Lazarus | Crossed Paths | Pastor Rob Koke | Shoreline Church

Good morning, everyone, again. We are so glad that you're here. Want to give a very warm welcome to those of you who are watching online from around the community and sometimes even around the nation and the world. We welcome you to our campuses here in Austin, Texas, and a huge shout out to all of you who are watching at Shoreline Behind Bars. I know it's hard to imagine, but there's nearly 20,000 people that watch our services behind bars and we just welcome them. Come on, let's give them a great big hand clap and all of you who are watching online. So glad that you're a part of our services today. Let's all of us stand to our feet, including those of you who are watching online. Let's stand to our feet. We do something at the beginning of every service. We wrap our understanding around a collection of phrases. We call it our Shoreline Creed. It just reminds us that the beauty of Christianity is not just information on how to live a better life. It's the celebration of God's matchless, wonderful grace, amazing grace, we call it, and we celebrate that with this creed. If you're new to Shoreline, you can read along. The rest of us, we're going to say this with some enthusiasm and passion. You guys ready? Here we go. I am loved by God. I cannot earn it. I cannot lose it. I am forgiven and made brand new. In Christ, I live with passion and purpose. I am empowered by the spirit to be the church in the world and to live this love revolution. Come on, let's give God praise for that.

You may be seated. Laura and I, we were gone for spring break. We went up to Colorado, and this would never happen in Texas. I mean, it probably has never happened, but while we were up there, it snowed. We got like nine inches of snow one day, and Laura and I decided to build a snow person. And I need to tell you right up front that we're not very good at it. Here, take a look at this picture. This is our snow person. A little bit too much base, I think. But it warmed up while we were there, and the snow melted rather quickly. And this is what happened to our snow person. Went from that to, yeah, small little thing. And that kind of leads me into an introduction for our message today. We are talking about crossed paths, the people that crossed the path of Jesus on his way to the cross. And so we've been at it now for a couple of weeks. We talked about the woman at the well. We talked about Zacchaeus. We talked about the rich young ruler. And today, we're gonna talk about a story about how God brings the dead things in our lives back to life. You know, sometimes circumstances are such that we look at our lives and we see things that seem hopeless or impossible. And I just want to encourage you that our God is a miracle working God. Now to set this up, we're gonna take this story from John chapter 11. It's the story of Lazarus and that moment where Jesus worked one of the greatest miracles he ever worked while he was with us walking on this planet. The story is recorded. John chapter 11. We'll pick it up in the first verse.

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 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 sister sent word to Jesus, Lord, the one that you love is sick. Now we're gonna pick up the story again. and at verse 33, I stopped right here at verse three. There are 30 verses between verse three and verse 33 because I'm smart like that. And in those 30 verses that I'm not going to read to you this morning, Jesus stays after hearing the news that his friend is sick. He stays where he's at. And I just wanted to pause in the middle of this story to let you know that sometimes there is a pause in God working out your particular situation. And the reason is because he has something even more glorious in mind than you do. So you're praying, you're asking God to intervene in your darkness, in the dead areas of your life. And you think the timing's off. I just want you to know that sometimes God's timing is different from our timing because he has something even bigger and better in store. And that's the case here. He stays after he hears that his friend is sick. And then in fact, he gets the news that his friend has died. And then it's only after Lazarus dies that he heads up to Bethany to be with the family. We pick up the story here in verse 33.

And when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "'Where have you laid him?' he asked. "'Come and see, Lord,' they replied." And then verse 35, Jesus wept. And let me just pause here for a moment because this is the shortest verse in the Bible. John 11, verse 35, two words, Jesus wept. So if anybody ever challenges you to memorize a verse in the Bible, this would be a good one for you to choose. Anybody can do it. Verse 36, then the Jews said, "'See how much he loved him!' But some of them said, "'Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind "'also kept this man from dying?' "'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 is a bad odor "'for he has been dead 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, and then Jesus looked up and said, "'Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

"'I know that you always hear me, "'but I say it for the benefit of those around me, "'that they may believe that you have sent me.' And when he had said this, Jesus called out in a loud voice." Everyone shout out a loud voice. "'Lazarus, come out!' And the dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face. And Jesus said, "'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.'" All right, so here's a story about how Jesus interacted with somebody on his way to the cross that I think has a significant amount of implication for all of us here this morning. I think that there is, of course, the literal story of what happened, but I also think that there is kind of like a, a metaphor of what happens in our lives. And we might not necessarily be physically dead, but there are things that are in our lives that seem impossible. And I believe God wants you to know today that he is the God of miracles. He is the God who imparts life. He is the God who can change our circumstances and nothing is impossible. Nothing is hopeless.

Nothing is beyond his ability to heal and manifest his power to change your world. Yeah, it's really the truth. So a couple of observations, a couple of things that we can, that we can learn or glean from this particular story. Let's start here. God is crazy in love with the human race. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, they are three siblings. How many of you have brothers and sisters in your life? Let me see your hands, yeah. How many of you didn't raise your hand because you didn't want to? Let me see your hand. Most scholars believe that Martha is the oldest, that Mary is the middle child, and Lazarus is the youngest. What's kind of interesting, I find a little bit humorous, is that Lazarus, the little brother, interestingly enough, Lazarus was never recorded as saying one word in Scripture. Apparently, the women in his life did all the talking for him. That causes some theologians to wonder if there are any women in heaven. I know, scandalous. Because of this Scripture, Revelation chapter eight and verse one, that says that there was silence in heaven for a half hour. Okay, turn to your neighbor and say,

that was really bad, come on, just tell. Besides his disciples, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were perhaps the closest people to Jesus. They were in his inner circle. They were amongst his best friends. And Lazarus is very sick. His life is on the line. He was on death's doorstop. Mary and Martha need to get God's attention. They have to form a request that would convince Jesus to come. They needed to somehow articulate their best argument. Their brother's life depended upon it. And in the heat of the moment, they aren't thinking about being polite or courteous or wordy. How will they frame their request? Now, if it was us, we would probably say, hey, Jesus, you need to come. You know that Lazarus is one of your best friends. You know that he loves you. You know that he loves people. You know that he's done a lot of good things. Maybe that's how we would have phrased it. But Mary and Martha knew something about Jesus, knew what moved him, knew what motivated him. So I find it really interesting the way they worded the request for him to come. John chapter 11 in verse three, so the sisters sent word to Jesus,

Lord, the one that you love is coming. And they were sick. It wasn't their love for Jesus. It wasn't Lazarus's love. It wasn't his good deeds. They knew that what really motivated Jesus was love and they highlighted his love for the family. And I just wonder here this morning, how many of us realize just how much God loves Jesus? You. And I know that it's a concept that we often celebrate. In fact, we included it into our creed that we share every single Sunday morning before the message is preached. We all stand up together and we say, I am loved by God and that's intentional because I have a feeling that the enemy would like to rob you of that revelation. And even if you had it last week, circumstances can unfold in such a way that would diminish your understanding of it. And you need to be reminded of it. You need to believe it. You need to absorb it. It needs to be a part of who you are. You are loved by God and it changes everything. God is crazy in love with the human race. When Jesus was trying to describe what this whole thing was all about, a verse that has become the most popular verse

in all of Christendom, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world. It wasn't because he was so frustrated or angry or fed up or just so exasperated. No, God so loved the world. He loves you. He's crazy in love with you. And we see it in creation and mountain peaks and beautiful beaches and lush green valleys. We see it in the relationships that he brings into our life, husbands and wives and kids and friendships. We see it in the gifts and talents that he's blessed us with, provision that he's provided for us. And not only does he love everyone sitting in this room, everyone watching online, everyone at our South Campus, everyone behind bars. Not only does he love all of us, but he loves every single person in the world. Sometimes we get to thinking that God loves us, but maybe not so much. You know, there's a verse in Romans chapter five and verse eight that brings me a lot of comfort, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ didn't die for us because we had our act together because we were so good or we deserved it while we were yet sinners and every single person living on planet earth that is living outside of his love, outside of an awareness of his love. They are loved by him. Jesus talked about it all the time. He said, this is the reason why I came into the world to save those who are lost.

He told stories about lost sheep and lost coins and lost sons. He hung out with tax collectors. In fact, he was criticized for it all with this sense of trying to communicate to the world that he is head over heels in love with the entire human race. And here we, we see Jesus standing before the tomb of his friend and Jesus wept. Those were tears of love. When our son Caleb transitioned to heaven after a tragic car accident, when he was 17, we had friends of ours that flew in from all over the country. And, and honestly, we were so honored that we had some friends that flew all the way from Australia and Europe and they came to be with us. And it wasn't the words that they said that brought comfort to our hearts. Often it was just the tears that they shed. They would stand at our front door and we would greet them and they would cry and we would cry. It was the tears that communicated what words could never communicate, love. And Jesus loved Lazarus. Jesus wept. And so if we're going to make some observations and draw some insight from this particular story, the first one I would want you to walk away with is that God is crazy in love with you. He loves you. The second thing that we can learn from this story is that sometimes things feel dead in our lives. Lazarus is dead. Scripture emphasizes that he was dead for not a day, an hour. He was dead for four days. So he wasn't mostly dead. He was really dead in Jewish culture. When someone died and that four day time period passed in Jewish culture, it would mean that his soul had also departed his body.

So this represented a totally helpless, impossible set of circumstances. And this idea of things being dead in our lives is, you know, really incorporated in our language. We use that word dead to describe, you know, really dark circumstances in our lives. A lot of different scenarios might deserve that word. When we have a complete relational breakdown, we say, this person is dead to me. When our career path is going nowhere, we say we're at a dead end. How about this one? When we lose cell phone signal, we say we're in a dead zone. And for some of you, that's worse than death itself. When we're exhausted, we're dead tired. When we're mentally fatigued, we are brain dead. When we feel numb, we are dead inside. When we want to sleep, we are dead to the world. When we've lost all momentum, we are dead in the water. When something stops, it's dead in its tracks. When something ominous is coming, we call it a dead reckoning. There's only one positive of the word dead that I could think of, and it's used to describe my wife. She's drop dead gorgeous. Come on, come on. If we feel like there might be some things that are dead in our lives, we wouldn't be alone. Ezekiel knows exactly what that's like. And I found a very interesting parallel between the story of Jesus and Lazarus and a story found in the old. Testament with the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 37, it says the hand of the Lord was upon me and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley and it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the

valley, bones that were very, very dry. There's dead and then there is dry bones dead. And like I said before, it didn't just happen in the Bible. It happens in our lives. There are areas of our life, maybe not all the different areas, but there are areas of our lives that feel like dry bones. It feels like the life has gone out of us. Maybe in our marriage, maybe in our career, maybe in our emotions or our very purpose or our finances or our health. Thank God we don't feel that way all the time, but sometimes we do. And maybe you came to church here this morning and there's an area of your life that feels like dry bones dead. It feels impossible. It feels like there's no hope. It feels like nothing is ever going to change. Jesus is about to do one of the greatest miracles that he ever did. But there's something I think we need to understand about how God works miracles. It feels to me that when I read the Bible, there is always a natural combined with his supernatural. There is always something that we do that God takes and then does a miracle with it. There's a natural to his supernatural. In John chapter 11, Jesus is standing before the tomb, Lazarus is dead. He's in the tomb and he tells his friends, take away the stone. Jesus asks his friend to do something, roll away the stone. I imagine that Jesus could have just blasted the stone out of the tomb, but he, he invites his friends to participate in the miracle. There is a natural and a supernatural component. There is something we do, and then there is something he does. We do what we can so God can do what we can't. And often we see that, that partnership between our natural and God's supernatural.

Abraham had to walk out the promised land. Moses had to lift up his staff before the red sea. David had to put stones in his sling. Peter had to step out of the boat in order to walk on the water. And if we go back to the story of Ezekiel, here he is standing before this valley of dry bones facing impossible circumstances and challenges. And there's a really tender moment. He asked me, son of man, can these bones live? And Ezekiel replies, sovereign Lord, only you know. When we look at the circumstances in our life, maybe our marriage, maybe a son or a daughter that's living outside the faith, maybe financial challenges, maybe a business that's going in the wrong direction, maybe, you know, health concerns, whatever it might be. Maybe your joy level is just not what it used to be. And you're feeling a little bit hopeless. You're feeling a little bit helpless in your circumstances. And the Lord asks you a question and says, can these bones live? Can these circumstances change? And you just kind of sigh, oh God, only you know. What seems so tender to me about this particular interaction is the fact that God is with Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones. And I want you to know he's with you in your valley of dry bones, in your negative circumstances, in your challenges. He is with you and he is so tender. Can these bones live? Can this marriage live? Can this business live? is this live? Can these dreams live? Can this body live? Now God is going to ask you to do something because I think that's the way most miracles unfold. There's something we do and then there's something God does. Jesus, Jesus is the one who brings dead things to life. Imagine that you're in the crowd standing outside the tomb of Lazarus and they roll

away the stone and Jesus is there. I want you to picture yourself. I'm going to borrow a one minute clip from The Chosen that illustrates this particular interaction. And I want you when you see it, I want you to picture yourself as being a part of the crowd. Take a look. Now, here's the thing that I want you to consider. Here's what I want you to contemplate. If Jesus could do that, if Jesus could raise someone from the dead, then what can't he do in your life? If he can do that, he can do anything. He can heal. He can provide, he can set you free. He can break that bondage of addiction off your life. He can restore broken relationships. He's a miracle working God. Jesus called out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. Lazarus came out. And you know what? I was reading, you know, some commentary that it was really important that Jesus said, Lazarus come out, because if he just said, come out, everybody in the cemetery would have come out. That's how powerful our God is. And it's interesting, this parallel between Jesus and Lazarus and, and what God asked Ezekiel to do in this old Testament story about the dry bones. Then he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones. I will make breath to enter you and I will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. And I will put breath in you and you will come alive that you will know that I am the Lord. So here is Ezekiel, the prophet. He's standing before a valley of dry bones. Just, just picture just like skulls and, and, and ribs and, and bones from arms and legs and feet and hands and fingers are just nothing but dry, dusty dead bones. And Ezekiel is challenged by God to speak the word of the Lord over the dread dead, dry bones. And so he begins to speak and he says, breath come into these bones, life come into these bones and a miracle starts to happen. The bones start rattling and tendons start getting attached and skin appears on the outside. And then the, the breath of life is breathed into these dry bones and they become. alive, but we see this beautiful, you know, partnership, Ezekiel is speaking the word of the Lord and God is doing the supernatural. And that's my challenge to you here today is to speak the word of the Lord over your dry bones, over the things that are dead in your life, to your weakness, speak the word of the Lord.

The joy of the Lord is your strength to your sickness by his stripes. You are healed to your financial challenges. He will supply all of my needs according to his riches and glory to your temptations. Greater is he in you than he that is in the world to your marriage. What God has joined together. Let nobody tear apart. I'm challenging you to prophesy, to speak the word of the Lord over the darkness and death in your life and see God work a miracle. And then it's kind of interesting to me. Jesus speaks, Lazarus come out and he comes out. And then for the second time, he turns to his friends and asks them to do something. The first time, roll away the stone. The second time, remove his grave clothes. And I think that there's some symbolism here that we need to understand. Often we get ourselves into a difficult situation because we made some bad choices or we thought wrong about something. Sometimes we get into financial debt because we make bad choices. Sometimes we get sick because, you know, you know, we make bad decisions health wise. That's not always the case, but sometimes it is. Sometimes our marriage is in trouble because we haven't always treated, you know, our bride the way that we should or, or, or treated our husband the way that we should. And so we got ourselves in a mess and we need a miracle and then God works a miracle. But sometimes after the miracle, we need to remove the grave clothes. We need to remove the stinking thinking. We need to remove the things that, that have been a part of our lives that maybe created the challenge. And I find it interesting that it was the friends of Lazarus that Jesus asked to remove the clothes. And we say this all the time here at Shoreline that, that we're a church about becoming fully devoted followers of Jesus.

But every one of us probably has some grave clothes that need to be removed. And who does the removing? Our brothers and sisters in Christ who see what we can't see and love us enough to remove from our lives what needs to be removed. This is a metaphor for the dead things in our life, but it's also a metaphor for what happens when someone gets saved. They go from death to life, from darkness to light. They were blind, but now they see. And you can look at the story of Lazarus and say, that's the story of a, of a new convert. The stone was rolled away and, and Jesus spoke and what was dead has now become alive. And a new convert needs some friends to get rid of the grave clothes that have been a part of the way that they've been thinking and acting and responding. And we need some friends. That's why we say to every single person that gets saved at Shoreline, one of the first things you need to do is connect with other life-giving believers who will help you because nobody becomes a fully devoted follower on their own. We all need brothers and sisters in Christ. And let me just close with this final thought. A changed life changes others. A miracle, a testimony is the most powerful thing in the world. In John chapter 12 in verse nine, meanwhile, a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came not only because of him, but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. Basically, it was an invitation to come and see, come and see. And that's what we do with these invite cards. You know, we're really just saying, come and see. People get all caught up, you know, with debates and. Theology. I'm just here to tell you a transformed life is always an attraction. And your story is the most powerful thing you have.

And nobody can argue with it. Yeah, they can debate, you know, theology or debate the interpretation of a scripture. But you know what they can't do is debate your story. Your story is your story. Your transformation is your transformation. Your miracle is your miracle. You once were lost, but now you're found. You once were blind, but now you see. You once were facing an impossible, dark, dead, dry bones, dead set of circumstances, and God worked a miracle in it. And basically you're saying, come and see and taste that the Lord is good. Lazarus's testimony is so powerful that the chief priests are thinking about killing him. I mean, this is a little bit funny to me. John 12 verse 10. So the chief priest made plans to kill Lazarus as well. Let me get this straight. Lazarus dies and Jesus raises us from the dead. And now the Pharisees are thinking, well, the solution is to kill him. What am I missing? How is this going to help their cause? The Pharisees just don't get it. That death is not a problem for Jesus. It's not a problem for Jesus. And you know what? Our death, which will eventually come to every single one of us, is not a problem for Jesus. When we die, absent from the body, present with the Lord, we will be resurrected and enjoy eternity with our heavenly father. Lazarus was always thinking about what could happen in a person's life. When they opened up their heart to him, he saw the godly worshiper and a worn out prostitute. He saw the faithful disciple hiding in a fisherman named Simon.

He saw the generous giver in a crooked tax collector named Zacchaeus. And he saw a defender of the faith named Paul hidden in a persecutor of the church named Saul. Jesus always saw the potential of a transformed life to bring glory to his name. And that's exactly what happened with Lazarus. And that's exactly what happens when the dead things in our lives are resurrected by his power. Everyone in our world will stand up and take notice. Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. And many people, because they had heard it, went out to meet him. Come and see. They didn't try to argue or convince. They weren't trying to debate or get the upper hand with intellectual discussions and theological debates. They simply told the story of what Jesus had done. Last verse, verse 19. The Pharisees said to one another, see, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him. Oh, my gosh. That's what I believe our country needs. That's what I believe our city needs. That's what I believe our state needs. That's what I believe your neighborhood needs. That's what I believe you need. That's what I believe your family needs. The whole world. Just think about what a world we would live in if that was true. Do you know that 80% of the people that you invite, studies show this. Study after study, 80% of the people that you invite will actually come if you invite

them. 80%. on Easter. They may not come every Sunday, but they'll come on Easter, and you know what? We're going to be so prepared for them, they are going to come and see the God who makes dead things come alive. So, Father, we thank you so much. I know that some of us are facing some really challenging set of circumstances, but, Lord, you're the one who imparts life. And so, Father, I just speak into every, well, dead part of our lives, Lord, whether it be emotionally, physically, financially, relationally, maritally. Father, and I pray that you would bring life to each and every person here today. We thank you, Lord, that you're the God of miracles. In Jesus' name. If you wouldn't mind just remaining in an attitude of

prayer, maybe you came to church today and you say, Pastor, I'm not living right. I'm not doing right. I'm not where I ought to be with God. I need prayer. Maybe you made the decision at one point in time, but you slipped away, and today you want to rededicate your life to serving Him. Or maybe you never want to invite Jesus. Maybe you've never invited Jesus into your heart, but you want to at this moment. If you want to meet Him for the first time or rededicate your life to serving Him, would you please raise your hand quickly and boldly wherever you are, like you're not ashamed to be prayed for? Oh, my gosh. So many people raising their hands. So beautiful. So, so beautiful. All of you, with your hands

raised, I want to lead you in a very simple prayer. And everyone else, as we pray as a reaffirmation of your faith in God, would you join them in this prayer? Let's all of us pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for sending Jesus. Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart. Forgive me of all my sins. I put my trust in you. And I will live for you from this day forward by your power, for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. Would you give them all a great big hand clap? My gosh. If you raised your hands after we're dismissed, I want you to head over to where Pastor Oscar is. He's got a sign he's holding up made brand-new. We want to give you a Bible and some information that'll really help you to live this Christian life that you just prayed to

receive. And then, please, don't forget today that there are invite cards that are available at every exit. Please grab as many as you think you can hand out. And just with that simple, childlike faith that says, come and see. I was playing golf on Friday, and I invited two of the guys that were golfing with us to church. And I think they're gonna come. It was really a warm interaction. And I just want to encourage you, you never know how God's gonna respond to an invitation. We have some prayer partners up here at the very front. If you want to receive some prayer, especially if you're facing a dry-bone situation that you'd like, you know, some prayer for, our prayer partners will be here for you at the end of the service right up here at front.

Let's all of us stand to our feet. And as you're standing, I do want to remind you again, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. And then every single Wednesday night, we've got these life groups. They're all about helping get the grave clothes off and helping to roll away the stone for God to work a miracle in our lives. So, join us this Wednesday night. Got men's groups, women's groups. We've got groups all over. So, please join us. God bless you. Have a fantastic rest of your Sunday. And, hey, how about those longhorns, huh? That was pretty cool. God bless you. We'll see you next week.