I am the Resurrection and the Life W/Lemarr Jackson

There are many different ideas about who Jesus was and continually is. Depending on who you ask you can get a million different answers, but let's explore who Jesus says that Jesus is! Once we've decided who Jesus is to us, then does this revelation change the way that we live? Dive into Matthew 16 with us as we reflect on these questions. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

For those of you don't know, my name is Lamar Chandre Jackson, and I have the privilege of being director of youth ministry here at Madison. And amen, shout out to the youth. And um Lord has laid a message on my heart this morning to preach, and I'm happy to be able to stand here and deliver it to such an amazing congregation. I thank you guys for who you are and how you continue to show up in hard times. Um, and how you also show up in the good times as well. So I appreciate you, church. Today we're gonna talk about some things that may be hard, and we'll also have a little bit of celebration in the midst of all of it as well, too, because that is what the kingdom of God looks like here on earth. So I'm gonna talk about death today. When I was getting prepared to do this, there were a few quotes that I ended up finding from a few different people, different ranges of people, authors, singers, theologians, many different people, and I wanted to just read some of those quotes to express a bunch of the ideas of how we feel moving towards death. Here's one to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. J.K. Rowling. I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die. So let me live my life the way I want to. Jimi Hendrix. Some of you like, I didn't know I was gonna hear Jimi Hendrix in church this morning. This one's fun to me. He says, I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. I thought that was cute. There's a second one from him. He says, The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. These were both given by Mark Twain. People fear death even more than pain. It's strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah, I guess it is. A friend. Jim Morrison. If you don't know how to die, don't worry. Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you. Don't bother your head about it. One of my favorites is don't take life too seriously. Nobody gets out alive. Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time. It tells us to teach to tell each other right now that we love each other. Every man must do two things alone. He must do his own believing and his own dying. Martin Luther. No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is how it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Steve Jobs. And then one more, from the great theologian of our day. I'm here for a good time, not a long time. Aubrey Drake Graham. I think these quotes. Excuse me, Sash. I think these quotes tell us a lot about how we view death as humans. Death is kind of like a great muse for so many of us because we know all of us one day will have to face it, we'll have to deal with it, we'll have to think about it. And it raises so many different emotions. Fear, apprehension, confusion, even acceptance. Some of us see death as recovery, some of us see death as great mercy. And even others see death as a joy. Many of you know that I came up in a Baptist church. Amen. And it's funny because I don't even think we ever really called funerals funerals. There were always home going celebrations. Because we knew that this was just another stage of life that we moved to to get to eternal life and to be with our creator. Death is pretty important. But I'm starting to feel like it might not be that big of a deal. But the Bible naturally has a lot to say about death. And so we're gonna look at one of the stories in particular of Lazarus, and we're gonna see how Jesus responds and reacts. And hopefully, he can give us some ideas about death that we can take with us as we live life. We're gonna read John chapter 11. I'm gonna read verses. I'm gonna read verses 1 through 44. I'm not gonna ask you to stand for all of that. You can turn there now, and you can even stand now for acknowledgement in the reading of the word of God, if stand in body or spirit. And I'm gonna read the first few verses, I'm gonna read the first seven, and then I'll have you sit. And as we continue going through this sermon, I'll keep referring back to the passages and reading them before we continue hearing more of the sermon. So we're gonna read John 11, starting at verse 1. Here's what the word of God says. Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary, and her sister Martha. Now, this Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay 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. When he heard this, Jesus said, The 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 the disciples, Let us go back to Judea. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I find something very interesting about these first seven verses because I know that Jesus is God, and he existed before he walked around in human flesh. He was in heaven with the Father, with the Spirit, and then he stepped down into human flesh and frailty to walk a life amongst us. And so I always look at texts that I read about him a little differently because he knows about eternity. Even though we can only hear about it and learn things about it, and we don't know it like Jesus knew it. And so how he reacts in this world is always curious to me. This eternal being walking amongst mortals begins to do something really interesting. Form relationships. He begins to connect with people, to reach out with them, to grow and getting to know them and them getting to know him. He doesn't just stay far off and say, You'll be with me one day if you just believe, but he gets in the midst of our lives and connects. We see it's referenced a bunch of times in these just seven verses that he loves this family. And it's obvious that this family also loves him. But this tells us that Jesus is fully concerned with our well-beings, not just our salvation, but also how we're doing. Yes, he has the ultimate eternal perspective, but yet he spends times and places where he knows people need love. He's chasing after the overlooked, he's seeking the lost, he's forming friendships, he's eating with people, he's calling people to life changes, he's even answering questions, he's challenging people, he's playing a major role in life on earth. Not just sitting off, saying you'll be in eternity with me one day. So Jesus absolutely loves this family in particular, and there's a deeper relationship than even what we read in scripture, uh, because the scripture only points out a couple of stories, but it's obvious that they had many more with him. But it's out of this relationship and this love that they had for Jesus that when Lazarus fell sick, they sent word to him. And no doubt in my mind, they knew the power of Jesus and they knew what he could do. And I imagine that when they knew that Lazarus looked like he was on this deathbed, they said, We need to call in the big guns. Somebody get word to Jesus that the one he loves is sick because he can do something about it. And it seems to be the only problem with this is that Jesus doesn't respond in the time frame that they're expecting. But he even gives this interesting quote: it's kind of like, somehow, this is going to be for the glory of God. Somehow. Where they sent their prayers to him and he refused to respond. Because days passed, and Lazarus got more and more sick. I wonder if you have ever felt that before. I've sent the prayer up to God. Is he ghosting me? I know he's opened the message, but why hasn't he responded? I know what those feelings feel like. And I know Mary and Martha do too. And Jesus is somehow saying that somehow this will still be for the glory of God. But right now, I don't see it. Also, notice that the close relationship with Jesus does not exclude them from pain, grief, and tragedy. I used to have that thought when I was a younger that when I gave my life, when I profess my faith to Jesus, that meant that all things in my life were gonna start going smoothly. But that's not the promise that he gave us. It's not that we will walk through life painlessly. He actually tells us that we will suffer and that through our suffering we actually connect deeper to him. He says that when we share in his sufferings, then we'll share in his glory, and somehow this will be for God's glory. Hmm. It seems that Jesus didn't come to preserve his people from these afflictions, but to save us from our sins. So I'm dealing with that. Verses 8, 9, and 10. Here's what verse 8 says. But Rabbi, they said a short while ago, the Jews were trying to stone you, and yet you're going back. Jesus answered, Are there not 12 hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see the this world's, they see by this world's light. It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light. Notice that Jesus doesn't fear the potential harm that may come when he goes back for reaching out to this family. Jesus seems to be willing to risk his own safety to comfort friends. And he's doing this interesting wordplay thing. I think he this is like him being poetic. Because who does Matthew say that Jesus says the light is? Well, Jesus is the light. A couple chapters before this, we actually see that when John, right after John tells us that if you just believe in him, then you'll be saved, you'll have eternal light. He says that Jesus is the light that has come into the world. And he says, Man, but somehow some people continue to choose darkness, but Jesus is the light. And so Jesus is doing a play on words here where he talks about walking in the world's light or the S-U-N. Well, he's also referring to the S-O-N. He said walking in the light or walking in the will of God actually will be your protection. Because his disciples are worried about harm coming to them. They're like, won't they kill you if you go back? They've got their stones locked and loaded ready to stone you. And he says, When you walk in the light, the work will get done. But it's those who walk in darkness who cannot finish it. I believe Jesus is actually telling them something deeper about purpose here. He's saying, When we are walking in the purpose that God has placed us on this earth to accomplish, you will accomplish it. There is no one on this earth, outside of this earth, around this earth, that can stop you from accomplishing the will of God in your life. It will get done. You don't have to worry the harm that may come to you. This is a promise. Walk in the will of God, the light. After he said this, he went on to tell them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I'm going to wake him. Gotta wake him up. His disciples replied, Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better. Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he just meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe, but let us go to him. Then Thomas, also known as Didymus or twin, said to the rest of the disciples, Well, let us also go that we may die with him. Pause for a moment. Jesus, he's gonna wake up and be okay then. But Jesus is saying, No, this is a little bit deeper than that. Lazarus is dead, and I'm gonna go wake him up still. And it seems to be this in the previous passage where he says, walk in the light and don't worry about the harm, that Thomas seems to get a little bit of courage. And I find it's I find it interesting that Thomas is the one mentioned here as the one of the disciples who spoke up and said something. He said, Let us go be ride or die for Jesus. He says, if Jesus, you're gonna die there, then we're gonna go die with you. And this is interesting that it's Thomas because in a little while in the future here, Thomas is going to start to become known as doubting Thomas. But it's actually this Thomas that I truly believe in, and know this is the Thomas that is willing to die wherever Jesus is leading him. He's never been doubting Thomas. I know he's willing to follow Jesus to his own death in this moment. I do think he still has Jesus misunderstood because he wasn't sure what Jesus could actually do. He had seen some powerful things, but he didn't fully understand Jesus yet. And yet, in his misunderstanding, he was still willing to trust Jesus, to profess his faith in Jesus, wherever that faith would take him. Let us be like Thomas. Ride or die for Jesus wherever it takes us, no matter our circumstances and situations. Wanna read another verse, verse 17. On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been dead, been in the tomb for four days. He was dead. Never heard this before. Heard a couple people talk about a researcher than myself and found this out, and they said that Jews in this time had superstitions about death. They actually had a superstition about death that when you would die, your spirit would leave your body and hover over your body for three days. And your spirit would be waiting for an opportunity to maybe, just maybe, if it can find a crack, to jump back into your body, and then maybe you would actually get back up. For three days, the spirit would wait. I'm sure this rationale may have came out when Jesus resurrected the little girl Jairus' daughter. When he goes into the room and he kicks out all of the mourners, like, why are you guys mourning? I'm gonna wake her up. But she had just died, and Jesus, Taletha Kum, get up, and then he says, Yo, she walks, she she wakes up, and then he's like, Get this little girl a meal, she's hungry. And so some of the Jews might have seen that or heard the story and said, Well, she wasn't really dead, it hadn't been three days yet. Her spirit didn't actually leave, and they might use that to try to undergird, like the power of Jesus isn't as strong as what you guys think it is. So it seems like Jesus is well cooking this miracle, he's gonna make sure that it's well done, he waits for and even overrules their own superstitions, continuing in verse 18. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. Lord Martha said to Jesus, If you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Oh, Martha's answer is so fun to me. Martha answered, I know he will rise again. In the resurrection at the last day, Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. 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? See, Martha here is doing something interesting. She's expressing her faith in whatever happens next, as long as Jesus is by my side, I know it'll be okay. But right now, she's still grieving. But through her grief, she says, I still trust you, Jesus. But yet she still doesn't fully understand who Jesus is. She didn't actually expect Jesus to resurrect Lazarus in this moment. You'll see it later on when she's like, Hold on, Jesus, that body smells, it's been in there for a little while. You don't want to go in there. She's not expecting a resurrection, but she knows Jesus is here now, and she's saying, I'm gonna trust in you, but I don't expect resurrection. So she's hurt, but she's looking beyond her hurt and trusting Jesus. Do our prayers match that same energy of Martha here? Jesus, the circumstances and the outcomes of the things that I see in my life, they look like dead. Things are over, it's done with. Jesus, I don't know what you're gonna do. I don't know, but I still trust you. I trust in what's coming next. Her face is in that will of the Father. It reminds us of the prayer that Jesus prayed right before his crucifixion. Lord, if it's possible to let this cup pass for me, then let it pass, but not my will. Your will be done. Your will doesn't always match the circumstances that I want it to be. Your will doesn't always match mine, God's. So I pray that your will be done, not mine. Pain and suffering are in my future, but I'll go through it if it's in your will, God. Because your will will not let my suffering be in vain. Trust in the will of the Father, pray in the will of the Father. Doesn't he know better than us what we need? When we need. Continue to make your request to him. Notice here that Martha actually is showing some good theology. She knows about the day of resurrection, she knows it's not over for Lazarus, but her theology seems to be putting Jesus in a box because she's not expecting the supernatural to occur here. Well, God has times when he works completely outside of our understanding, outside of the theology that we have for him, because we don't fully understand him. Our theology will never fully explain Jesus. So we don't have faith in theology, we have faith in Jesus. Our theology isn't going to get us into heaven, Jesus is, and he is still unknowable. So why am I bringing this up? I want you to hold your theology loosely in such a way that God can work outside of your own understanding, or else we risk putting God in a box. Maybe even missing out on a miracle because of our own desired outcomes. Hear me. Resurrection isn't just what Jesus does, it's who he is. And who you are will continue to show up and how you live your life. God will never stop being who he is. So he will always be the resurrection, he will always be the life. God is love, God is light, God is I am. Do you believe this? It's what the young people just profess. They believe in this God, the one who is the resurrector. Verse 27. Yes, Lord, she replied. The teacher is here, she said, and I'm asking for you, and he's asking for you. When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and left, and got up and went out, they followed her. Supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there. When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Mary and Martha are going through grief, but yet still trusting in Jesus, though they haven't lost faith in him over losing their brother, but they are grieving. And we see them respond out of their grief. And how we hear them say that phrase of Lord, if you had been here, my brother would have would not have died. How you hear that in your mind can change how we see this passage. If it sounds like they're saying this with anger, if it sounds like they're saying this with disappointment in Jesus, however, you hear that will actually reflect or change and shift how you see Jesus' response. I don't know the tone. Be honest with you there. I don't know how they said this phrase to Jesus, but there is something that I do know. They know that they believe that Jesus could have prevented it because they both said it. So I imagine, yes, there was probably some disappointment in Jesus not being there in the time that they wanted him to be there. But beyond that, they still trusted in him. They didn't turn away from him, they didn't break their relationship with him and say we're not friends anymore. They still trusted in him, even though they felt disappointed. They even had faith in the resurrection down the road one day. Are there things in our own lives that we are upset or even disappointed in Jesus with because of his timing? Have you ever felt like Jesus didn't respond in the time you wanted him to? You prayed that prayer, expecting God to respond in a mighty and powerful way, and then you woke up the next day and you still felt the hurt, you still felt pain. I implore you to continue to wait on Jesus because he's never late, he will always be right on time. And here's the thing they didn't fully understand yet. He has the answer to even death itself and it's coming. Verse 33 when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in the spirit and troubled. Where have you laid him? He asked. Come and see, Lord, they replied. In the verse that all the teens love to quote, Jesus wept. The strong relationship between Jesus and this family shows up again. And he draws near them during their suffering. See, Jesus is actually interesting because he didn't have to be there to raise Lazarus from the dead. When he heard the word that Lazarus was sick, wherever Jesus was, he could have just said, be healed, and Lazarus would have been healed. But he doesn't. He takes some time and then he travels back and he gets next to the family. I believe that Jesus is showing us something that in the midst of whatever we're suffering and the pain and grief that we're going through, he is near you. He is going to draw near you. He doesn't he doesn't want to perform the miracle from afar, he wants to be right in your midst, next to you, with you, but he also wants to let you know that you aren't going through sorrow by yourself. He feels it too, so he weeps. He is caring for the afflicted, he is there with you. You don't feel that pain by yourself. I love the phrase that is joy when shared, it doubles. When I share my joy with somebody else, then we that double goes, that joy goes up double. When we celebrate, we might even start jumping. But then it says that sorrow, when we share it, it gets split in half. And so Jesus gives you his presence to split that sorrow in half. You take some, I take some, we bear it together. He's right there. Verse 36. Then Jesus said, or then the Jews said about Jesus. See how he loved them? He's crying. But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying? Pause for a moment. They're asking if Jesus loved Lazarus so much, then why wasn't he here sooner? They've been the ones grieving next to Mary and Martha while it was happening, but that man who can do all those miracles, why wasn't he here performing the miracle now? This is noise from the outside. Remember that God isn't working within our own framework, He's not working within the idea of how we think things should work. So when this noise from the outside comes up to you, you can keep it outside. Stay trusting in Jesus through the through all of it. Because somehow this is going to be for God's glory. We can't see with the eyes that Jesus does, but we can trust in his plan, knowing that he has our best interest at heart. Especially when it doesn't seem like it, we know he does, though. Don't lose that faith, don't lose that trust in Jesus. And he is that in every sense of the word. He's the substance of it, he is the first fruits of it, he is the cause of it. So when a soul dies, he can redeem it, he can revive it, and he can make it so that it never happens again in eternal life. Verse 38 is where we see it begin. 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's a bad odor, for he has been there for four days. 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. Trust is still there, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me. Watch what he does when he 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. What is dead is now alive. Death does not have the last word. See, our sickness will not end in our deaths, but will bring great glory to God just as these events have shown us. God will be exalted through it all. I want you to know that this is true for you. This is true for Lord. This is true for all of your loved ones that you know of. They will bring about the glory of God in resurrection. Death is not the destination, but a transition, the beginning of eternal life. Our stories don't end with death. Death is not a period but a comma. In John 5, he actually puts it this way too: he says, Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice. Lazarus, Lamar, Laura, come out, and those who have done what is good will rise and live. Though you may grieve in this life. We do not grieve as those without hope, because we have resurrection on our side. We have eternal life that death cannot touch. Our hope isn't in this life that is only a vapor. We're built on eternal life that lasts forever. Death was never in the design for us from God. We got that from sin. But He has conquered death, sin, and the grave. So we grieve those because we're present just like Jesus was. We may weep just like Jesus did, but still with his eternal eyes on. And we will not lose the war, brothers and sisters. Revelation 21 puts it this way. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, resurrected heaven, resurrected earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, they died, but now they're experiencing resurrection just like us, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people. And he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. Thank you, Jesus. Death will be defeated one day. Sin won't win because of his death, and death won't win because of his life. Thank you, Jesus. Let us go before the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, I pray, Lord, that you give us all the same boldness that you gave all these young people who profess their faith in you today. Give us the boldness that we are willing to stand in front of anybody and everybody and let them know that you are the resurrection, that the dead things in our lives will not stay dead, that you will give us eternal life in Christ Jesus. Yeah, we know the wages of sin is death because we sin, we die, but you give us the eternal gift, the great gift of eternal life. And as we wait on that, help us in our grief, help us in our sorrows, help us to know that you're near. Help us to know that you're real and you care. Help us to be there for others who are also grieving. Let us share our grief with each other so that we don't bear it alone. We were never meant to. Give us the time, the space to be with you. We thank you, Lord, for who you are. Continue to be who you are. We pray in your darling son Jesus' name. And through the power of the Holy Spirit that is alive in us, we thank you for resurrection. Amen.