If Jesus heals why didn’t he stop my suffering?
WATCH
I Am, 5 of 7 from March 29, 2026
“Jesus brings the dead to life yesterday, today and tomorrow.”
John 11 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon explores Jesus' declaration, "I am the resurrection and the life" from John 11, showing that His resurrection power is not only a future hope but also a present reality meant to transform our current circumstances. Through the story of Lazarus, Pastor Michael emphasizes that Jesus' goal in our trials is to deepen our trust, inviting us to let Him into the dead and broken places of our lives where He often desires more healing than we even know to ask for.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 Do we trust that Jesus is resurrection and life?
💬 What area of pain are we afraid to invite Jesus into?
💬 How does Resurrection change our perspective on the biggest stressors of our life?
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Well, good morning, church.
Have you ever had the experience where somebody has kind of, you've talked to a salesperson and they've told you what they're going to tell you, and then you make the purchase and then you get the product or you get the service or something like that, and you have that moment of realization that the salesperson doesn't actually. Either they don't know what their product is, or they purposefully lied to you about what it was that you were buying so that you would buy it. Right. I think some, like, I wonder, and this is. I can be.
I can tend to be kind of cynical, but sometimes I think businesses separate sales from the engineering because if you talked to an engineer about your project, you would know every detail about what the product is, how it does, how we got there, what are the problems. They would tell you all the bugs and things like that. And salespeople oftentimes will tell you none of that. And they will even tell you more things that their product does that they're trying to sell than it actually can do. Has anybody had that experience?
So sometimes we live in a world where you kind of can't trust what people are saying about a thing. And when we come to really, really important things, that's really, really important. When you buy a house, you want to know what you're buying before you sign your life away for the next four, 40, 50 years to do all those repairs, Right. Ask me how I know.
But when we come to like super duper important things, like with Jesus, we want to be clear about what it is and what he's doing. And so rather than take somebody else's word for who Jesus is, what he's about, what he's like. What we've done here at neighborhood church over the last couple of weeks is we've been working through a sermon series that's called I Am. And what we're doing is we're zeroing in on Jesus words. We what are the things that he has said about himself?
So in one particular biography about Jesus life, we call it the Book of John. In this biography, there are seven times, at least in the book, depending on how you count, where Jesus says explicitly, I am blank. And he fills in the blank. He gives an illustration. He makes some kind of a statement.
He says, if you want to know what I'm like, this is what I am like. I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door of the sheep. I am the good shepherd.
Right? He says those things and as we've gone over the last couple of weeks, we've begun to understand some of what he means by making those statements.
And today we're going to do that again as well. All right, so can we do that? Are we ready? All right, we're ready. We got some already.
So let's start by praying together. It's our habit to pray the disciples prayer. And my. Is that me? We got it.
Cool. The words are on the screen. We pray out of the English standard version. It may be a different translation than you might have grown up if this is a prayer that's familiar to you. But more than just saying the right words, what Jesus asks is for us to come with kind of a transparent heart.
This is honesty in our prayer. So I don't want to rush you. I'll know what your morning was like. So I'm just going to take a moment and we'll pause and give you a chance to breathe.
And I'll just invite you to pray together with me. Our Father, in. In heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. Let's navigate together in that biography in the book of John to John, chapter 11.
So if you've got. If you're. If you'd like to follow along in the blue Bibles, they're kind of tucked under the chairs in front of you. It's on page 1036 in the blue Bibles. That's what I'm reading out of.
So we'll be on the same page. 10:36 in the blue Bibles, John, chapter 11.
And in the course of what's happening In John chapter 10, Jesus has spent some significant amount of time talking with the religious teachers of his day. And he said he contrasted himself with the spiritual leadership that most people were familiar with and said, I actually am a different kind of spiritual leader. And one of my hopes for these people that I care about is that I'm gonna filter out the bad leaders. So he made some pretty strong statements against, like, the religious elite or the people that are kind of in charge at the time. And ultimately, in the course of that chapter, he makes a really explicit claim that he is God.
And so all the people in the crowd got really, really upset, and they picked up stones to throw at him. And they wanted to throw rocks at him until he was dead. And Jesus being Jesus is not my time. And he just walks out of there. But the disciples, can you imagine, like, walking through a crowd of people that want to throw rocks at the guy that you're with?
And he's like, hey, guys, let's get out of here. You're like, okay. Like, just feel like maybe there's a little bit of danger, right? Like, maybe you're, like, going through the trenches and shots are fired. Like, stakes feel pretty high.
And if you get to the other side of that, like, we made it. We got out. Like, I wasn't sure there. Like, Jesus knows that he's going to survive this stoning attempt. But the disciples, this is just a drive by.
Like, they don't know what's going to happen. They don't know the story. They just know that there's rocks coming, right? And so they get through it, and everybody gets settled. They get to a different area, and it seems like things are calming down a little bit.
And that's where our story picks up. In John, chapter 11, they've gotten through the heat, and now they hear some news. John, chapter 11, starting in verse one. Now, a certain man was ill. Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.
So the sisters sent to him, sent to Jesus, saying, lord, he whom you love is ill. But when Jesus heard it, he said, this illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
Then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to him, rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and you are going there again. Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.
After saying these things, he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. The disciples said to him, lord, if he's fallen asleep, he will recover. Now, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, lazarus has died, and for your sake, I'm Glad that I was not there so that you may believe, but let us go to him. So Thomas called the twins, said to his fellow disciples, let us go also, that we may die with him, right?
So that's the story. We see that Jesus has a relationship with this family in the city of Bethany. Mary and Martha and Lazarus, they're all siblings. And it seems like Jesus has a really strong relationship with him. It's a.
Says explicitly, kind of twice. Like, he loved them and he loved Lazarus. And so he gets word, like, Jesus, this guy whose reputation amongst the common people is that he is not only a preacher, but he also is a healer. And so if you're friends with a healer, and you're like, hey, Lazarus is really, really sick, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. The guy that you love, he is ill. Like, okay, Jesus.
When Jesus heard that Lazarus was ill, he just stays for two more days.
But I. Hold on, Michael. You just said that Jesus, like, loved this family that he cared about. They had a relationship with them. Like, he heard that he was ill. And he's a healer.
That's kind of what he does. It's how his preaching ministry got started was with healing some demon possessed people. Like, surely Jesus is not, like, afraid of healing. And surely he cares. Like, why didn't he go right away?
That's what he does. Mary prays, Mary calls for Jesus, and Jesus waits, and Lazarus falls asleep. Now, I love this. Don't you love this exchange? Because Jesus is like, hey, our brother Lazarus has fallen asleep.
The disciples are like, good, I'm glad he's getting some. He really needed to take a break. He needed a vacation. I'm sure he'll get better now. And Jesus is like, no, no, no.
When I said sleeping, what I meant is that Lazarus is dead. He's dead now. Oh, okay. Jesus, why didn't you just say so? Like, okay, well, if he's dead now, like, we don't have to go.
Cause we just got out of that trench and they were ready to kill you. Remember a couple of weeks ago when they were ready to kill you? And we've been laying low and we. And we've been staying quiet, and now he's dead. So sounds like we're done.
We don't really need to go to the funeral. Like, what can we do? Like, you're a doctor. You're a doctor for the sick. Like, if they're dead, like, work's done, there's nothing to do.
Why are we gonna go to the funeral after we've missed the opportunity like, you missed the opportunity, Jesus. No, no, no, we're gonna go. And I love Thomas. He's got a reputation for being a doubter, but he sounds a whole lot like me. All right, boys, here we go.
Let us go also, that we may die with him.
Jesus. I'm not leaving, but I'm not excited about where you're taking me right now.
Jesus goal in trials is to increase our trust.
The disciples said to him, lord, if he's fallen asleep, he will recover. Now, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he meant taking rest and sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. And for your sake, I'm glad that I was not there so that you may believe. Now we're in church, it's a Sunday morning, you probably took a shower, put some deodorant on.
You put your nice shirt on. That's great. And so when we hear words like believe, we're like, yes, faith. But like, that word believe, I think, is a word that we don't use very often in the way that I think Jesus, meaning he means like, do you trust? I am glad that I was not there so that you can increase in your trust so that you may believe.
I want you to trust me and what I'm doing because you saw that I did not immediately get up and run to my friend. And I suspect in the background, this is Michael reading in between the reading the white spaces, like, I suspect that there were some doubts about Jesus character. You talk a big talk about love in the whole wide world, Jesus. But when your friend, your friend got sick, you just sat down for two days. Come on, right?
And Jesus says, look, I am glad that I was not there for your sake, so that you might increase in your trust. I would like for Jesus goal in trials is for me to get more comfortable. I would like for Jesus goal in trials to make sure that I get a nice warm blanket of protection and no bad things ever come to me ever again. And Jesus goal in our trials is that we would increase in our trust of him.
And it's helpful, I think, sometimes in the midst of a trial to realize that maybe God's goal is not the same as mine.
Let's keep reading.
Verse 17, John 11:17.
Now, when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. See, they did have some good friends. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him But Mary remained seated in the house.
Martha said to Jesus, jesus, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. And Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection. On the last day, Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. So let's pause there for a moment.
In the rabbinic tradition, in, like, the tradition of the Jewish, like, teachers and scholars, there is this idea that our soul doesn't really like to cooperate with God's work on the earth. And so they would talk about how the soul doesn't really want to be born into flesh. And then once the flesh dies, the soul doesn't really want to leave. And so the idea was the soul would kind of stick around nearby the body until the body started to rot. And then once the body started to rot, the soul would be like, all right, clearly there's no chance that I'm going to be revived.
And so the soul would then depart and go on. That's kind of their idea of how things went. That's how the rabbis taught what was going on. But the key idea is this, that these are people who are much more familiar with the process of decaying and death. We as Americans, as Western people, we relegate that business to professionals.
When someone passes away, we entrust their body and the care of their body to somebody who has a license for that, right? But for their time, when your family member passed away, they were in the care of the family.
It was the family who washed and cared for the body. It was the family who. Who buried one another. They were much more intimately understanding of what a body does when it dies.
And so these folks say, like, after about three days, the decaying process has set in and it starts to stink. And even the soul has given up hope of being brought back into the body. Like, it's clear, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, right? So Jesus shows up, and Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days, which may mean that he's been dead for five.
And so he comes in, the friends are all there. They're gathered together. We've got this kind of funeral. This family's gathered to grieve. Everybody's upset.
And Martha comes to Jesus and she says, lord, if youf'd have been here, if youf'd have been here, my brother wouldn't have died.
But whatever you ask God, I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you. Fascinating. Fascinating. She's not quite sure that she knows what to ask for, but she knows that Jesus, whatever He asks for is going to work. And she doesn't know what he's going to do, but he's here.
But she knows, too, that, like, if he had been here, none of this would have happened.
There's some question in scholarship. There's some question, as you like, read the Old Testament. People will say, like, Jewish people did not believe in heaven. They didn't believe in an afterlife. And they were really fixated on what happened in the earth.
And I can see where that goes, but I think I can see where that comes from. But it seems clear to me that, like, she has a hope that resurrection is a thing that happens on the last day, that there comes a day where God comes and Judges the whole earth and he resurrects everybody who's died in order to judge them all. There's this final resurrection. That's what she says, because Jesus says, your brother will rise again. And she says, I know on the last day when history has run its course and God comes to judge everybody, that he will, that Lazarus will be resurrected on that day.
I know that there is something that's going to happen in the future.
And Jesus says, yeah, but it's me. You've got a hope for a resurrection far off and a long ways away. And yet I here before you. I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me, whoever trusts in Me, though He die, yet he shall live. And everyone who lives and trusts in Me shall never die. He makes this massive declarative statement, and his statement's kind of inscrutable. How do you test that? How do you test that?
Because in order to test Jesus hypothesis here, you have to die to know if it's true, that though you die, yet you shall live. There are not a lot of people that come back after that. And in my family, death runs in the family. Like, you live long enough and you die. It's happened to everybody who's lived long enough.
Right?
But the crux of the conversation is that very small question. Do you believe this?
Do you trust this? I am the resurrection. Do you trust me?
It's a theological statement. There are big, astonishing theological principles that are all kind of swirling around. And Jesus takes those huge, massive theological universal truths and he brings it down to one small question that is incredibly personal.
So our big idea for the morning is that Jesus brings the dead to life yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Do we trust that Jesus is resurrection and life?
Do we trust that he's resurrected? Like, theologically, are we able to look at the world and we're able to look at Jesus as a teacher and as a religious figure, as somebody who's been really popular in the culture for the last 2000 years, can we say objectively, yeah, I'm pretty sure that Jesus has the authority over life and death and resurrection. Theologically, somewhere up in the clouds, like, I'm sure it's written in a book somewhere that I haven't read, or if I did read, I fell asleep while I was reading it. I'm pretty sure that that's there out there somewhere. There's probably some objective truth.
True. Do we believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Do we trust that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Do we trust that theologically?
But, friends, do we trust it personally? Not in a book, but in here, in how we live, what we do with our hands, where we go with our feet, how we allow our mind to wander. Do we trust? Do we believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? I love Mary's statement here.
She says, I know that he'll come back on the last day. There's a future hope. Theologically, I'm locked in. I know that that's going to happen. And my friends, if you're like, yes, I have hope that ultimately, at some point, God's going to make something happen in the future and it's all going to come out.
Great. That's great. But I want you to know that faith in God for the future is fertile soil for his work in your life today.
Michael, why would you say that? Let's Continue reading verse 28. When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, the teacher is here and is calling for you. And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now, Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.
So she ran outside of town to go meet with Jesus. And now he's coming in. So when the Jews that were there in the house consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his Feet saying to him, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
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. And he said, where have you laid him? They said to him, lord, come and see.
Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?
Jesus knew Lazarus and loved Lazarus. Do you see? This is a beautiful snapshot of God, like, intimately involved in his creation. He sees that the world is broken, and he is moved to compassion by the brokenness. Like Jesus has said, I am the good shepherd.
And he says, part of being a good shepherd is, I know my sheep. Lazarus is not just a number. I grieve the loss I suffer together with you. As you grieve the loss, I see that you are grieved by sin and brokenness in the world. And I, too, express those feelings.
Some of us need to know that, like, emotions are a gift from God. We are made in his image. And if we have feelings, we probably have feelings because he has feelings. But it doesn't always work in exactly the same way. But like, stuffing them down and ignoring them, pretending like they don't exist, that's denying part of how God made us to be.
You should just know it's okay to cry. Did you see it? Jesus wept. If you needed a memory verse for the week and you wanted an easy win under your belt, you got it right there.
Jesus knew and he loved Lazarus. It said in verse 33 that they're going to say it in verse 34. They also said it at the beginning in verse 3 and verse 5 in this chapter. Jesus loved Lazarus. And we have seen in our study that Jesus gives life and love with God as we join his flock.
This is not like. As we get towards the miracle, and I suspect if you know the story, you know where we're going. If you don't know the story, I'm really excited for you. This gets really cool. But as we move towards the miracle, the.
This is not some kind of an impersonal miracle of compassion. Like, Jesus is not just like, I'm going to deal out some miracles over here and some miracles over here and some miracles over here to the crowds. This miracle that Jesus is leaning into, he's leaning into somebody that he has a relationship with.
He knows the one he's healing. It is distinctly theological. He has said from the beginning, whatever is getting ready to happen is going to be something that's going to impact your trust, it's going to impact your faith, it's going to impact your belief. What I am doing is not just objective reality in history, although it is objective reality in history. It is not just that it is theological.
There are implications that run deep about what is getting ready to happen. However, as massive as those ideas are, it is also incredibly personal.
It's not mass, it's not blanket. There's times where I think as Christians we say, for God so loved the world and the world is just a stand in for like all the things and we just throw whatever and we don't ever consider that. When Jesus says I love the world, that he knows the world, I get overwhelmed in traffic. It drives me crazy. A, I hate driving.
B, I hate driving when other people are driving, that's the worst.
But then when we get to driving and there's other people that are driving, and we're driving past cities and we're driving through tunnels and oh, sorry, that's the children's book. When we're driving, I'm like, there are so many humans everywhere I look. There's at least one person in the car, I hope. Well, you can't say that anymore.
The cars might just be going by themselves, but for the most part, for every car that you see, there's at least one person in the car. And then for every house that you see, there's at least one person in the house. And there's lots of houses and most houses and most cars have more than one person. And I can't even count the number that I'm driving past, much less the number of people that would be in there, much less know any of them. And Jesus knows the world that he loves.
He knows each of us personally. Theologically, the ramifications are huge. The scriptures, the big word for this is like transcendence. God is transcendent. He is above all, he is glorious, he's masterful, he speaks and stuff happens.
Like he is incomprehensible. You can't even begin to understand a minute data of who God is and what he's like. Unless he let you like have a brain or you think that you're intelligent enough to contend with God. Where did you get your brain from? Right?
Just saying transcendent beyond understanding. You can't wrap your arms around it, can't wrap your heart around it, can't wrap your spirit around who he is and what he's like. He's transcendent. He's beyond your understanding. You could look for years.
You could spend a whole lifetime looking for God. And if he choose to hide from you, you'd never find him transcendent. He does what he wants. He's not looking for your permission. He's God, whether you believe in him or not.
And yet transcendent. He. He is also immanent. High, high, high, high, high, above. And right here in the room, personal.
I know your name. I know your family. I know the backstory. I know the number of hairs on your head. I know the number of potential hairs on your head.
And I think Martha's statement is kind of fascinating. Can you imagine, like, at the grave sign, she comes out and meets Jesus. And these sisters are two different ones. And sometimes, sometimes as I'm reading to you, I'm trying to give some inflection. And so I don't know.
I suspect that one of these sisters was kind of angry. They said, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And I can relate to that feeling. But I also know that it's unconfirmable.
What if Jesus showed up and then didn't heal Lazarus and let him die? What if he waited two days at the grave crying with everybody else? We don't know what he would have done if you'd have been here.
It's identical to what her sister had said.
But then Jesus asked a question.
Verse 34. I've lost my pace on the page. Verse 34. And he said, where have you laid him?
Where have you laid him? He's dead. He's been in the grave for four days. Jesus shows up, where have you laid him?
And the dishes are done.
He's been in the grave for four days. Where have you laid him? Why does it matter, Jesus? You weren't here. He's gone now.
Where have you laid him?
Act like you care. Now you come in here crying. We called you days ago and you didn't come. Where have you laid. Don't placate me, acting like you're compassionate.
Don't tell me God so loved the world when he didn't meet my needs and come into my pain the way that I asked that I expected him to. Where have you laid him? I think that questions from Jesus are opportunities to invite him into your pain. Because I think that there are times where we are hurt and we keep Jesus out. It's like, no, no, no, Jesus, I shouldn't have had to been hurt.
And so I Won't trust you with this hurt that's come to my life. He's saying, where have you laid him? No, don't come in here. Don't pretend like you know what you're doing. Don't make me go to church with those people who sing those songs.
And they smile all the time and they act like they want to be around. I know that that's all fake. Don't do that to me, Jesus. And Jesus said, where have you laid him? Where's your pain?
Where's the grave? And the question is an opportunity for us to invite him into what that is. But if we tell him he's got no business at the grave. He's polite. He'll stay out.
The world is broken, but Jesus never wastes pain. And we assume that there is no work to be done in the dead and broken parts of our life.
So what area of pain are we afraid to invite Jesus into?
What area of pain are we responding like, nah, stop. Stop trying to get in there. I know you don't actually love me. I know you can't actually do that. I know there's nothing to be done here.
I've seen the end of it. And in all of my wisdom, I know, God, that there's nothing you can do here. Just leave me alone and let me suffer in silence. Let me cry together with the people who were here that cared enough to show up at the right time.
Read in 38. Jesus, deeply moved, again came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. And Jesus said, take away the stone. 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.
Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around so that they may believe that you sent me. And when he said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, lazarus, come out.
And the man who had died came out, his hands and his feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped in a cloth. And Jesus said to them, go unbind him and let him go.
You can see it, right? Lazarus coming. And he's.
And everybody's. And Jesus is like, you should probably take the wrappings off so he can walk. Homie's getting ready to fall over. Like, you can See it right?
The body is putrid. Like, there are irreversible things that happen when the body dies. Like, once the cells start shutting down, once they start, like, liquefying, you can't put them back together. Like, once a body is dead, like, it starts to decay almost immediately.
But faith in God for the future is fertile soil for his work in your life today.
She says, he's going to stink. And he says, didn't I ask you to believe? Didn't I say if you believe in the future, if you have that hope of. Of the future resurrection, that you would see something happen today? Faith in the future is fertile soil for God's work in your life today.
And there's times where we come to church and we think that the church is just a band aid until suddenly God will show up sometime at the end of time. And then hopefully I'm not around to have to deal with any of it, but he's just gonna. He'll fix it at some point. But it's got nothing to do with the hurt and the pain and the suffering that I'm experiencing today. And Jesus says, I'm glad that you believe in me for that.
I want to instill that hope in you. And I also want you to know that that hope is here today, that I am the resurrection to life. Not I will be, not I was then, but I am the resurrection to life. Jesus brings the dead to life yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We've got a young man in our congregation here recently who has had the experience of being brought back from the dead dead.
And he woke up in a hospital. Because when a body dies, you've got a very small amount of time to revive the body, right?
But Jesus doesn't go to a hospital to demonstrate who he is and what he's like. Jesus goes to the morgue.
We're at the grave site, Lord. Perhaps in the King James, it says something like, he stinketh.
There's at least two other examples of Jesus bringing somebody back from the dead. And they're relatively like they die and then they're revived. There's some instances where it's, like, not clear if they were actually dead or if they're in a coma and Jesus heals them. But this is, like, undisputable. Jesus brought a man back from the dead.
I don't know what you're looking for in a church or a pastor, but I don't have that.
I don't even know that I have the faith to ask for that kind of thing.
But one of the things that I noticed as I was going through and as I've lost. What page of mom.
Is that? Nobody asked Jesus for a resurrection.
That Jesus came in and he wept with the people. And they even started with, whatever you ask God, I know that God will do. But nobody asked him. He comes into a situation and everybody just is who they are and does what they do. And nobody asked him.
And he says, well, open up the thing. And they're like, no, no, no, don't do that. He says, no, let me in.
And it may be that God may want more healing for you than you think to ask for.
It's kind of dangerous doing business with somebody who knows everything.
Because I convince myself most days of the week that I'm pretty smart, that I understand how things work, that I've got perception and perspective, and I even have Bible verses to back up what I think most of the time. Sometimes when you deal with God, he just knows it. He knows what you did, he knows what you neglected to do. He knows who you were with. He knows what they were thinking.
He knows what you were thinking. He. He knows what you are feeling. He knows the hidden motivations and how it's tied into your future, how it's tied into your past. He knows it all.
And it may be that God wants to do something in your life that you don't even think to ask for.
There's times where I come to God and I come to God for selfish reasons. I think that's natural. I think we all kind of start there if we can just own that. Like, I usually just come to God to meet my needs, or I come to God because I really want God to agree with me. I want him to back me up with the statement that I'm making, right?
We all come to God for selfish reasons. But when we get to him, when we actually come to Jesus throne, he begins to push back against what we want. And so let your selfishness, let your selfish desires drive you to Jesus, but then let him rewire your desires. Not because. Not because he's interested in making sure you're a more moral person or you're more righteous and more holy.
And you kind of walk around and float above everybody else. And everybody looks at, oh, you're just like a picture of God. That's not what he's doing. He actually may want more healing and more life for you than you're willing to ask for or even desire.
And he, as the good shepherd says, I know you, I care about you. That stuff I'm telling you to filter out. Like, I want to block out the deadly distractions from your life. Like, would you just let me. You don't even know.
You're satisfied with your entertainment. You're satisfied with that stuff that's filling your head and your ears. Like, you're satisfied with that noise. You feel placated. You've entertained yourself into complacency.
And yet I want you to have life and have life abundantly. Would you let me?
How. How does resurrection change our perspective on the biggest stressors of our life?
Like, for real?
I don't. As far as, like, historical documents go, you're going to be really hard pressed to find a document that is more historically reliable than what we have in scripture. And so what we have here is a historical record of a man who claimed to be God and then brought another dead, dead, dead, dead, dead man back to life when it wasn't possible. Right? He has that power and has had that power.
How does that fact change our perspective on the things that are stressing you out this week? What are the things?
What are the burdens?
What's the brokenness? What's the relationships? What are the thoughts? What are the habits? What's the hopelessness that we carry?
How would resurrection change our perspective on those things?
Or is it just a nice story that we tell around Eastertime while we cuddle a bunny?
The reason or one of the reasons why I've given my life to this work is because Jesus brings the dead to life yesterday, Jesus brings the dead to life today, and Jesus brings the dead to life tomorrow.
The thing that he started, he's continuing to do and he will complete. And I get to be a part of that story. And he invites all of us to be a part of that story. And so if you are someone who like, hears that story and that sounds like a crazy thing. Yeah, it is a crazy thing.
But the gist, the crux of the story is Jesus question, do you believe this?
Do you trust this? Do you trust me?
Let's pray.
Lord, trust is a hard thing. And it's not even something we can just kind of generate all by ourselves. Like, it's difficult, especially when we've been hurt and when we've been wounded. We've got experiences of folks that we trust in the past that abused that. I thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are able to sympathize, that you too have been betrayed and your trust also has been broken, that you too have suffered at the hands of people that did not understand you.
And so Lord I encourage these men and women that are hearing my voice today to trust you. Not because it's easy, but because you are trustworthy.
You are the resurrection and the life.
I have friends.
Who are just functioning in hopelessness.
I have those who trust their brokenness more than they trust you your life. I have friends who don't even know that they're dead. And so Jesus, I pray that you would be the one who's shepherding your flock. Pray that you would be the one who calls us. I pray that you would be the one who gives us the trust that we can place in you today.
Would you help us to believe? Would you help us to trust? Because we can't muster it up on our own. And Lord, if we find ourselves with just that little bit of trust today, would you remind us that whatever faith we have is sufficient to move a mountain, not because we're almighty, but because you are.
And the strength of our faith matters much less than the object of our faith, who we put our trust in matters more than our ability to be consistent in our trust. And so, Lord, I probably meandered and prayed too much, but I pray this that today would be a day that we believe this, that we trust you, that we bring our life to you and surrender it and ask that you would give us more life than we even know to ask for.
It's in Jesus name that we're praying.
I'll just give you a couple of minutes if you want to keep your eyes closed and continue, continue to pray. I want to give you a couple of minutes to just reflect on how God speaks in this morning.
Phone's off. No distractions. Lunch will wait. But this is a moment that Jesus is present and wants to lead and guide us. And so I want to give you some, some time to reflect on how he's speaking today before we close.
What.
It.
Lord, we are a people of constant motion, moving for the sake of motion where 40 seconds of silence feels like an eternity.
Jesus, I ask that you would help us to rest in you.
Whatever sin or distraction is blocking us from coming to you and in your presence. I ask that you would help us to lay that aside and to sit with you, to not be afraid of what you show us in the mirror because you alone have the words of life, you alone give life and you alone bring the dead to life.
And I suspect and my family here, because I know it of my own heart that there are places of death that I have protected, that you've asked to come into, and I have shut you out.
Jesus, I pray that today you would do the service, surgery, the healing that only you can do, and that you'd find in us cooperative patients to let you operate.
Would you lead us in the way that we ought to go? Would you give us the faith to follow you? It's in your name that we pray. Amen.
