there death?

One of the classic critiques of Christianity is this if God is completely good and completely loving, why did he create a creation that does not reflect that? Like, why, if God is completely good, do we live in a world where there’s violence? Why, if God is good, do we live in a world with bloodshed, cruelty, and bullies? Why do we live in a world that has unimaginable evils? Why do we live in a world that had the Holocaust the Crusaders and the trans-Atlantic slave trade?

Why do we live in a world where there’s human trafficking? If God is a good God, why is the creation so bad sometimes? Why is there rape and lying and thievery and murders? Why, if God is a good Creator, do we have things like natural disasters? Why are there hurricanes and tsunamis and earthquakes and wildfires that kill hundreds of thousands?

This is the idea. This is a reasonable question. If you’re a thinking person, you may have stumbled across this question and just kind of pushed it away out of your brain. But it’s a good question. If the world is the product of a completely good God, why did he choose to stray so far from his nature in creating it?

Well, this is a question, and the way that the Bible answers it is by telling you a story. It tells you a story about how death and evil came to be. And the story I repeat all the time is found in Genesis chapters one through three. Here we see God’s plan in his creation in Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two. Everything works.

Everything is in harmony. Everything is united with God. There is no violence in the Garden of Eden. There is no privation, there is no hunger. There is no sickness.

There is no suffering in the Garden of Eden. There are no political rivalries. There’s no one faction against another faction. There are no pandemics, there are no tornadoes, there are no tsunamis, there are no typhoons. And of course, there is no death in the Garden of Eden.

All of these things did not start with the creation. They’re actually not a part of the beginning of the story. So how did it all go so bad? Well, here are my clip art pictures. Are you guys ready?

Don’t judge me. Here’s what you have. Tuan would have made a better image, but this is my image. You have the Creator, and he has made a beautiful creation. See all those things I found?

Whatever random things they had online. Sunsets and pandas and spiders. All these things are wonderful. The Garden of Eden is full of animals and vegetables and then on day six, you know what’s made humans, and human beings are meant to be kind of an intermediary between the Creator and its creation. Human beings are given this kind of creator power, even though they’re not the creator, they’re not gods, but they’re given this kind of closeness to God and this closeness and this friendship and this loving relationship with God.

And it’s unlike anything in the creation. In fact, God gives these humans dominion over the creation. He tells them to be stewards, to be caretakers, to be almost lords of the creation. And for the first bits, it works really well. There are no problems.

Men, animals, everything. God lives in perfect harmony. There is no cancer. There are no hurricanes, nothing’s killing each other. Human beings are as innocent as they can be.

They are perfect creatures living within a created world. And then what happens? You know the story. The serpent comes along and he tells Eve and he tells Adam, and he tries to convince them of this idea that really it’s not actually perfect here, that this place isn’t wonderful. You’re too subordinate to God.

He tells them. He tells them to stop thinking about God and start thinking about themselves a little bit. He tries to convince them that the story would be better if they were the gods in the story. And so he tells them, hey, you want to eat this fruit? Because if you eat this fruit, then all of a sudden your eyes will be open and you’ll understand evil and you’ll understand good.

They have nothing to gain. They have everything to lose. And do you know what they choose? They choose to lose everything. And their eyes are opened and they learn evil, and so they become evil.

This is an act of turning against God or rebelling against God. This is called the fall. And in scripture, we learn that because humans did this, they now encounter death. Because they sin, they encounter death. And here’s the crazy thing that happens, right?

Because human beings were this intermediary between God and the creation and the natural world. When they rebel, guess what happens? All creation is allowed to rebel. The whole creation is allowed to rebel against God. And so water goes from this thing that used to purify you and refresh you to something that can drown you.

And bacteria presumably goes from this thing that was supposed to live in this kind of symbiotic relationship with you, help you process food, goes to now to becoming something that wants to and is actively trying to kill you. And lions and tigers and bears go from being just furry friends to being your predator. So this distortion of creation really jacks everything up. The whole creation has been ruined. And the Bible tells us that all humanity, forevermore, in a sense, is now contaminated by this little bit of Adam and Eve.

We don’t think of it much, but if you think of it in modern terms, you could think of it like this Adam and Eve’s DNA is in all of us. It’s in all things. So if you take this rebellion to its logical conclusion, you see that the only place to go. If you want an alternative to all beings, you want an alternative to God, the only place to go is to go to where? To not being.

And what’s not being death? Death is ushered into creation. But take note, God did not create death like on the 8th day, the 7th day he rested, 8th day he killed people. That’s not what happened. Death is what happens when the creation goes away from God.

Death is the ultimate rebellion against God. Paul says that the last enemy that Christ had to defeat was death. God created a creation that was bound for love and joy and peace and harmony and beauty. But that all shifted when men chose to sin. And the Bible tells us very, very clearly that sin is that sin, if you take it to the very end, produces death.

Here are some verses to hammer home that point. This is Ezekiel, chapter 18, verse 20. The soul who sins shall die. This is Romans chapter six, verse 23. For the wage of sin is death.

And then to reiterate the point about Adam, you see this in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Sorry, 14 verse 21. I actually think it’s 15 verse 21. For as by a man came death. And again he repeats this for as in Adam all die.

So I want you to hold this thought again as the intermediaries between the creation and the God who rebelled, who brought rebellion against God. We have kind of set up this issue. And so here’s the next question. If this is the situation we’re living in, is there any way for us to get back to this? That’s the big question, right?

That’s the big issue. How do we get back to that? And in this chapter, we see Jesus come face to face with death. It’s like two heavyweight boxers who climb into the ring. Today we analyze the fight and just a quick spoiler alert Jesus wins.

And he wins by way of resurrection. In fact, the Bible will tell us this. It will tell us for as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. Just like one came death, so by another man comes the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall be made alive.

This is the story we’re reading. I know I set up the story for a long time. I promise we’ll try to get to the majority of it. I want to encourage you, though, as you’re reading it, to live in this story, to hold onto it tightly. Because I think if you do and you allow it to kind of pull you in to capture your thinking.

It will also capture some hope for you. It’ll also give you kind of a maintained future and it will anchor you in the faithfulness of our God. So are you ready? John, chapter eleven. This is what we’re going to read starting in verse one.

Here we go. Now, a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lays sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, Lord, the one you love is sick.

We’ve just found Jesus. He’s just finished rebuking the Pharisees in Jerusalem. He’s crossed over to the other side of the Jordan. He’s preaching there and he’s gaining followers. People are coming to him.

He’s done with the religious leaders now. He’s preaching to the common folks. And as he’s preaching to the common folks, people are coming and people are being converted. People are believing in him. And then all of a sudden, while he’s preaching, a messenger comes.

The messenger comes with a very short message, Hey Lord, the one you love, meaning Lazarus is sick. Lazarus is sick. A few weeks earlier, Jesus had just left Lazarus in a place called Bethany. We actually studied that account a couple of months ago in John, chapter ten, verse 40. We talked about that, right?

Where Mary and Martha welcomed Jesus into his home. Into their home. This is the same for Mary and Martha. We don’t hear anything about Lazarus at the time, but you would assume that maybe they sparked up a great friendship and for some reason Lazarus rather than the sisters understands that Jesus loves Lazarus and he’s dying, he’s sick.

This is intense. In a matter of weeks, their life has shifted. In a matter of weeks, their life has gone from joyous to horrific. The whole world has been turned upside down. And that’s the nature of sickness, isn’t it?

That’s the nature of death. That’s the nature of things that are painful. That’s the DNA of Adam. In a moment, you grab the fruit, you eat it and everything shifts. In a moment you get the diagnosis, and in that instant, everything shifts.

Cassandra and I found out this past week that our dog, who has been with us for twelve years, has a cancerous tumor on his pancreas. And there’s no equivalence in terms of I know people here have lost husbands and children and wives, and I’m not trying to make any sort of equivalent, but what I am trying to say is that in that moment there was a heaviness. It’s just shifted, right? That’s just the DNA. That’s the DNA of Adam.

All of a sudden, things were wonderful and we were all happy. And then its death is coming, sickness is here. That’s the experience that Mary and Martha are going through. Things were great a week ago and now they’re really bad. So that’s the messenger.

The messenger is coming along. Jesus is probably preaching. The messenger taps on his shoulder, I have a message from Mary and Martha. The one you love is sick. Lazarus, your friend is sick.

When he heard this, 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. Who is Jesus speaking to? He’s speaking probably to the representative. He’s speaking to the person responding to the messenger, but he also may be talking to the disciples and maybe talking to the crowd and maybe just talking to all of them at the same time.

And what does he say? Hey, look, that message is coming, but I want you to know the end of this story will not be death. This seems like a strange response if you know the story, because what happens in the story? Lazarus dies. So what’s happening?

Is Jesus lying? Does Jesus not know? Is he not aware of what’s going to happen? It seems kind of an unconscionable idea that Jesus would send a messenger back to these morning sisters saying, No, your brother will live and in fact, he’s going to die. That’s kind of intense.

But what is Jesus then trying to communicate? I think what he’s saying is something like this. This sickness will not ultimately end in death, though there will be death along the way. It’s kind of an intense thought, but I want to take a short tangent. As I think about it, it’s hard for us to consider the promises of God in a way that makes sense to us. In the Bible, there are lots of promises.

This, I would imagine, would be Mary and Martha. They would think of this as a promise, right? The Lord has said, my brother will not this will not end in death. They think of that as a promise. And then what happens when their brother dies?

They don’t really know how to hold on to the promises of God. They can’t fully grasp them. God makes promises to us that you and I don’t even know how to work out in our human brains. You don’t even understand them. They’re really difficult for us.

And so I just want to make a little tangent and make a point here. This is a better way of defining the point. It’s this god who sees the full picture when we only see a piece. Would you agree with that? So trust in his promises with humility.

Meaning if he says something, you should probably hold on to it, but not think you understand how he’s going to bring about the promise. Look, our timelines are moment by moment. We live snapshot by snapshot. We don’t have a full perspective. And so sometimes we feel entitled to a promise that God really didn’t promise perfectly to us.

We don’t know the whole picture. We don’t get the whole story. In fact, if we got the whole picture, if we got the whole story, we may not even know how to put the picture together.

I want to encourage you to hold on to the promises of God with some humility because if you don’t, it might lead you to doubt God when you feel like he doesn’t fulfill what you believe he should in the timeline when you believe he should have. Be cautious of interpreting God’s faithfulness through a snapshot, through a Polaroid picture. We don’t know the whole story. We don’t know how it plays out. We want to jump to the end of the movie.

We want to get to the last page of the novel, and God is working things out, and we just assume God should solve it right now. But I want to warn us if we instead have or I want to encourage us if we instead have a humble approach to God’s promises, that entitlement will go away and it’ll be replaced with something that feels more like intimacy with your Father. So this is a way you could pray, right? You could say, Father, you say you’re going to strengthen me. That is a promise.

In Ephesians, chapter three, god will strengthen you. But right now, Lord, I feel weak. I want you to teach me what I need to learn in this weakness so that when I’m ready to be strengthened by You, I will be fully strengthened. That’s a different prayer than you promised that you would strengthen me and I feel weak. It’s like, yeah, you don’t really understand what’s happening in the background.

God says he promises to give you rest. And you might say, Lord, I know you promised to give me rest, but right now I feel hurried and I feel busy. Teach me to lean on you in the times of my busy life so I can find true rest through you. Those are different prayers. So I want to encourage you, and I know that’s not necessarily the anchor of the story, but I want to encourage you to hold on to the promises of God with a little bit more humility and a little bit less entitlement.

Let’s keep going. The Bible says that it’s for God’s glory. It’s God’s glory that this will know. This may have seemed like a little bit of a riddle because they don’t understand this exactly, but we do. We understand that Christ’s glorification comes paradoxically through his death.

We understand that they don’t understand that Jesus’s glorification is going to come paradoxically because of Lazarus’s death. They don’t get that, but they’re soon going to find out. We’ll skip down to verse eleven because this chapter is quite long, like 57 verses. We’re not going to read all of them. This is a little bit longer.

A little bit longer. Jesus has spoken. A little bit more. There are a couple of cool phrases that you could study on your own. And then verse eleven says this. Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.

Jesus is now speaking to the disciples, but I’m going there to wake him up. His disciples replied, lord, if he sleeps he will get better.

The disciples give medical advice to God. Do you ever do that? You’re like, Lord, if you just fix this issue in my body, then my whole body would be fine. If you could just solve my arm problem, then my life would be better. They’re giving him some advice they don’t understand.

This is kind of cryptic. So Jesus explains Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, Lazarus is dead. Lazarus is dead. But you told us two days ago that this sickness will not end in death and now you’re telling us he needs to die or he has died.

It’s kind of confusing. Listen to the next line though. For your sake, I am glad I was not there. This seems harsh, this seems kind of mean. For your sake, talking to the disciples, I’m glad I wasn’t there.

What is he saying? He’s saying, look, I’m going to show you resurrection. For your sake, I’m glad I wasn’t there because you wouldn’t have even believed what I could do. So I’m grateful. Also, I feel like for our sake we should be thankful so that we can learn about a resurrected life.

So we fast forward to the timeline of Mary and Martha. Here we are, verse 17. On his arrival, Jesus came over. There’s a little bit of a debate about whether or not he should go over because the last time he was in that area they tried to kill him. But Jesus is like, I’m going to wake my friend up, let’s go.

And so he gets there. On arrival, Jesus found out that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than 2 miles from Jerusalem. Verse 17, I’m sorry, says something interesting mentioning four days. By the way, this is mentioned twice, four days.

And just a little point for some Bible nerds out there. There’s been a discussion about why four days and there was one commentator who talked about this Jewish tradition of the spirit leaving the body after three days. And so what this means is that he’s really, really dead. But apparently, that’s not even all that early. It’s kind of a late idea.

So what’s the reason why four days? Well, it’s something like after four days the decomposition is really happening. And so it’s obvious this guy is dead. In fact, Martha will later say, there’s a smell, there’s a smell. The King James says that the tomb stinketh.

There you go, that was for you. In verse 19, Jesus arrives and many Jews have come to Martha and Mary to comfort them. They are mourning. There’s a mourning procession in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him.

Jesus is on his way. The procession is all there. Martha leaves her dead brother, her mourning family, and the mourning community and goes after Jesus. Jesus arrives at the home, and there are mourners and mourners. She is distraught.

She is affected by sin. She is feeling the weight of Adam’s DNA. She feels all of that. And now Martha’s out there, and she’s going to sprint towards Christ, and she’s going to have a conversation with him. And so we pick it up at the start of this conversation.

Verse 21. Lord, Martha said she’s out there. She’s before him. Maybe she’s on her knees. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

This is partially your fault, God. You could have fixed it. Have you ever had one of those prayers, God? You could have solved this problem, man, but you didn’t. But you didn’t.

She’s trying to muster up whatever faith she has left, but she’s just affected by death. Death is a horrible thing. She’s mourning. But here’s the faith, man. It’s so beautiful.

But I know that even now, God will give you whatever you ask. He may be dead, dead, but I know that even now you could raise him from the dead. I know. I know it may look like doubt. It may look like I’m angry.

It may look like I have fears and frustrations and sickness, or I may be bad. It may look like life has really gone strange, but even now, you can do whatever you ask. God will do for you even now. You could heal my brother. You could stop this sickness.

You could do something. What faith, man. What faith this woman has. And then Jesus looks at her with such tenderness and compassion, says this your brother will rise again. Your brother will rise again.

Martha, though, cuts him off and says, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. He’s like, I get it. I get it. Like she gets it. Jesus is the Messiah at the end.

He’s going to come down in a cloud of fire. He’s going to resurrect the dead. He’s going to redeem those he loves. That will happen in the future. I understand that.

Sin, hell, the grave, all that stuff will be reversed, that he’ll end suffering, that death will be destroyed. I get all that. But what comes next is amazing, right? She’s like, I get it, Lord. In the future, you’re going to raise my brother.

In the future, but I’m asking about it now. I get it. In the future, you’re going to do that, but what about now? And then Jesus opens his mouth, and what Jesus says to her is so penetrating. I am the resurrection.

Look, I know that in the resurrection in the last days, things are going to be changed. Let me just say this to you, Martha. I am the resurrection. I am the life. You’re looking at the resurrection and the life personified.

I am the living embodiment of what you’re hoping for in the future. I am him and I am here now. The one who believes in me, the one who believes in me, will live even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?

The one of any generation at any time who believes in me. This little Greek word means to trust in Him, to relinquish your life to him. Anybody who allows me to interpret their reality can find freedom from the destructive nature of death. You know that issue between Adam and the whole creation and the DNA and all that stuff? I am the resurrection in the future, but I’m also the resurrection right now, meaning I can take dead men and bring them to life.

I can do it physically and I can do it spiritually. You’re a dead person causing more death. And I will resurrect your life to be the person you were always intended to become. What do we learn, right? The resurrection is not just an event.

It’s a person. It’s a person with power. I want to go back to this image that we’ve been looking at. Look, this is the idea, right? So the Creator was trying to infuse goodness into the world through these two intermediaries to these two intermediaries, through Adam and through Eve, through these people, through you and through me.

The Creator was trying to say, Look, goodness will come and goodness will flow through them. But they destroyed the world and they caused hatred and bitterness and malice and rage. And everything you hate about your existence is caused by you and me and the DNA of Adam. But then comes Christ in that little verse we read last time, says it again. For as by a man came death.

That’s Adam. By a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall be made alive again. Christ is who we were supposed to be.

There’s a really interesting word. We call it the recapitulation of humanity. It’s like who we were always supposed to be. Jesus sums it up in himself, the recapitulation of humanity. And then dying goes down into depths and confronts death and confronts the rebellion against God and confronts Satan himself.

And then death is swallowed up because death can’t hold God because he is too good and he is too much light and he is too much being and he is too perfect. And so that darkness and that emptiness in that nothingness of death, in that moment when it swallows up Jesus Christ, death is destroyed. The strong man is tied up. The resurrection is an image.

And what I love, in the early icons of this picture of the Resurrection, there’s a beautiful image of Christ bursting through the tomb. And on one hand, he’s holding Adam, and on the other hand, he’s holding Eve. And behind him trails every man, woman, and child. He’s going, I’m a rescuer.

I have rescued you. I have destroyed sin. I’ve destroyed evil. And the enemy that you fear the most has been utterly destroyed. And so here is now an option for mankind.

You can choose the DNA of Adam. You can be a death bringer. You know you can because you’ve done it. You can be a malice bringer. You can be an evil bringer.

You could be in a situation and bring toxicity and violence and rage and slander and hatred. You can bring all of that. You can capture your DNA of Adam and just bring it into the creation. Or here’s the option. You can follow the way of the recapitulation and follow the way of Jesus.

And in that way, you bring life. You bring life through belief, through repentance, through the shedding of your old self, through this beautiful ritual of baptism. You die. You die to your Adam DNA. And you’re raised with Christ’s DNA.

That’s your resurrection. See, I love this story because Martha sees Christ as the future solution. It’s going to happen in the future, but what Christ is doing is Christ is showing. He is the resurrection. Now, through people like us, he can be the resurrection now.

He restores your life. And then you bring beauty into the creation again. You fix distorted living meaning that you can take on the life of Christ and become the person you were always called to be. And here’s the question for you, just like the question for Martha. Do you believe this?

Do you believe this? I wonder if you believe that you could be stripped of your evil DNA and that you could take on the embodiment of Jesus Christ and then live out that life in such a way that actually helps God’s world become good again.

You can impact the world. Do you believe that you’re the solution that Christ intended to solve hatred and murder and racism and greed and war, that through redemptive people, god could fix the world again? I wonder if you believe that he is your only hope so that you can be a hope to the world.

Well, Martha musters up as much faith as she has. She says, yes, lord, I believe that you are the Messiah. That means the one who brings goodness to the world, the hope for humanity, the Son of God. That’s that Daniel figure that restores all things. You have come into this world.

I know you’re it. I think you’re it. And then God proves it to her by showing her a physical manifestation of spiritual truth, by restoring and resurrecting. Lazarus. Skip down to verse 33.

Then Jesus saw her weeping you know, these the families weeping, obviously, they lost someone. And the Jews who had come along also with her weeping were also weeping. He was deeply moved in the spirit and troubled. Where had they laid him? He asked.

Come and see, Lord. Next verse. Jesus wept. Jesus arrives outside the tomb and he knows what’s going to happen. He’s going to resurrect Lazarus.

So why is he crying?

I can be kind of insensitive sometimes, and I can be like, why are you crying to my daughter? And the reason she’s crying is because she’s sad. That’s why she’s crying. You don’t have to have a logical reason to cry. You cry because you feel something.

You cry because you feel something. Well, Martha and Jesus don’t you know, you were going to raise him from the dead. There’s no reason for you to cry. It’s like, no, you cry because you’re sympathetic because you feel something. And here’s what it tells me in this passage.

Why is Jesus crying? Is he crying because of Lazarus? Probably not. He’s about to be restored. He’s crying because of the effect of Adam on humanity.

What does he see? Weeping people, mourning people. And he goes, man, that was not my intention. That’s not the world I wanted to create. And here you guys are experiencing the horrors that you have created, but I am so compassionate that I will cry alongside you.

Does God care? Yes. Does he really care? Yes. Does he cry over this country?

I think so. Does he cry about our nation, our world, and our communities? I think so. Does he cry when someone in this room abandons the faith and causes all sorts of destruction in their marriage? I think so.

Does he cry when people are hurting, when there’s war, and when there’s heartache? I think so. Is he picking sides? Don’t do that, don’t do that. Probably less so.

Probably he just is sorrowful because of what we have produced in the world that we’re living in now. That’s my opinion, but I think it’s right. Verse 38. Now, the miracle Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

So Jesus has walked in. There’s a stone laid across the front of this tomb. So it’s like a cave. Think of a cave and a stone across the tomb, and Jesus says to the guys, take the stone away. But, hey, he’s been in the grave for four days.

I don’t know what you’re trying to do, some sort of cleansing ritual, but it’s going to smell in there. But in that moment they do it, and instead, all the mourners fall silent. Verse 41. So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

I know that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here. God, I know thank you for doing this. Thank you for listening to me. I know you listen to me. I’m praying for them that they may believe that you sent me.

When he said this, Jesus called out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

And the dead man came out. The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with stripes of linen and cloth around his face. He’s a mummy. And Jesus said to him, Take off those grave clothes and let them go. What is this miracle about?

I mentioned it before, but it’s just a physical representation of the spiritual reality. God resurrects people. That’s what he does. And he doesn’t just do it in the future. He does it now.

He does it now. Look, Lazarus was going to eventually die. Lazarus is still not walking around. But that whole thing was to prove the point that Jesus can do this. Why does this matter?

Well, I want to tell you this. Look, you have Adam’s DNA in you. You are the cause of a lot of difficult things. You are the cause of a lot of heartache. You are the cause of a lot of frustration in people’s lives.

You’re the cause and I’m the cause of evil. Look, the way we live lives in such a way where things are messed up because we exist, because of the DNA of Adam. It’s just that everything we touch is destroyed by it. But if we have enough faith, if we have enough faith, we can go through a process of sanctification where God removes that DNA, quiets our flesh, and replaces it with the DNA of Jesus Christ. It’s resurrection.

Now, some of you have to have enough faith to believe that God can change your life. Some of you have to believe that God can do it, that God can actually restore you, that he can change you. And he does it by way of belief. He does it by way of repentance.

He does it by way of a ritual called baptism. If you choose to believe, to identify with Him, you can be born again. Spirit can give birth to spirit. God can take you and make you into a person that your life really matters. You have a calling.

You have a reason to exist. You can again go back to the garden where you have a closeness with God, a relationship, a loving friendship with the Creator. Some of you right now are dead in your sins. That’s what the Bible says. You’re dead in your sins.

And I want to encourage you that Jesus today is the resurrection and the life. And you can come back to life if you will turn to Him. If you’re in this room and you feel prompting in your heart that you need to make some changes, I want to encourage you to do one thing. We have this class called Discover Class that happens in the back. It’s called the Discover class.

Just say, hey, I want to go to Discover class. Go back there. Go back there and have a conversation. Figure out what you need to change. And if you’re in this room and you feel like the DNA of Adam has kind of resurfaced in your life, I want to encourage you to repent, to confess your sins, and to hold on to the beauty and the majesty that is the resurrection and the life. Christ Jesus, our Lord.