372: From Death to Life | Dave Sloop

Well, good morning, everybody. We're so glad that you have chosen to join us here on Easter Sunday. And for those of you that are new, we hope that this is not the first time or the last time that we see you. We'd love to start a relationship with you so that you could know a little bit more about us and so that we could get to know you. My name is Dave Sloop. I'm in the process of becoming one of our pastors here, and it's a privilege to have a chance to share with you this morning.

I wanted to start, as I often do, by telling you a story from my childhood. I grew up in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I was about 11 years old at the time, and it was summer, and we were hanging out at the Little League Baseball Park. This is where we would often hang out with our friends. Little League games were happening, and on this particular day, we decided to have a water fight—boys versus girls.

I had my eye on one girl in particular. Her name was Daphne. And I knew that if I could take my bucket of water and drench Daphne, I would get her attention, and she would fall for me. See, this is how an 11-year-old boy's mind works. It doesn't get much better as we get older.

So I'm chasing around trying to get Daphne, and the truth is the girls were better water fighters than we were. They were smarter. They would run into the girls' bathroom, one of those outdoor bathrooms, they'd run in together, they'd fill up all their containers, and then they would come out and just charge one dude, and they would crush him. We were getting destroyed.

So I got smart, and I went and hid behind a bush right outside the girl's bathroom. And I was so excited that Daphne was going to come out of that bathroom at any moment. I was going to drench her, we're going to fall in love. And so I'm waiting, and then here comes Daphne, and I just doused her. Only it wasn't Daphne. In fact, it wasn't anyone that day that was participating in the water fight. It was a woman, a 40-year-old woman, who was there watching her son play baseball.

It happened so fast and my joy turned to fear. Just instant panic and fear. This woman proceeded to tell me how she felt about what I had done using words that this 11-year-old ear hadn't heard too often. And she stormed off, went straight to her car, and she drove home. She left her son there at the ball. I think he's still there waiting to be picked up. She was so mad.

You know, I think back on that story often, and I think if I had just taken a second longer to look at what was in front of me, I would have made a very different decision about what to do with my bucket of water. We do this in life sometimes, don't we? We jump to conclusions based on wrong or bad information. We all do it. We do it in our subconscious a million times a day. We're constantly taking in data and making analysis and forming opinions based on what we think we know. We do this with people. We do this with situations and circumstances in life.

And I'd be willing to bet that every single one of us, in some way, has done this very thing with God. There is not one person in this room that has not asked the question at some point: Does God exist? And if he does, what does he like? And what does that have to do with me personally? These are good questions and they deserve good answers. And my question for you this morning is: I wonder what evidence you have looked at that has caused you to arrive at the conclusions that you've arrived at.

We're here today to celebrate a historical event. The God that made everything—the capital G God, the one that made the galaxies and the stars and the sun and the moon and the mountains and the oceans and you—that God shrunk himself down into a fetus inside a woman named Mary in first-century Jerusalem. And he was born into this world, and he grew up among the people that he made.

The gospel of John puts it this way:

He was in the world. And though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. — John 1

He grew up in obscurity. Most people had no clue who he was. He came to show us what God was like. He came, in a sense, to give God a face. God who had been hidden, unseen—now he had a face. The Bible tells us that he was the image of the invisible God, the exact representation of his being. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.

You know one of my favorite nicknames that was given to Jesus? In fact, it was given to him as an insult that I believe he wore as a badge of honor: Friend of sinners. He came to be a friend, not just to sinners, but of sinners. They loved him. The immoral prostitute, the greedy tax collector, the vengeful and violent zealot—those were a few of his best friends. But it wasn't just in the company that he kept.

It was in the way that his life ended. He allowed himself to be fastened to a cross. And do you know what kept him there? The one who created everything—do you think he could have taken himself down off the cross? He could. What kept him fastened to the cross was his love for his friends, all of whom were sinners.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. — Romans 5:8

We had not started back towards him. We had not vowed to be better. We couldn't. We were dead in our sins. And while we were enemies, sinners, hostile to God, he died.

We're here today because that one who claimed to be God, who died upon a cross, didn't stay dead. After three days, he rose back to life. He conquered death, what the Bible calls the last enemy. Do you believe this? I mean, really, do you believe it? Like, down here, not just something that we pay lip service to, but something that we actually believe.

But can I tell you something? Our actions will always reveal to us what we really believe. Behavior is always downstream of belief. There's not one action that you will take in this life that does not find its origin in something that you believed first. I threw water at a 40-year-old woman. Why? I believed Daphne was coming through that door, but my false assumption betrayed me.

Do you believe this? I mean, for real? That's a question that Jesus asks verbatim to one of his friends named Martha in John chapter 11. He asks her the exact same question: do you believe this?

Jesus and Martha

He shows up in a little town called Bethany, four days after Martha's brother had died, a man named Lazarus. She was devastated. And to comfort her, Jesus said these words:

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die. — John 11:25-26

Do you believe this? He says, I'm the resurrection and the life. What does he mean by that? These are confusing words.

When he says, I am the resurrection, that word means to stand again. It is always referring to a physical, bodily resurrection. And he explains what it means in that second part of verse 25. He says, he who believes in me will live even though he dies.

Death is something that we will all experience. Some of us have brushed up against death in more painful ways than others. Some of us have buried children. Some of us have buried our babies, spouses, relatives, loved ones. It is painful. And anytime that we are confronted with death, we are instantly reminded that something is broken. Whatever you believe about God, when you look death in the face, you know something is not right about this. This is not how it ought to be.

What Jesus is saying here is that for those that believe in him, death will not win. Death will not have the final word. He says, I am the resurrection. He doesn't say, I have access to power to bring life from death. He says, I am the power to bring life from death.

There is a day coming where Jesus will bring life from the dead to all who have trusted in him. At the final day, it is the resurrection of the body. And you and I, if we have trusted in Christ, we will get a new body. It's a better body. It doesn't get sick. It doesn't get sore. It isn't tempted to sin, and it will live forever in his presence. That day is coming. And Jesus says, I'm the one that brings it. I'm the one that ushers it in.

But he doesn't stop there. He says, I'm also the life. I am the life, and he explains what that means in verse 26. He says, he that lives believing in me will never die. In other words, there is a life that he offers that starts now and it never stops. In other words, when we close our eyes to this life, we wake up instantly in his presence.

Paul would put it this way: to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. What did Jesus say to the thief on the cross? Today, you will be with me in paradise. There is a certain kind of life that starts now and it goes on forever. And so in that sense, we don't even taste death because the moment we close our eyes to this life, we wake up face to face with the one who created us.

He says, I'm the resurrection, and I'm the life. When he says, I'm the resurrection, he's saying, there's something that I'm going to do for you physically in the future. When he says, I am the life, he is saying, there's something that I'm going to do spiritually for you now.

And then he looks at Martha at the end of verse 26, and he says, do you believe this? He wants to know that she believes it. He's after her belief because he knows that there will be a downstream effect of that belief in her life.

Can I ask you a question? What does a life who believes that look like downstream? I would like to show you, or at least to attempt to.

In verse 38 to 44, Jesus is going to raise Lazarus from the dead. And this is both a foreshadow of what he will one day do for everyone who has trusted in him, and it is also a parable for what he offers spiritually to everyone who trusts in him now.

Look at verse 38. It says this:

Jesus once more deeply moved came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. — John 11:38

Could you imagine for a second what that tomb must have looked like on the other side? Lazarus was laying there lifeless. He was dead. It was a place of death. And behind that tomb, it would have been completely dark. It was a cave, and it was sealed by a stone. It was completely dark. It was a place of darkness, and it was a place of death.

And I would suggest to you that what was true for Lazarus on that day physically is true for every single one of us spiritually apart from Christ. We are in darkness, and we are dead.

What does that mean to be spiritually dead? We looked at this a couple of weeks ago from Ephesians chapter two. To be spiritually dead means that we have no ability to pursue God, to please God with our life. We have no ability to hear and perceive and see and understand spiritual things. Why? Because we are dead. In the same way that Lazarus has no ability in himself to stand up and walk out of that grave, you and I, because we are spiritually dead, have no ability to respond to God. We have no ability to see him, to understand him on our own. We're dead. We're spiritually dead.

Now some of us may be thinking, I don't feel dead. Have you ever seen a chicken with its head cut off? The moment that that head is severed, it continues running around, but reality is knocking on the door. And a few moments later, that chicken will fall over.

But let me give you a different example of this. This flower—is it alive? It is. It is planted in soil, and it is alive. Let me ask you another question. How about now? Is this flower alive? It is not. This flower is dead. It has been separated from the source that gives it life. And it's only a matter of time before perception catches up with reality.

The Bible says:

The wages of sin is death. — Romans 6:23

We are spiritually dead, and it's only a matter of time before perception catches up with reality. We are dead.

Jesus is standing outside of the tomb. He's looking at darkness and death. Do you know how John describes him in John chapter one? He says:

In him was life, and this life was the light of men. — John 1:4

And here we have light and life confronting darkness and death. It is the ultimate battle. And Jesus, standing outside Lazarus' tomb, says, "Take away the stone." Can you imagine being in the crowd that day and hearing such an absurd and radical suggestion? Take away the stone. In other words, let's get some light in that dark place.

Martha responds like you or I might. She says:

By this time, there is a bad odor for he has been in there for four days. — John 11:39

In the King James, it says, "he stinketh." It smells bad in there. And she says, he's been dead for four days, and there's a significance to that. Back in this culture, they were not very sophisticated in their medicine and technology. Sometimes they would wrongly pronounce someone dead. And so there was this belief that the spirit would hover around a body for up to three days, but after that third day, on the fourth day, they were dead dead. There was no coming back from that. She said, "Jesus, it's been four days. It's time to give up hope. He's dead."

And Jesus says to her, in verse 40:

Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? — John 11:40

"Do you believe?" He asks her the question again. The same question from verse 26. Jesus is after Martha's belief. Because he knows that there will be a downstream effect of that belief in her life, a transformative effect in her life from that belief. "I told you if you believed, you would see the glory of God."

And so Martha relents. And in verse 41, it says:

So they took away the stone. And then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here that they may believe that you sent me." — John 11:41

This is something I've kind of read over a number of times. But as I was preparing for this sermon, I thought, how cool and interesting that Jesus here says why he prays something out loud. He's like, "I know that you've already heard me, but I'm saying this out loud. Why? So that they would believe." Jesus is after Martha's belief, and Jesus is after that crowd's belief.

And then after he had prayed, in verse 43:

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." — John 11:43

Can you imagine being there on that day, looking into the mouth of that tomb and thinking, is a dead man really about to walk out? Imagine what was going on inside that tomb as Lazarus lay there lifeless and dead, and all of a sudden, his dead heart starts beating, and oxygen fills his lungs, and his eyes open, and he stands up.

In verse 44, it says this:

The dead man came out, his hands and his 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. — John 11:44

Lazarus, at the word of Jesus, the one that made him, at his word, he crossed over from death to life. In John 5:24, Jesus says this:

Anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not say he will have it one day, he will be saved. He says, anyone who hears me right now and believes him who sent me, he will have it. He has eternal life. He will not face judgment. Why? Because he has crossed over from death to life. — John 5:24

What happened on that day physically for Lazarus is available to everyone under the sound of my voice right now, spiritually, because of what Jesus did. He makes it possible for us to experience a kind of life that starts now and it never stops.

In fact, maybe Paul said it better than anyone in that passage we looked at a couple weeks ago in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 5 and 6:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to walk. But God, who is rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, made you alive. He made you alive with Christ. — Ephesians 2:5-6

That is what he does. He takes you from death to life. Downstream of your belief that he is the resurrection and the life is a transformed life. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul would say it this way:

Anyone who's in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come. — 2 Corinthians 5:17

In the same way that Lazarus' dead heart started beating again, God is gonna take away your heart of stone, and he's gonna put a heart of flesh in you. You see, in your deadness, you could not move towards him. He's going to move in you and cause you to love him. He's going to put his spirit in you. By the way, this spirit that he puts into your life is the same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead. He's going to give you some new affections, some new desires. It is a real transformation.

This is not just a box we check intellectually. This is something that we believe that has downstream effects, and your life will tell the story. It will either be a contradiction of that belief or it will be a confirmation of that belief. He comes to make us alive. That is what he does.

How He Does It

I wanna close today by telling you how he does it. At the beginning part of this story, Jesus tells the disciples, we are going to Bethany. And they said, Lord, no. Last time we went that way, they tried to stone you. And Jesus says, we're going.

Jesus showed up and he raised Lazarus back to life, and he knew that word would travel. You can't raise someone back to life and have people be quiet about it. And so in chapter 11, right after he does this, listen to what we hear:

The chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. What are we accomplishing? Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. — John 11

From that day on, they plotted to take his life. Jesus knew this would happen. Tim Keller puts it this way in his book, Encounters with Jesus: "In order to interrupt Lazarus' funeral, he would have to summon his own. In order for Jesus to be able to call Lazarus out of the tomb, he knew that he himself would have to go in."

See, in order for Jesus to offer us life, he has to take our death and go into the tomb that we deserved. But he doesn't stay. Death could not hold him. He came back to life. And he is the resurrection, and he is the life, and that is what he offers to all of us.

Do you believe this? Jesus was after his disciples' belief. At the beginning of this story in chapter 11, he says to his disciples, I'm glad that he died before we got there because I want you to believe that he's the one who sent me. He was after Martha's belief. He was after the crowd's belief. And can I tell you something? If you were here today, he is after your belief.

He would like to do for you spiritually what he did for Lazarus physically. He would like to give you new life. He would like to make you a new creation. He would like to make you alive with Christ. Would you let him?

Let's pray. Father, thank you for the message of your resurrection, that death does not have the final word, that it will not win in the end. Thank you that light and life has conquered death and darkness. And as a result, we can know you, the one for whom we were made.

I pray that some today would find that new life in you. It's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen.

Would you stand as we worship?