Grace Community Church, Arlington, TX

Jesus is coming back for a Bride that has made herself ready. Jesus is coming back for a church that is passionately in love with Him. And last week we talked about the key to
being passionately in love with Jesus is believing that He loves you.

If God loves someone, how does He show it? Now, some of you might say, “that’s easy,”

But what is the heart and essence of eternal life? Jesus tells in John 17:3

The essence of eternal life is the never-ending knowing of God the Father and God the Son.

The love of God is the gift of Himself. Isn’t that what the cross is all about? That God devised away in which sin could be dealt with and the devil could be defeated, so that we could have a relationship with God.

I want you to also notice what Jesus says in John 14:21, Jesus says,

Christ loves us by manifesting Himself to us. The more He loves you, the more He will manifest His glorious self to you.

Today we are going to see how Jesus treats those He loves. He loved Lazarus, and Martha, and Mary so much. Let’s see how He shows that love to them.

This is probably a good time to point out that people who love Jesus, and people whom Jesus loves, can get sick, even very sick.

Now, wait a second. Jesus loves Lazarus. Lazarus is sick. They have called on Jesus to come and heal Him. Jesus isn’t coming. How does that compute? If Jesus loves Lazarus,
then shouldn’t He drop everything and go there immediately and heal him? If Jesus loves us, and we call on Him, won’t He immediately come and stop our suffering?

But Jesus, who is God the Son come in the flesh, isn’t doing that. Jesus, who has come to show us what the Father is like, isn’t doing that. What is wrong with His theology?
Our could it be that something is wrong with ours.

The disciples just aren’t getting it. I can’t help but think Jesus is a little exasperated with them at this point.

Now, let’s stop here for a moment in the story and make sure we don’t miss what is happening here. We just read that the reason Jesus did not go to heal Lazarus when he heard he was sick was because he loved him and his sisters Mary and Martha. He would stay where he was, and let Lazarus die, because he loved them.

Don’t measure the love of God for you by how much health and wealth and comfort He brings into your life. If that were the measure of God’s love, then he hated Job and He
hated the Apostle Paul. Measure Christ’s love for you by how much of Himself he shows you. How much of Himself He gives you to know and enjoy.

What happens next just outside Bethany, near Jerusalem, is that three different people confront Jesus by questioning his love for Lazarus.

Verse 6 said, “When he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”
Everybody knew that’s what He did. There was time for Him to come, and He didn’t come. And It didn’t look like love!

And now He is going to hear about this three times—from Martha, from Mary, and from the other mourners. And each time it is a thinly veiled questioning of his love:

Jesus had chosen to love Lazarus and his sisters by not coming immediately. And now His not coming is being used to question His love.

Martha says, in verse 21, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She questions, but she hasn’t given up on him.
Verse 22: “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
Jesus answers (verse 23), “Your brother will rise again.”

He says, you believe that there is a great and glorious day of resurrection coming at the end of the age, when all believers will be raised bodily from the grave. You are right. And here’s the mystery: I am the arrival of that day.
The future Kingdom to come has invaded the present time in the person of Jesus Himself.

And then it is like He was saying, “And let me be specific, Martha. I am exactly what Lazarus needs, and what you need. He is dead, and you are alive.” “Whoever believes in
me, though he die, yet shall he live” (verse 25). That’s for Lazarus. And “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (verse 26). That’s for you.

I will rescue Lazarus, body and soul, from the grave, and when I do it doesn’t matter. It is not so much about a time when, but about a person…Me! I Am the Resurrection!

And you. You live, and believe in me, and so you will never die. There will never be a separation from Me. Because I Am the Life! And all that is true for you and for Lazarus
because I love you.

And that is true for every believer who has passed on knowing Jesus. He is the Resurrection! They shall live forever. And that is true for everyone in here today who knows and loves Jesus, you shall never die! He is the Life!

Now Mary. At the end of verse 32, she says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And as she said this, she was weeping, and those with her were
weeping (verse 33): “Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping.” So now this questioning, “Where were you, when we needed you?” is not just words. It is sobs. “Where were you!”

Besides weeping, there are two words at the end of verse 33 that describe his response: “He was “deeply moved” in His spirit and “greatly troubled.”
These are not emotions of empathy and tenderness.

This strong emotion is going to rise again in Jesus. It happens again in response to the third instance of people questioning his motives and love.

Surely Jesus could have kept Lazarus from dying. And he didn’t. So, they question, they are suspicious of his motives, or His love. And again, Jesus is shaken, and upset, by this questioning of His motives and His love.

But even being greatly disturbed by the unbelief and suspicion and questioning of His love and His concern, Jesus goes into action. Verse 39: Jesus said, “Remove the stone.”

One last time Martha resists. Evidently, she is not completely confident He can do it: “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.”

He prays in verses 41–42 so that all can see He is one with the Father, and then (verse 43), “He cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth.’”

Jesus raised Lazarus because He is the resurrection. He is the arrival in history of God’s final, glorious renovation of all things, including our bodies.

You will be raised from the dead and shine like the sun in the kingdom of your Father.
Lazarus is a preview of your resurrection. Jesus is coming back to this earth in power and great glory. And this event, and this story is a window onto that glory.

Conclusion: But there is another very important lesson here for us all. Jesus shows His love for you by showing you more and more of Himself and His glory. He shows His love for you by enabling you to draw closer and closer to Him.

Why does He sometimes delay in answering your prayers?
Because He loves you, and He wants to use that situation to show you more of Himself.

Why does He sometimes allow us to go through pain and suffering?
Because He loves you, and He wants to use that situation to draw you closer to Himself.

Keeping you from pain and grief and suffering is not the number one way that He shows His love for you. Allowing you to go through some things that will enable you to see His
glory more and more, come closer and closer to Him, that is the greatest way He shows His love for you.

And yet, instead of believing Him through those difficult times, often times we interpret those times as a lack of love on His part. Just like Martha and Mary and the crowd did,
we question His love. How painful this is for the Lord when we do that.

He would say to us today, just what He said then, “Did I not say to you, only believe and you will see the glory of God.”

That is the number one way that He loves us, by showing us His glory. And right now, many of you are in that place where He wants to take your present situation, your present pain, your present suffering, your present grief, and He wants to show you more of Himself.

He hasn’t just come in and immediately answered your prayer for your pain to stop, He has delayed, why? To show you more of Himself. To bring you closer to Him. To reveal more of His glory.