SPEAKER_00: We've been in a series called The Jesus Life, and I love this series because it's talking about stories in the Bible that Jesus lived through, things that Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: And what I love about it is it's not just a story of old, it's a story of what God wants to do, something new in us today.
SPEAKER_00: And so our heartbeat behind this series is this that you would watch what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: You would hear about what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: You would revisit maybe some of these stories you've heard about before, and you would let God do something new in you.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be in John chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: If you have your Bible today or a phone, go ahead and turn there.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: That will be our text.
SPEAKER_00: I've titled today's message, From Grief to Glory.
SPEAKER_00: Today's message is From Grief to Glory.
SPEAKER_00: Now, today's message is gonna be a little bit of a heavier message.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to start with a light-hearted story.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in college, I remember I moved to Dallas, Texas to go to school and I made it to Dallas and I walked into my dorm room.
SPEAKER_00: How many of y'all know those are luxury five-star hotels these days?
SPEAKER_00: Not when I was in school.
SPEAKER_00: I remember going in and thinking, is this my closet or my room?
SPEAKER_00: And three guys come moving in.
SPEAKER_00: I potlucked, which meant I didn't know anybody I was going to be uh rooming with, and so I walk into complete strangers, and unlucky for me, I was the tallest guy in the room, which meant I know that I am sleeping on the top bunk.
SPEAKER_00: And uh the top bunk was about two inches from the ceiling tiles, you know, you got a good six inches there.
SPEAKER_00: And uh the thing about college is college guys do crazy things, and and one of the things they used to do is they would prank people in their rooms because if you stood on something in the hallway, you could lift up the ceiling tiles and reach over and come through the ceiling tile on the guy on the other side.
SPEAKER_00: So one night I was sleeping, because that's what I do.
SPEAKER_00: I sleep.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody sleep when you sleep?
SPEAKER_00: I don't dream, I I don't stay awake.
SPEAKER_00: I sleep.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a good sleeper, praise God.
SPEAKER_00: I heard something.
SPEAKER_00: My first inclination is they're coming for me.
SPEAKER_00: I could feel it, I could hear the noises on top.
SPEAKER_00: I could hear the noises on top of the ceiling tile.
SPEAKER_00: I knew somebody was coming.
SPEAKER_00: So I decided instead of letting them get me, I'm gonna get them.
SPEAKER_00: So I punched right up through the ceiling tile.
SPEAKER_00: And the second I did, I didn't find a college guy on the other side, I found a mouse come running down my body right through my bed and jumped off the top of that bunk bed.
SPEAKER_00: How many of y'all know in that moment I was screaming?
SPEAKER_00: Real strong, real manly.
SPEAKER_00: And for the next 30 minutes, 20 college guys are chasing a mouse down the hall with brooms and trash cans.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking about this story this week, and you're like, what does this have to do with grief?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely nothing.
SPEAKER_00: But I remember that time because here's what I remember.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had something completely unexpected happen to you?
SPEAKER_00: You didn't feel prepared for it.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes those unexpected things they come in the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_00: You're not prepared, you don't know how to handle the situation, you don't have all the right tools or the supplies, and that's how I felt in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you the story because two weeks ago, I was in my garage and I picked up a piece of PVC pipe, I was carrying it over my shoulder, and about 10 steps in, a mouse comes out of the end of that PVC pipe.
SPEAKER_00: Right out of the end and right down my body, right to the ground, and I'm doing it all over again.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know I was reliving what happened years ago in that very moment?
SPEAKER_00: Like it don't come flooding right back to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing about grief.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that funny?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that funny how grief can work in that way sometimes?
SPEAKER_00: Something that happened a really long time ago, one little triggering event, and all of a sudden you're feeling the same things you felt before.
SPEAKER_00: As we talk about grief this morning, here's what I want you to know is is it has nothing to do with that story, but some of the same symptoms and some of the same effects can be very similar.
SPEAKER_00: Grief comes in a lot of different forms.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe for you, you've experienced a physical loss of somebody that you love, and today's message is going to speak right to your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want you to know.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know this morning it's not to be a heavy thing, it's to be a light thing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you walking out heavier than you came in.
SPEAKER_00: I want you walking out lighter than what you came in.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want you to know.
SPEAKER_00: If you've experienced loss, here's what you have to know.
SPEAKER_00: God sees you.
SPEAKER_00: He sees you and cares about you enough to give you his word today.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe he can speak to you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe for you, you've experienced loss of somebody in your life, and every time an anniversary or a date pops up, it comes back.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're saying, Clayton, this message is gonna hit me today, and it's not because it's recent, it's because it was years ago, and yet any time I think about it, it's like it comes crawling right back to me.
SPEAKER_00: It's like it just I wake up and it's like I was living it all over again.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not just in losing someone that we experience grief.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know grief has many shapes, sizes, and forms in our life?
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes grief can be over rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there was somebody who was in the arena with you.
SPEAKER_00: They were for you, they were they were in the race of life and they were your biggest cheerleader or champion.
SPEAKER_00: The person, they loved you, but all of a sudden you look up and they're no longer running the race with you.
SPEAKER_00: And that sense of rejection or betrayal or their leaving or departure can leave a sense of grief on your life.
SPEAKER_00: We we experience grief in relationships all the time.
SPEAKER_00: In today's day and age, divorce around every corner, and how many of you know, stuff can be hard.
SPEAKER_00: And the grief that's left behind, though, although you begin to build your life back and put things back into order or find ways to pick up the pieces, what you can find is sometimes that grief follows you everywhere you go.
SPEAKER_00: It could be the loss of a friendship that you had, somebody that you know was really close to you.
SPEAKER_00: It could be uh a loss of different kinds of relationships in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Grief comes in many forms.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes grief likes to knock on the door of major life transitions.
SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
SPEAKER_00: You been there, you've been there.
SPEAKER_00: You're moving houses, changing jobs, losing a job, going through a big transition.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, some of y'all, even retiring, any retirees out there would say yes.
SPEAKER_00: Like even the thing that you've looked forward to your whole life.
SPEAKER_00: Can't wait till I can retire.
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden you wake up and realize I didn't know I was gonna feel this way.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know I was going to experience this kind of grief of the transition.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know a child leaving home to go away to college or move out of the house that can cause grief?
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all looking at me like, no way, that was a party at my house.
SPEAKER_00: I've been praying for this day.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, grief comes in all different forms and fashions.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's the business venture that didn't get off the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's the thing that didn't have the resources to be sustained, and so you had to quit or throw in the towel earlier than you expected.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's when you have to shut something down that you wish you were starting up.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's when you have to pack something up that you were hoping to hold on to for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes grief comes from unfulfilled dreams.
SPEAKER_00: I know none of you have ever experienced this, but it's just the reality that the life and the world in which we live in, where some things that you thought would come to pass, have yet to come to pass.
SPEAKER_00: And all of these things in our life can cause what we call or refer to as grief.
SPEAKER_00: And the challenge as believers is this.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord did not say that when he came, that guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You would have no trouble and no pain and nothing that you would ever go through in your life to make it hard.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come and say that.
SPEAKER_00: What he did come and say, Take heart, because I've already overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: So the challenge on our part today, and the heartbeat behind today, is this that we would learn how to walk through grief the way the Lord would teach us.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I really believe for you that today is going to be a gift.
SPEAKER_00: I've been praying for you.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we got a whole prayer team this week rallied around praying for this message because I know that this message is a strong one, and I know that in this message the Lord wants to do something in you, listen, that you can't do for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: The key of this message today is this it's not try harder, it's not be better, it's not do more.
SPEAKER_00: It's not find new coping mechanisms, it's not read another book on it, it's not do something you've never done before, it's not ask your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: The solution in today's message is God has something he wants to do for you.
SPEAKER_00: Are you willing to let him do it?
SPEAKER_00: I want to unpack this in this way because how many of you know grief builds up over time.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had one of those emotional moments that you get done and you're like, well, that moment didn't really uh solicit that much emotion out of me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where that came from.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe sometimes you experience in the form of anger or a short fuse.
SPEAKER_00: I've had times in my life where I'm like, I don't, my life seems good right now.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I so short fused?
SPEAKER_00: And I realize, because there's grief on me.
SPEAKER_00: There's something that I've suppressed, there's something that I've been holding on to.
SPEAKER_00: There are times, and it's it's like, do you remember back in the day when you used to watch real TV, you know, where you couldn't skip the ads?
SPEAKER_00: My kids these days, they, man, they cannot stand an ad.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, listen, this is just life.
SPEAKER_00: This is how life goes.
SPEAKER_00: You haven't learned this lesson, and uh, and they're like, no, it's not, Dad.
SPEAKER_00: It's 2026.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, fair, you know?
SPEAKER_00: You can't just skip through all, but you remember those commercials that used to come out, like, here's a new life-changing drug, it's gonna make your life amazing.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be healed, you know?
SPEAKER_00: And then it comes out with all the disclaimers, and it's like, may cause cancer, may destroy anxiety, everything in the book it's thrown at you.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, may cause death.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, wow, all that for that?
SPEAKER_00: You know the side effects.
SPEAKER_00: Grief has side effects.
SPEAKER_00: And so today, what I want to encourage you is maybe maybe you haven't lost someone, but maybe you are experiencing some side effects of some built-up grief that the Lord says, I want to file those away.
SPEAKER_00: I want to file off the rough edges, I want to file off the hard places, I want to bring healing to what has grown hard.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna do that today through John chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: It's the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And the burden is this the way to get from grief to glory is to let the Lord unbind you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to unpack this in John chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: Lazarus is a friend of Jesus, the brother of Martha and Mary, who were sisters.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew him well, and Lazarus had gotten sick.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but if I was walking in Jesus' day and age, I just would have kept him right by my side.
SPEAKER_00: Got a boo-boo?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Lord's here.
SPEAKER_00: No food today?
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's here.
SPEAKER_00: Got a sickness?
SPEAKER_00: The Lord can heal.
SPEAKER_00: And Lazarus, what they find is Lazarus is sick, but Jesus is away.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has been moved from town to town here because as he's getting closer and closer to his death on the cross, tensions are becoming more and more hostile around Jesus and his ministry, and people are at him, and the disciples are now trying to shield Jesus away from these people, not understanding everything that Jesus is about to do.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the end of the story.
SPEAKER_00: The end of the story is this that Jesus didn't get to Lazarus in time, and Jesus, his best friend Lazarus, dies.
SPEAKER_00: Lazarus dies, and we pick up the story with Martha and Mary, who begin to ask some questions that if you've ever been through grief, listen, you can testify to this.
SPEAKER_00: You'd be like, I've been here, I've done that, I've asked that, I've felt that, I've had those questions.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is away and Lazarus dies.
SPEAKER_00: So verse 20 of chapter 11, if you're ready, say, I'm ready.
SPEAKER_00: So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went outside of town, and Mary remained seated in the house, and Martha said to Jesus, Jesus is on his way in, and Martha says, I gotta get to Jesus, I got a bone to pick.
SPEAKER_00: Martha says to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
SPEAKER_00: But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know when grief sets in?
SPEAKER_00: It causes you to do some things you wouldn't normally do.
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes when grief sets in, it will begin to drive your actions and your attitudes and your behaviors.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't ask for it, you feel equipped for it, you didn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: Martha's first response is Jesus is on his way, and Jesus, I got a challenge here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I got a tension I'm facing on the inside of my soul.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to understand, Jesus, why you were not here when I was going through the hardest moment of my life.
SPEAKER_00: And so Martha doesn't waste any time.
SPEAKER_00: Mary stays where she's at, but Martha says, I gotta go.
SPEAKER_00: I got I gotta go figure out why Jesus wasn't here.
SPEAKER_00: The story goes on.
SPEAKER_00: We'll jump down to verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: And when Martha had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, the teacher, Jesus is here, and he's calling for you.
SPEAKER_00: And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.
SPEAKER_00: And now Jesus, who had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him.
SPEAKER_00: And when the Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary rise up and quickly go out, they followed Mary.
SPEAKER_00: They were supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep some more.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know the grief is heavy on their house?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know everybody's feeling it?
SPEAKER_00: And when they found this, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.
SPEAKER_00: I skipped verse 32.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it says.
SPEAKER_00: Mary said the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 34, Jesus says, Where have you laid him?
SPEAKER_00: And they said to the Lord, Lord, come and see.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus wept.
SPEAKER_00: So the Jews said, See how he loved him.
SPEAKER_00: But some of them said, Could not of Jesus have opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?
SPEAKER_00: They got questions.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we've seen you heal other people.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we've seen you do other miraculous things for other people.
SPEAKER_00: Where were you when we needed you?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 38.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: It was a cave and a stone lay against it.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, Take away the stone.
SPEAKER_00: And Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead for four days.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a King James Bible, it says, Lord, he stinketh.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?
SPEAKER_00: So they took away the stone, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you've heard me.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that you always hear me, but I'm saying this so that everybody around me, so that they can hear, and they too can believe that you sent me.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.
SPEAKER_00: And the man Lazarus, who had died, came out.
SPEAKER_00: His hands and his feet were bound with linen strips, and his face was wrapped with a cloth.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to everyone standing around, unbind him and let him go.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my prayer for you this week that the grief that is binding you would be unbound, that you would be set free.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how long it's been with you, it doesn't matter how short it's been with you, it doesn't matter how shallow it is that you think, or how deep it is that you think that it is.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we believe around here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus can do today what he could do back then.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, who he is, cannot help himself but to unbind the things that have been bound.
SPEAKER_00: I I read this story because I can relate with so many people in this story that as you're reading it, the grief that has set in, naturally so.
SPEAKER_00: These people aren't wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, grief is not a bad thing.
SPEAKER_00: There is a part of grief, I want you to understand, Jesus wept.
SPEAKER_00: How many of y'all got a Bible verse you need memorized, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you a free one today, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
SPEAKER_00: Say, Jesus wept.
SPEAKER_00: Now you know a Bible verse by heart.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wept.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was in this moment with them.
SPEAKER_00: Having grief and overcoming grief is not about having no emotions.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about not dealing with the stuff that you're going through.
SPEAKER_00: But I do want to give you some things that I see in this story that I can relate to that have gotten me in trouble when it comes to grief.
SPEAKER_00: The challenge with grief is this.
SPEAKER_00: Often our first response is to blame.
SPEAKER_00: One of the traps of grief is grief can often lie to you to the place where often our first response can be to blame.
SPEAKER_00: Has anybody ever had, don't raise your hand, but have you ever had somebody in your life say the wrong thing at the wrong time?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I'm a pastor, I do a lot of funerals and come around a lot of families in their really hard times, and and I I'm not gonna lie.
SPEAKER_00: You know who I think's the worst at saying wrong things at the wrong time?
SPEAKER_00: Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Did I say that out loud?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when people are really in it, people say stuff to you that you're like, that doesn't make me feel any better.
SPEAKER_00: You know, well intended, but some Christian platitudes don't always go so far when the grief is deep.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: And so there's this phrase, and maybe you've heard it, but time heals all wounds.
SPEAKER_00: You heard that phrase?
SPEAKER_00: It's a lie.
SPEAKER_00: Time heals all wounds.
SPEAKER_00: No, I know people who have had a lot of time since their wound, and instead of being healed, it got worse.
SPEAKER_00: So the challenge is we have to take this and view it through the lens of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Time heals all wounds.
SPEAKER_00: I only know one person who heals all wounds, and his name is not time, it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Time is passive, healing is an active agent that works.
SPEAKER_00: Well, God wants to come in and heal the place.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's what can happen: we we hear these phrases and we hear these things that cause us in our grief to maybe do things we wouldn't normally do.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you for me, blame can be one of those things.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Martha and Mary both came out, and the first thing that they have to say to Jesus is, Where were you?
SPEAKER_00: Where were you?
SPEAKER_00: And what I love is Jesus can handle us and all our hard stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know that.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing so hard inside of you that you can't bring to him.
SPEAKER_00: But in this moment, I think what can happen is, you know, the blame game can be really easy.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody have a sibling growing up?
SPEAKER_00: It's like it came second nature, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're like, it was them.
SPEAKER_00: The blame game started at a young age, but can I tell you it may be okay on a three-year-old, but as we grow up and are living our life, the blame game is nothing but deadly.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because blame kills belief.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why you can't live in the blame game with your grief.
SPEAKER_00: The reason you can't live in the blame game with your with uh with your grief is because of this.
SPEAKER_00: It kills belief.
SPEAKER_00: And what does Jesus tell Martha?
SPEAKER_00: The one thing, he says, Did I not tell you, if you believed, you would see the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Your belief becomes the active agent between your grief and God's glory that gets you from point A to point Z.
SPEAKER_00: It becomes the thing that carries you through the healing process of grief is belief.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus tells Martha, Did I not tell you I can do anything?
SPEAKER_00: And Martha responds often like I think maybe I would.
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, of course, you're Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can do anything.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, how many of you know Martha didn't really mean that?
SPEAKER_00: Because the very next phrase, Jesus says, I want to heal Lazarus and raise him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, No way, he stinks.
SPEAKER_00: Belief is the primary ingredient that God wants to use inside of your healing process of grief.
SPEAKER_00: And here's how I want to illustrate this to you Jesus can only be for you what you believe him to be for you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to say that again because it sounds almost heretical.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus can only be for you what you believe him to be for you.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what this means.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is a healer.
SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, hold on.
SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is a healer.
SPEAKER_00: But until I believe him to be my healer, I don't experience him as a healer.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has always been, and the plan of God has always been that Jesus is a savior.
SPEAKER_00: But how many of you know there are a lot of people that don't know Jesus as their personal savior?
SPEAKER_00: And what's the missing link?
SPEAKER_00: Belief.
SPEAKER_00: So, so here's here's here's what the scripture begins to paint.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is a comforter.
SPEAKER_00: But when I believe him to be a comforter, he becomes my comforter.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus becomes a friend to me to walk with me through my grief when I believe him.
SPEAKER_00: So, what is the one thing the enemy wants to kill in the midst of your grief?
SPEAKER_00: Your belief.
SPEAKER_00: If you can hold on to your belief over blame, it's going to position you to receive everything God wants you to receive.
SPEAKER_00: So, watch out for the blame game in the midst of your grief.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing.
SPEAKER_00: Is this be careful of resisting what God wants to do for you?
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus is standing right there saying, I'm ready to heal Lazarus.
SPEAKER_00: I am going to raise him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And here's Martha's response.
SPEAKER_00: Well, of course you are, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: One day when we all go to heaven, I know that you're going to raise everyone from the dead and they're going to go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's what she's saying.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, Well, of course I am.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm talking about right here, right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about what am I going to do right here, right now?
SPEAKER_00: And so I find this so interesting because, again, I can find myself in the same situation.
SPEAKER_00: The only way to receive healing in your grief is to not resist the very thing that God wanted to do for you.
SPEAKER_00: When I think about this, I'm I'm encouraged because Jesus did this.
SPEAKER_00: How did he do this?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus equally could have blamed God in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: God, you had a different assignment for me, and now I wasn't here for my friend Lazarus.
SPEAKER_00: God, I've healed all kinds of people, and you wouldn't let me be there to heal my friend.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't give in to the blame game.
SPEAKER_00: He also didn't resist what God was wanting to do.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear him as he said, Father, whatever it is that you want to do, I'm ready and willing, and I'm ready to do it.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Jesus always believed that God's glory would be revealed in any and every situation.
SPEAKER_00: And when you can believe that God will show up in the midst of everything that it is that you're going through, I'm not telling you it makes it perfect.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you you're never going to cry another tear.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you you're not going to have harder days.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm telling you is this when you know glory is on the other side of your grief, it gets you a lot farther in life.
SPEAKER_00: Makes you a lot stronger.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wept.
SPEAKER_00: And what I love about God is he's not so big that he doesn't care.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's he is big.
SPEAKER_00: He created it all.
SPEAKER_00: But he's not so big and standoffish that he says, I'm not willing to get into creation.
SPEAKER_00: That's the story of Jesus, that God sent his son to live the way that you and I live.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: So that he could experience the things that you and I experience in such a way he could have empathy and compassion and mercy for you.
SPEAKER_00: When we think about Jesus, we don't just think, oh, he's just a God who doesn't understand.
SPEAKER_00: We think, no, he is a God who understands what it's like to be in my shoes.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know this?
SPEAKER_00: Because he lost his best friend Lazarus.
SPEAKER_00: He had people die in his life.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: He was Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, most people don't know this, but many theologians believe, and you look in scripture and it's very well supported, that Jesus' own dad, Joseph, died in his lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all are like, no way.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ruin the nativity story.
SPEAKER_00: The last record we have of Joseph in the Bible is when Jesus was 12 years old.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all remember what Jesus was out there getting lost, you know?
SPEAKER_00: His parents were looking for him, and Mary and Joseph went to find him.
SPEAKER_00: That's the last record we have in the Bible of Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: And how many know when Jesus is hanging on the cross in the midst of his own pain and suffering, he looks down at the disciple John and he says, John, Mary is your mother.
SPEAKER_00: Mary, John is now your son.
SPEAKER_00: Take care of each other.
SPEAKER_00: The only time they would do that in that faith and day and tradition is this.
SPEAKER_00: If there was not a husband there to take care of Mary, and in that moment, in the midst of his pain, listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of his own pain, he knew the grief they were going through and about to go through.
SPEAKER_00: And he healed what would be broken at his departure before he ever even departed.
SPEAKER_00: That is a God who sees.
SPEAKER_00: How did Jesus do this?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I believe.
SPEAKER_00: I believe Jesus lived his life with God's glory in mind.
SPEAKER_00: With God's glory in mind, it puts grief at bay.
SPEAKER_00: With God's glory at mind, it does not allow your mind to be occupied with an over-consuming, over-controlling amount of grief.
SPEAKER_00: It lays it aside and says, I don't have answers, but I trust.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have understanding, but I believe glory will be revealed in the situation that I've been through.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna trust.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it looks like, but I'm gonna trust.
SPEAKER_00: How did Jesus do that?
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Lazarus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what Lazarus' name means?
SPEAKER_00: No, I'll tell you, okay.
SPEAKER_00: God who helps.
SPEAKER_00: Lazarus' very birth-given name means God helps you.
SPEAKER_00: And when Lazarus, when Jesus is staring at this tomb with Lazarus inside, here's what Jesus knows.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have to go get out his Greek translation and try and translate the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't go read a hundred commentaries.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what he knew.
SPEAKER_00: Lazarus' name meant God helps him.
SPEAKER_00: Lazarus' name means God's glory is coming on his life.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus stands in front of the tomb and says, roll away the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Martha says, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a good idea, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, do it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Because guess what?
SPEAKER_00: He's not afraid to get in the middle of the stink.
SPEAKER_00: He's not afraid to get in the middle of the hard stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And they roll away the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus calls Lazarus to life.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus then tells the people standing around in the midst of their grief to go unbind Lazarus.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I believe.
SPEAKER_00: I believe Lazarus wasn't the only one unbound that day.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that as they stood there and pulled the strips off of Lazarus, here's what was happening in them.
SPEAKER_00: God was unbinding them from the very grief that they were carrying in their own life.
SPEAKER_00: The question today is this Is there grief on you that the Lord wants to unbind?
SPEAKER_00: Is there grief on you that the Lord wants to set you free from?
SPEAKER_00: I I want to give you some scriptures, and as I do, the band is going to come, and I have some people that are going to do illustration if you'd come get ready.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read these scriptures to you because I think these are helpful to you in the days ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah chapter 53, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He was despised and rejected by men.
SPEAKER_00: A man of this is talking about Jesus, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
SPEAKER_00: As one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows away.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus carries your sorrows away.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say try harder, get better.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say find a new coping technique.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say get on Google and look for the latest, greatest blog on grief.
SPEAKER_00: He says that Jesus carries them away.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 30, verse 5, weeping may tarry, weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 126, verse 5, those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy.
SPEAKER_00: Second Corinthians chapter 4, verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever felt grief, you know that it feels like a weight on your chest.
SPEAKER_00: What I love about that Corinthians verse is this it says, I don't have to carry the weight of grief when I carry the weight of his eternal glory.
SPEAKER_00: Today, here's what I want to happen in the room.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to exchange the weight of grief for the weight of his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because one is heavy and the other is light.
SPEAKER_00: One keeps you up at night and the other helps you sleep well.
SPEAKER_00: One will make you bitter and angry, and the other one will give you joy.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an exchange that happens.
SPEAKER_00: So I asked some volunteers to come.
SPEAKER_00: If you would come out here, some unwilling volunteers, y'all give it up for them.
SPEAKER_00: This week I was thinking about this picture, and I wanted to tell you, but I thought I really need to show you because here's what I think grief does to us.
SPEAKER_00: It's a weight.
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and hit the gym, my man.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knew I wasn't gonna get on that bench, didn't you?
SPEAKER_00: You've been thinking the whole time.
SPEAKER_00: Like that pastor can't even lift a 45-pound bar.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna get up here and he's gonna do his reps over and over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what he's gonna do: he's carrying the weight of grief.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever been through loss, if you've ever experienced in your own life rejection, what happens is sometimes you get at the bench, you're like, I got this, I can do this.
SPEAKER_00: But over time, what happens?
SPEAKER_00: What maybe you could get by with in the beginning gets heavier and heavier and heavier.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is this over time, eventually, if he does enough reps, he will get pinned.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, he will be fatigued to the point where he cannot, and I'll just add my own weight.
SPEAKER_00: Why not, buddy?
SPEAKER_00: This is my illustration, I can do what I want.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, the weight gets to be too much to hold.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe what 10 years ago, you were having no problem pushing up and down and telling everybody, I'm fine, I'm got it, I got it, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.
SPEAKER_00: Ten years later becomes something unbearable.
SPEAKER_00: As I was thinking about this illustration, I you know, a coach in the gym, as you're doing your reps, would say, Come on, you got this, you got this, you got this.
SPEAKER_00: But the second the weight gets to be too much and it pins you and you can't get out, that coach would change positions.
SPEAKER_00: A church would get behind you and he would spot you and he would lift it off.
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and lift it off.
SPEAKER_00: Because the idea is this you can't get out of it yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And the picture I want to reveal to you today is some of you are crushed by the pin, you are pinned by the weight of grief, thinking, I'm gonna get out of this if I just keep trying harder.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord says, I carried their sorrows away.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the Lord is saying, I'm going to lift it off of you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of y'all are wondering why I chose the strongest Marine in the room to do this.
SPEAKER_00: Because this week I was in prayer and I was sitting right over there, and I thought, I was thinking through my illustration.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, I better not pick a really strong guy to do this illustration because he'll probably ruin it because he's so strong.
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I said that, the Lord said, uh pick the strongest guy in the room.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Why?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Because even the strongest have a max weight limit.
SPEAKER_00: Even the strongest can only go so far.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how strong you are, he is the one who lifts grief off of you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not time, it's not tactics, it's not disciplines, it's not a new self-help book.
SPEAKER_00: God is the only one who can lift down and reach and pull the grief off of you in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Now, listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: I asked him on his way in this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Hey, you look like the strongest guy here.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Thanks.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Will you do anything?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Yes, I will.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm the preacher, you better be careful what you say.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I'll do it.
SPEAKER_00: After service, he came to me.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Three weeks ago, my dad died.
SPEAKER_00: And that illustration of lifting it off is delivering a word right here.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the Lord wants to do for you.
SPEAKER_00: At the point that you admit or acknowledge I may look strong, but I need him.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the unbinding starts.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jesus standing in front of the tomb saying, Roll it away, Lazarus come out and set him free.
SPEAKER_00: I have to tell you my story.
SPEAKER_00: Three months ago, my grandmother passed away, and and she she meant a lot to me, and but we were prepared.
SPEAKER_00: She was in her late 90s, and we're prepared, and but how many of you know just because you think you're prepared doesn't mean you're prepared.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the preacher in the family, which means I get to marry and bury everybody.
SPEAKER_00: I went and did her funeral, and Lord showed me some things about her life that left a legacy on me.
SPEAKER_00: And that day while I was there, the weather was not good, and so we weren't able to do her graveside service and bury her.
SPEAKER_00: So the family just said, Hey, we'll do this at another time, but it's in Kansas City, so I wasn't planning on going back.
SPEAKER_00: And there were some things going on in my life a few months ago.
SPEAKER_00: I was just I was kind of short-fused about some things in my life.
SPEAKER_00: There's some things that were bothering me, and just I needed some answers from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just being transparent here.
SPEAKER_00: There's some things I was asking the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I told Courtney, I said, this week, I need to hear God on this because I feel like He's not answering me.
SPEAKER_00: And I was really wrestling through it, and she could tell it was bothering me and frustrating me.
SPEAKER_00: And on a Sunday night I went to bed and I was just frustrated.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Lord, I really need to hear from you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm teeter-tottering on blame versus belief, and I'm teeter-tottering on resisting God versus receiving from God.
SPEAKER_00: And in the middle of the night I had a dream, and listen, if I have dreams, they're from heaven because again, I don't dream, I sleep.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that the Lord wants to give you visions and dreams.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that around here.
SPEAKER_00: And in the middle of the night, I started having a dream, and I was at my grandmother's graveside service.
SPEAKER_00: And I was singing the song she asked not to be sung at her funeral.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was singing the song, saying the song from Amazing Grace, My chains are gone, I've been set free, my God, my savior.
SPEAKER_00: And I started singing, My chains are gone.
SPEAKER_00: I've been set free.
SPEAKER_00: And I woke up from my dream in the middle of the night and I was weeping.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I didn't wake up and start crying.
SPEAKER_00: I woke up and I had already been crying in my sleep.
SPEAKER_00: Never before happened to me in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Courtney was already awake saying, What's what's going on?
SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
SPEAKER_00: And the second I woke up, here's what I heard the Lord say to me.
SPEAKER_00: I knew it was an answer to the questions I had been asking.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord goes, Clayton, there is grief on you, and I'm lifting it off.
SPEAKER_00: See, there were things I was trying to do to fix some of the problems in my life.
SPEAKER_00: There was things I was trying to do to work stuff out, and the Lord, in that moment, here's what he did.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Clayton, the reason for all the side effects are because things you can't even see on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord says, There's grief on you, but he didn't leave me there.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm taking it off of you.
SPEAKER_00: That morning I get in my car, driving to work, and I call my dad.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Hey dad, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, actually, I'm picking up your grandfather, and we're getting in the car to drive Springfield three hours away, because today we're burying your grandmother.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know it was the day.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know what was coming.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know what I needed.
SPEAKER_00: But guess what?
SPEAKER_00: The God of all creation, the author and perfecter of our faith, who carried our sorrows away, knows what you need before you even know.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder how the Lord would lift it off of you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Would you bow your heads and actually, why don't you just go ahead and stand?
SPEAKER_00: I want to invite you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe God is