This changes everything-An Easter sermon

We are so honored that you've chosen to worship God with us, celebrating the greatest event in the history of the world, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We came to celebrate that the tomb is empty, the stone has been rolled away, and Christ, our Lord, is risen.  And that fact changes everything.

Jesus taught us the value of counting the cost first, because He knew we would have obstacles to overcome. For Jesus the cost included going to the cross. Long before that day, Christ had settled in His heart that death on the cross was a price He was willing to pay.

John 11:25 NLT "[25] Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying."

1.      What is a resurrection?"

1.      Just to be very clear, a resurrection is when something dies and then comes back to life.

1.      When Jesus said this, a lot of people don't understand that he actually said it in a story about another guy who died, but was resurrected.

2.      His name was Lazarus. 

2.      I want to tell you that story, and how the resurrection of Jesus brings what's dead back to life.

John 11:1 NLT [1] "A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha."

3.      We find out he wasn't just sick but he was so sick he was going to die. 

John 11:3 NLT "[3] So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, "Lord, your dear friend is very sick."

4.      This is bad news in the middle of a good life.

1.      If I can pause a moment and acknowledge, although there are a lot of people that are celebrating a lot of great things in this season of your life, there are a lot of people that are hurting right now, that have experienced that very direct bad news:  "The one you love is sick."

2.      Someone that you're close to has cancer or a terminal illness.

3.      Maybe some of you have heard the news we're terminating your job.

4.      Or your dream marriage turned into a nightmare, or a close friendship may not work out.

5.      Or the principal calls to talk to you about your teenager and it's not to tell you that he/she made the honor roll.

1.      You know what I'm saying? 

5.      Now, in the middle of this, Jesus says something that's amazing. 

John 11:4 NLT [4] But when Jesus heard about it he said, "Lazarus's sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this."

6.      This very thing that you would never ever want to happen, God is going to bring honor to Himself through the worst news that you could ever imagine.

1.      Let me give you a quick summary of verses 5 through 14;basically, everybody believes Jesus is going to come to help, but what He does is, nothing.

1.      For two days, He doesn't do anything.

2.      They're freaking out and He's hanging out.

1.      Two days later, He says to His disciples, "Hey, let's go back to Judea. They say, "No, if you go there, everybody's going to try kill you," which would be true.

2.      But He says, "Lazarus is dead and we need to go raise him from the dead."

1.      So, Thomas says to the rest of the disciples and watch him, he's going sarcastic. 

2.      He says, "Let us also go that we may die with Him."

1.      In other words, he's doubting.

7.      Some of you can relate to Thomas; he was dead in his doubts. Right?

1.      All through scripture, he was known as doubting Thomas. 

2.      I'm curious, on this Easter weekend, how many of you would be honest enough to say that you've had spiritual doubts at some point in your lives?

1.      Okay, thank you for your honesty.  Those of you with your hands down, you can just sit there polish your halo while I talk to the real folks for a second. 

1.      Because, everybody I know, at some point, prayed some prayer, believed God could, thought He would, ventured He should, He didn't and boom, they're bombarded with doubts.

1.      Why..didn't..God..do..this?

2.      Perhaps, you grew up with a real simple faith in God.

1.      You went to college and some professor said, "This stuff didn't really happen and boom, all of a sudden you're like, "Is he right, is God real, is my faith fantasy?" 

2.      Maybe like many you believed in God strong, something really bad happened to somebody that you really loved, and you thought, "Well, if God is good, why did He let that happen?"

1.      "If He's all powerful, why didn't He stop it?" 

1.      Suddenly, you're Thomas and there's  something on the inside that's a little bit dead in your beliefs.

2.      Or maybe, some of you are more like Mary.

1.      You're not dead in your doubts, you're dead in your discouragement. 

2.      You just don't see anything good happening, and you just cannot seem to catch a break.

3.      Mary was very very discouraged; we see this in verse 20.  "When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Jesus."  But what did Mary do?  She just stayed in the house.

1.      She's like "Why bother? I don't even need to go out there; I mean, he's already dead. There's nothing I can do about this anyway."

1.      And that may be where some of you are right now.

1.      You think, I can't change anything.

2.      I'm always going to feel alone, depressed.

3.      I'm always going to be stuck in this dead-end job. 

4.      I'm never going to have the marriage that I thought I would have.

5.      Discouraged.

3.      You're not going to show it; it's Easter.

1.      You put on your good clothes, you come to church.

2.      You're smiling on the outside but on the inside, you're really, really discouraged.

3.      Martha though was dead in the delay;God took too long.

1.      Jesus should have come back earlier and he didn't.

John 11:17 NLT "[17] When Jesus arrived at Bethany, He was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days."

2.      In the culture when Martha was living, there was a commonly held belief that a spirit would stick around for three days after someone died. 

1.      This isn't a biblical belief; nor a Christian belief. 

2.      It was just kind of a folklore that if someone died, their spirit would be like kind of close just in case they came back, and their spirit could get back into the body.

1.      Well, at four days, the spirit left.

3.      So, in her mind, Lazarus wasn't mostly dead, he was all the way dead. 

4.      He was so dead he stinks she said. 

John 11:21 NLT "[21] Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died."

3.      Why didn't you respond when you could have done something about it?

1.      You can relate.

2.      You feel dead in your delay.

3.      You're waiting on some answered prayer, some result.

1.      I know a lot of married couples, they're praying for a baby, and they can't seem to conceive.

1.      All their friends, just look at each other and they get pregnant with triplets.

1.      You know?

2.      They're praying and praying, believing for a child and can't seem to have it."

2.      Some of you, you're praying for a loved one to experience the goodness of God.

1.      And the harder you pray, the farther away they get.

3.      I know people that are praying, actually believing for a healing.

1.      We serve a God that says all things are possible, yet you pray, you employ your faith but God's just not doing it.

2.      And you feel dead in the delay.

4.      If that's you today, I hope that this speaks to you, and you'll never ever forget that "God's delays are not God's denials."

1.      Just because God hasn't done something yet doesn't mean that God is not still in control, He has a plan.

1.      Lazarus dies, Thomas freaks out, Mary's depressed, Martha is mad.

John 11:22 NLT "[22] But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask."

4.      Though we're dead in our delay, dead in our our discouragement, dead in our doubts that "even now, God will give you whatever you ask."

1.      Some of you need an "even now" moment with God.

1.      Even now, when you are discouraged, frustrated, the presence of God can come in and ignite your faith, this changes everything.

2.      Even now, you feel all alone, like there's no one there, the presence of the Holy Spirit can give you a peace that surpasses all understanding.

3.      Even now, God can reach into your jacked up family bring healing, harmony, forgiveness and restoration.

4.      Even now, when your heart may be cold, calloused toward the things of God, in a moment, God can speak to your heart and change you with His presence.

5.      Even now, when something is dead, the resurrection power of Christ can bring it back to life.

John 11:25, 26 NLT "[25] Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. [26] Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?"

2.      He didn't say, "I'm able to resurrect," but "I am the resurrection."

1.      Do you believe this?

2.      "The resurrection is not an event. It is a person."

3.      It's not just what He does, it's who He is.

4.      Dead things don't stay dead when The Resurrection walks into the room.

5.      "Roll the stone aside." Jesus called out in a loud voice. 

1.      Why a loud voice?

2.      I have no idea. 

3.      Maybe it's because dead people don't hear well. I don't know.

4.      But he calls out in a loud voice. "Lazarus, come out."

5.      And the dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face.

6.      Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

1.      Jesus is dead in the tomb; there's a stone blocking it.

2.      Lazarus is dead in a tomb; there's a stone blocking it.

3.      When Jesus goes to Lazarus, he tells the disciples, "Roll the stone away." 

4.      When Jesus is in the tomb, the women walk up in the morning like, "ah, oh. Who's going to roll the stone away?"

5.      Lazarus needs help removing the grave clothes.

6.      Jesus left His grave clothes lying precisely as His body had laid in them.

1.      He just miraculously, supernaturally moved out of them.

2.      We let our doubt, our discouragement, our delay completely disable our great and mighty God.

1.      And Jesus will absolutely, completely, and utterly move right out of those parameters.

7.      Jesus called out to Lazarus.

8.      God's mission, purpose, and mankind called out to Jesus and He responded.

1.      Some of you, feel dead on the inside.

9.      You've lost faith, you've lost hope, you're dead in the delay, you're discouraged, you've got doubts.

1.      You feel trapped in a tomb, you feel like you don't have the strength to roll the stone away.

2.      I want you to know that Christ has rolled the stone away and this changes everything.

3.      The stone was not rolled back so Jesus could get out but so others could get in to see that Jesus was gone.

4.      The same voice that called Lazarus to come out is beckoning you to "come out."

1.      Your sins can be forgiven, not because you're good but because He's good.

2.      You can be set free, not because you're strong but because He's strong. 

3.      You can feel His presence not because you deserve it, but because He is that good.

6.      The resurrection is not what He does; it's who He is.

1.      Why does it matter? 

2.      Because God, in His love and mercy, did something for us we were incapable of doing for ourselves.

3.      He became one of us to rescue us.

7.      God in the flesh, born of a virgin.

1.      Why does the whole virgin thing matter?

2.      Because Jesus didn't inherit the sin nature from an earthly father but inherited the divine nature from His Heavenly Father.

3.      Therefore, He could be the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins on the cross when He brutally suffered at the hands of the creation, and He looked up to heaven and said, "Father, I did what you sent me to do.  It is finished. Into your hands I commit my spirit."  And the earth went dark and shook, and everyone who had hoped maybe He was the Messiah fell into despair and darkness.

4.      They didn't realize it was only Friday but Sunday was coming.

1.      Some of you right now, I'm telling you, you're stuck on what you thought would, could, should have happened but with one touch from God, events can turn.

1.      And I'm not here saying that as a Christian everything's perfect, everybody's healed, your breath never stinks, your hair never falls out, perfect physique, and you win the lottery.

2.      No, what I'm telling you is that God is always glorified because He is that good.

3.      We are dead in our sins.

4.      Though we could never earn it or deserve it, our sins can be forgiven and you can be made brand new because of Christ's sacrifice.

5.      The tomb is empty;Christ is risen and this changes everything. 

5.      The same voice that called loudly to Lazarus out of the grave calls us out of our sins saying there's forgiveness, grace, healing. 

1.      It doesn't matter what you've done.

2.      It doesn't matter how big your doubts are, how bad you've been, how alone you feel, how much you've messed up.

3.      When you come to Him, He loves you, He forgives you, and He makes you brand new.

1.      He lives.

2.      Hope lives.