WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 Okay, so we're going to look at the story of Lazarus tonight. It's a very well-known 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:15.240 story, and hopefully get a wee bit of interaction as well. I'm not going to read the whole story 00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:23.839 because it's pretty long. I'm going to read from verse 17. So it's John chapter 11 from 00:00:23.839 --> 00:00:34.079 verse 17. Jesus has been told about Lazarus not being well, and then Lazarus dying, and 00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:41.760 he's waited four days to go to deal with this, and his disciples are wondering why, 00:00:41.760 --> 00:00:48.320 and we'll maybe pick up on one or two of the verses before verse 17 during the talk. But 00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:54.079 verse 17, Jesus says, Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in 00:00:54.079 --> 00:00:59.960 the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem about two miles off, and many of the Jews had 00:00:59.960 --> 00:01:05.280 come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:10.960 was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:17.719 to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that 00:01:17.719 --> 00:01:23.439 whatever you ask for from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise 00:01:23.439 --> 00:01:29.439 again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. 00:01:29.439 --> 00:01:34.879 Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection in the life. Whoever believes in me, though he 00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:41.039 die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe 00:01:41.039 --> 00:01:47.039 this? She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you're the Christ, the Son of God who is coming 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:52.640 into the world. When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, 00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:57.880 the teacher is here and is calling for you. When she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 00:01:57.880 --> 00:02:02.240 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but he was still in the place where Martha had met 00:02:02.240 --> 00:02:07.560 him. When the Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary rise quickly and go out, 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:14.840 they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now when Mary came to 00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:20.640 where Jesus was and saw him, she felt it as saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, 00:02:20.640 --> 00:02:26.360 my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her 00:02:26.360 --> 00:02:31.319 also weeping, he was deeply moved and spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, Where have you 00:02:31.319 --> 00:02:39.439 laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. So the Jews said, See how he loved him. 00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:45.800 But some of them said, Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind, the blind man also have kept 00:02:45.800 --> 00:02:56.240 this man from dying? Then Jesus deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay 00:02:56.240 --> 00:03:02.360 against it. Jesus said, Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man said to him, Lord, 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:08.000 by this time there will be an odor for he has been dead four days. Jesus said to her, 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:15.840 Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone 00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:22.520 and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you've heard me. I knew that you 00:03:22.520 --> 00:03:29.199 would always hear me. But I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe 00:03:29.199 --> 00:03:34.920 that you sent me. When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus come out. 00:03:34.919 --> 00:03:43.000 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:54.759 with a cloth. Jesus said to them, Unbind him and let him go. Amen. That's a great passage. Very dramatic. 00:03:54.759 --> 00:04:07.879 And we've been looking at the counters of Jesus with people, mainly sharing kind of gospel truth 00:04:07.879 --> 00:04:14.159 about the way Jesus dealt with people, particularly those who weren't believers, a case, Nicodemus, 00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:22.839 Jairus, the sick woman and Legion. And we've kind of been, I hope, stopping to ask a few questions, 00:04:22.839 --> 00:04:29.159 either on the night or maybe a city group or something else. What is it that we learn from 00:04:29.159 --> 00:04:36.799 Jesus in our interactions with people? And as we try and introduce people to Jesus in our lives, 00:04:36.799 --> 00:04:44.120 what is it we can learn from the way Jesus interacts with people? And learning from Jesus, 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:48.319 really, it's what it's all about for us, isn't it? It's absolutely what it's all about. It's the 00:04:48.319 --> 00:04:56.800 most important reality of our lives is learning from Jesus and learning what Jesus says. It really 00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:03.879 goes back to that whole thing from Jeremiah 17, our discipleship text, which says that He's the 00:05:03.879 --> 00:05:11.039 living water. And these times here and Sunday and when you open the Bible and when you pray before 00:05:11.039 --> 00:05:16.639 that, you're asking that you will soak up the living water of Jesus Christ and He will transform your 00:05:16.639 --> 00:05:21.800 life. And we learn from Him and we grow and we change and we develop so that when you come back 00:05:21.800 --> 00:05:27.439 in a fortnight, you're different from what you were tonight. And that that's the ongoing story 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:33.879 of our lives. Sometimes it's not like that, is it? Sometimes we feel we are regressing. But we're 00:05:33.879 --> 00:05:41.399 looking either in anxiety, by heat or in drought, whatever's in our lives that we are still bearing 00:05:41.399 --> 00:05:47.799 fruit because we are rooted in Jesus. That's why we're focusing really on Jesus, not just for 00:05:47.799 --> 00:05:53.199 sharing Him with others, but also for our own lives. So I'm going to see if this works tonight, 00:05:53.199 --> 00:06:16.360 if I can click it. Is that the first one? There might be another one. Another one? No. Okay. Is that 00:06:16.360 --> 00:06:23.480 the first one? Right, if that's the first one, that's fine. Doesn't matter. Okay. Shout out to me, 00:06:23.480 --> 00:06:31.639 some of the themes that you see, you think about in this passage. Just one word, one word answers. 00:06:31.639 --> 00:06:35.520 What are some of the themes that you think, if you were preaching the sermon or preaching on this 00:06:35.520 --> 00:06:39.400 passage tonight or talking on it, what would be some of the themes that would come out? 00:06:39.399 --> 00:07:06.000 Miracle. Grief. Compassion. Resurrection. What else? Frustration. Weeping. There's a lot of really 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:14.040 big themes. I've written down death, anger, glory, faith, friendship, grief, authority and signs. 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:25.920 And all of that comes out and all of that is significant and important in this story. So I'm 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:29.800 going to go through one or two things that I think are important in this story. And I hope you'll 00:07:29.800 --> 00:07:39.000 discuss them then a week from tonight. And the first is life is hard to understand. Okay. Life is 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:47.240 hard to understand. If you look at verse 21, and the trouble with me here is this writing is quite 00:07:47.240 --> 00:07:53.480 small and it's a bit darker here, but hopefully I can see it. Martha said to him, Lord, if you had been 00:07:53.480 --> 00:08:00.920 here, my brother would not have died. And then in 32, Mary says, Lord, if you had been here, my 00:08:00.920 --> 00:08:07.960 brother would not have died. Both of them say the same thing. Life is hard to understand. We've got 00:08:07.960 --> 00:08:15.160 to remember that in the story that Mary and Martha found it hard to understand why Jesus took so long 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:22.360 to come and to do why he delayed. And that's something that's a very big theme of our lives, 00:08:22.360 --> 00:08:29.160 isn't it? That we don't understand God's delay. We don't understand his delays to our prayers, 00:08:30.120 --> 00:08:36.039 to answering our prayers. We don't understand when we're suffering. Why God isn't acting? 00:08:36.039 --> 00:08:41.879 Why isn't he changing things more quickly? Why doesn't he do something? Because life is hard to 00:08:41.879 --> 00:08:51.720 understand. And one of the amazing things about recognizing Jesus is coming to recognize and to 00:08:51.720 --> 00:08:58.920 acknowledge this and to trust that he knows, because in this story, for example, we see the end of 00:08:58.920 --> 00:09:04.600 the story, and we have to respond with faith, because John's gospel is all about showing us Jesus 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:15.080 and giving us signs about who he is and why he's worth trusting. Do you know what the signs are? 00:09:15.080 --> 00:09:23.000 Yes. Could you think of what there's traditionally the regard that John's gospel is? Seven signs 00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:30.440 that point to who Jesus is. Seven things that he did that explain a little bit more about who he is. 00:09:30.440 --> 00:09:34.120 Can you think of what they might be? Can you think of any of them? 00:09:34.120 --> 00:09:46.440 The wedding of Canaan. The wedding of Canaan, correct. Any other ones in John's gospel? 00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:55.000 It's the same one. That's one sign you can't get away with that murder, trying to sneak a wee extra sign there. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:10:09.080 What other signs might there be? Feeding the 5000. Correct. Brilliant. Let's see if I can. 00:10:09.080 --> 00:10:14.039 Right. That was the one. Change the water into wine. And John sees it's the first of the signs. 00:10:15.480 --> 00:10:20.840 Explaining who Jesus was. Healing the royal official's son in Capernaum. Healing the paralytic. 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:29.399 Feeding the 5000. Walking on the water. Healing the man blind from birth. 00:10:31.320 --> 00:10:36.920 Raising a Lazarus. These are regarded as signs that speak about who Jesus was and give us confidence 00:10:37.800 --> 00:10:43.480 that we can trust him in the delays when we don't know why things are happening in our lives. 00:10:43.480 --> 00:10:55.720 And who Jesus is is really backed up powerfully in this story because this story is a cameo of a bigger picture 00:10:58.759 --> 00:11:05.639 because there's a bigger battle to be won. For Mary and Martha it's the raising of Lazarus. 00:11:06.519 --> 00:11:10.200 But there's an even bigger battle that's coming and this is a picture of it. 00:11:10.200 --> 00:11:17.960 And it's a reminder to us that this cameo of resurrection is a reminder to us of a 00:11:18.680 --> 00:11:23.480 bigger death and a bigger resurrection that was about to happen in Jerusalem. 00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:29.320 And it's a reminder that the suffering that we go through is redeemable because we have the, 00:11:29.320 --> 00:11:36.920 we know the story. We know the end of the story. And we know that death in Christ will be reversed 00:11:36.919 --> 00:11:45.399 as it was with Lazarus albeit temporarily, but in Christ forever. We know and we can know in Christ 00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:52.279 even with the delays that the grave becomes sleep for the believer. And the glory of God, 00:11:52.279 --> 00:11:59.719 which Jesus speaks about here, is the revelation of Jesus as the resurrection and the life, 00:11:59.720 --> 00:12:07.800 the crucified risen Savior who loves us and who gave himself for us. It'd be good to memorize 00:12:07.800 --> 00:12:13.000 verse 25, wouldn't it? It's a great verse. Jesus said to her, I'm sure you know it, 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:18.120 I am the resurrection of life. Whoever believes in me even though I die yet we'll live. 00:12:19.560 --> 00:12:26.600 It's just tremendous verses to remind us of the bigger picture that Jesus is highlighting here so 00:12:26.600 --> 00:12:34.600 that in the delays we can trust Him and we can lie in Him. And it even kind of points forward 00:12:34.600 --> 00:12:40.680 because if you jumped another chapter, you come to chapter 12 in verse 2 and it tells us that they 00:12:41.720 --> 00:12:49.320 gave a dinner for Jesus and Martha served and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table. 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:56.200 And it's what Mary and Martha's house, they had a big celebratory meal in honor of Jesus. 00:12:56.200 --> 00:13:01.160 And that kind of finishes this whole cameo and reminds us that that's what we look forward to 00:13:01.160 --> 00:13:11.080 as well, a super celebratory feast in the presence of Jesus forever. So all that a glorious family 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:17.640 feast represents in laughter and love and with Jesus' worship and life and satisfaction and reward. 00:13:17.639 --> 00:13:28.199 So that reminder to us of the delays that life is hard to understand. And you all come here tonight, 00:13:28.919 --> 00:13:31.559 I'm sure you all come here tonight thinking life is hard to understand. 00:13:32.679 --> 00:13:37.159 And there's many things we would ask God. But we're reminded we don't know the end of the story 00:13:37.159 --> 00:13:41.960 and we don't know everything and we're not in control. But this picture is there to remind us 00:13:41.960 --> 00:13:52.920 as we trust and as we love and as we serve Him that Jesus is everything. And that that is what 00:13:52.920 --> 00:13:59.000 counts for us as we put our faith in Him. That's the first thing, a few points just to make. Second 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:05.320 thing is loving well includes tears. Loving, I'm missing out hundreds of things by the way in this 00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:10.759 passage. I'm just picking at one or two things. But loving well includes tears. And you know that, 00:14:10.759 --> 00:14:17.879 don't you, from the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus wept. Here is Jesus, God's Son, on His way 00:14:17.879 --> 00:14:23.080 to Jerusalem. Thomas has said, oh well, we may as well go with you and die there because they know 00:14:23.080 --> 00:14:29.000 everyone's out to get Jesus there, the Creator of the universe, making His way, having made Himself 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:35.879 nothing, tempted in every way as we are without sin, heading towards God's wrath and hell itself, 00:14:35.879 --> 00:14:45.399 once for all, His time to weep for His friends. That's the kind of Savior He is. He weeps for 00:14:45.399 --> 00:14:53.960 His friends' death. Why? Because verse 5, which we didn't read, tells us that He loved them. He loved them. 00:14:56.120 --> 00:15:03.480 People mattered to Him and He shared their grief. You know, I've heard a lot of people say, oh, 00:15:03.480 --> 00:15:11.080 why was Jesus crying? He was just about to raise Lazarus from the dead. Well, that's kind of a daft 00:15:11.080 --> 00:15:20.600 thing to say because He was weeping for His friends who were grieving. And that text is there by God's 00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:30.120 divine perfection to remind us that it matters, that He made friends, that He had friends, that He 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:35.399 cared and that He cried. Even the fact of a resurrection minutes later didn't take away the 00:15:35.399 --> 00:15:44.840 tears and the sadness. It's a powerful witness. And we remember that in our lives that as believers 00:15:44.840 --> 00:15:52.120 to love is to share people's grief, to enter into it, to acknowledge that sadness is real, 00:15:52.759 --> 00:15:59.000 not in some kind of supercilious, pietistical way to brush it aside and say, well, it'll be all right, 00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:07.080 we'll all get resurrected. Jesus wept. Loving includes tears. Loving well includes tears. 00:16:09.080 --> 00:16:17.080 Third thing I want to say is that sometimes we need to snort with rage. You've probably 00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:22.360 heard this because most people that preach on this like to bring out this dramatic point. 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:32.680 In verse 33, Jesus says, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her 00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:38.600 also weeping, He was deeply moved in His Spirit and greatly troubled. And then again in verse 38, 00:16:39.320 --> 00:16:46.840 Jesus deeply moved again, came to the tomb. Now that word for deeply moved is the word for the 00:16:46.840 --> 00:16:57.080 snorting of a horse. Just that, it's an angry word. It's an amazing and a dramatic picture of Jesus 00:16:57.080 --> 00:17:05.000 here, the wrath of the Lamb in a sense. He's kind of snorting in anger at what He's saying, 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:10.519 what's before Him. You know that picture of a horse just ready for battle, just 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:16.440 you know the nose flaring and breath coming out of it and ready to fend. I'm not sure if horses 00:17:16.440 --> 00:17:22.920 are angry but the snorting bit is the horse and the anger bit is coming from within them and 00:17:23.799 --> 00:17:33.400 that moved, deeply moved in Spirit and troubled. The troubled is a kind of agitated word. He's 00:17:33.400 --> 00:17:41.160 kind of, he's not still, he's agitated and he's angry at what he's seeing in front of him. And 00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:51.960 yet also he's powerfully controlled here and he's supremely authoritative and he prays before God 00:17:51.960 --> 00:18:00.360 also about what's happening. He's not out of control, it's not a raging out of control at all. 00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:08.839 I hope this is not a reverent picture but it's almost like he's psyching himself up for a bigger 00:18:08.839 --> 00:18:16.199 battle that he's facing as he heads towards Jerusalem against all the forces of darkness 00:18:16.199 --> 00:18:23.000 that are represented here in the death of Lazarus. But whatever it is he's picturing here, 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:31.880 he's seeing the darkness and the destruction and the sadness and the brokenness of sin and of Satan's 00:18:32.599 --> 00:18:39.240 rule and of his rebellion and of a lost humanity that has gone with Satan. He's enraged by that 00:18:39.240 --> 00:18:43.960 distortion that evil has brought in his perfection and his justice and his love. 00:18:43.960 --> 00:18:54.680 Sometimes we need to snort with rage. How do you apply that? Well I think there's a lot of 00:18:54.680 --> 00:19:00.600 misdirected rage just now isn't there in society. Social media is full of it. We're seeing it with 00:19:00.600 --> 00:19:07.640 COP26. All the rage that people have and what there's environmental or political or religious, 00:19:07.640 --> 00:19:14.520 there's all kinds of rage. We know rage is very real in the world in which we live and that's 00:19:14.520 --> 00:19:20.759 sometimes not a bad thing but I think we have to, we're called to get angry ourselves with what God 00:19:20.759 --> 00:19:28.840 hates as well. Just as Jesus here is revealing his rage at darkness and evil, we're called to get 00:19:28.840 --> 00:19:34.440 angry with what God hates and that starts first by looking at the mirror. That's where it starts. 00:19:34.440 --> 00:19:40.600 Getting angry with our own complacency, lovelessness, pride, selfishness, greed. 00:19:42.600 --> 00:19:48.360 It's too easy to keep the light of Jesus shining on everyone else, isn't it? Or sometimes his light 00:19:48.360 --> 00:19:56.680 shines in on us and should expose within us things that make us rage because we see the hurt we cause 00:19:57.240 --> 00:20:03.400 or the disinterest we have in Jesus or the lack of care and compassion for his gospel 00:20:03.400 --> 00:20:09.320 and the relentless pride that drives us to our knees for forgiveness. So sometimes that rage 00:20:09.320 --> 00:20:16.440 should be, I think we're sometimes we're just too placid with our sin and it's all too easy and we 00:20:16.440 --> 00:20:23.800 don't care and we just walk our own way. But also I think we're called to rage at some of the wider 00:20:23.800 --> 00:20:28.519 injustices we see in the world around us and that can be a connecting point with unbelievers, 00:20:28.519 --> 00:20:33.960 can't it? We shouldn't just be rubbishing what's happening with people's rebellion and people's 00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:39.559 anger at what's happening in society. It might be broken in some ways and shadowy, 00:20:40.440 --> 00:20:46.920 but we recognize greed and poverty and wastefulness and environmental damage and a 00:20:46.920 --> 00:20:50.519 poor stewardship and we can partner with people in that and we can make a point 00:20:51.400 --> 00:20:56.039 of partnering with them on that even though their motives might be very different from ours. 00:20:56.039 --> 00:21:00.440 Obviously there comes a point where we testify to a deeper malaise that 00:21:02.279 --> 00:21:09.639 even Greta Thunberg can't fix, a deeper malaise that the youth of today can't fix, a deeper malaise 00:21:09.639 --> 00:21:20.920 that politics and education won't change and so it drives us to Christ. But it's also that anger 00:21:20.920 --> 00:21:26.920 is a reminder to us that the battle that Jesus faced and the battle that we faced is primarily 00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:34.519 spiritual. We have an enemy of our soul and we need to wake up to that. You need to wake up and I 00:21:34.519 --> 00:21:41.000 need to wake up to that. Much of the time we blame God for things that happen, but it's Satan who's 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:50.120 the architect of darkness and rebellion and we need to realize as Christians that Satan is at his 00:21:50.119 --> 00:21:56.839 most dangerous now than he ever was because he's a defeated foe not yet destroyed and you know what 00:21:56.839 --> 00:22:01.639 it's like for someone who's on death row, nothing matters does it? It doesn't matter what they do, 00:22:01.639 --> 00:22:07.239 they will do their very worst because they know they're defeated anyway and that's what we are 00:22:07.239 --> 00:22:14.039 aware of. That's why this is not just about playing religion and just trotting along to church. 00:22:14.039 --> 00:22:20.519 It's about a spiritual battle with the enemy of our souls and the engine room needs to be the place 00:22:20.519 --> 00:22:25.240 where we're at. It doesn't matter what else we do, it doesn't matter if this church is filling a Sunday, 00:22:25.799 --> 00:22:33.000 it's irrelevant completely if we're prayerless or if it's insignificant, if it doesn't matter if 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:39.720 other things come first. Prayer is everything because it's the only place that we find security 00:22:39.720 --> 00:22:48.519 and protection and refuge from the battle and we should get angry about not caring and not 00:22:48.519 --> 00:22:56.120 realizing and forgetting that we need his protection every day as we go out into the world as we live 00:22:56.120 --> 00:23:02.519 our lives we need his protection, it's everything, it's absolutely everything. So sometimes we need 00:23:02.519 --> 00:23:07.559 a snort with rage. You need to work out in your own life and I need to work out in my life what 00:23:07.559 --> 00:23:13.240 that looks like but I don't mind you snorting now and again. I think it's quite a good thing. 00:23:14.359 --> 00:23:22.679 Okay and that really I've beaten myself to my last point. We need to be praying for faith to 00:23:22.679 --> 00:23:29.799 believe because that's everything. In verse 15 we didn't read this and it's actually quite an 00:23:29.799 --> 00:23:36.200 important verse as they all are. Verse 30 says, now Jesus had spoken of his death but they thought 00:23:36.200 --> 00:23:42.120 that he meant rest and sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly Lazarus has died and for your sake I am 00:23:42.120 --> 00:23:51.080 glad that I was not there so that you may believe but let us go to him. This happened so that they 00:23:51.080 --> 00:23:57.480 would believe and then obviously in verses 41 and 42 where we read it were Jesus' praise, 00:23:57.480 --> 00:24:04.120 Father I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me but I said this 00:24:04.119 --> 00:24:08.279 on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me. 00:24:09.319 --> 00:24:17.319 That's what's behind this whole story is that Jesus wanted them to have faith. He wanted Mary 00:24:17.319 --> 00:24:23.639 and Martha, surely Lazarus and Faithy. He'd gone into the realm of the dead for four days. He must 00:24:23.639 --> 00:24:29.000 have had faith coming out of that and the people around and the mourners and everyone else the 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:35.400 disciples. He wanted them to have faith and he prayed to the Father that they would have faith and 00:24:35.400 --> 00:24:44.599 see his glory and know who he was. And again that's why we pray and that's all evangelism is about. 00:24:45.400 --> 00:24:50.279 You know we have techniques and this and that and friendship and everything else but ultimately 00:24:51.240 --> 00:24:58.039 if Jesus needs to pray to the Father for them to see who he is and that they might believe, 00:24:58.039 --> 00:25:02.279 if Jesus needs to do that surely we need to be doing that as well in the same way. 00:25:07.319 --> 00:25:14.200 You run out of things to pray for then pray to the Father for more faith because that's what Jesus 00:25:14.200 --> 00:25:19.240 wants here, more faith to believe, more faith to say well I'm not going to play about with sin anymore, 00:25:19.240 --> 00:25:24.039 I'm not going to be a hypocrite, I'm not going to make Jesus second in my life, I'm not going to shrug 00:25:24.039 --> 00:25:28.200 at his love and just say yeah yeah it's fine he died in the cross, it's lovely, it's pleasant. 00:25:30.359 --> 00:25:37.000 Pray for more faith to see the kind of things that he saw and snort and rage like he did and weep 00:25:37.639 --> 00:25:48.680 with our friends is the way he did and trust in his delays as well. We need faith to do all of that 00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:53.639 and we need to be crying out for faith and faith and faith. Young people here I say the best thing, 00:25:53.640 --> 00:25:59.400 you can ever do in your life as a Christian is learn to pray and keep on praying and make it the 00:25:59.400 --> 00:26:06.360 absolute foundation of everything you are as a Christian and if we talk about evangelism, I guess 00:26:06.360 --> 00:26:11.800 this passage isn't quite in the same way it's not about evangelism in terms of Jesus dealing with 00:26:11.800 --> 00:26:21.400 unbelievers but we have the very crux of evangelism here praying to the Father, you praying to the 00:26:21.400 --> 00:26:28.440 Father for the people you bring before him that maybe nobody else does with people in here on 00:26:28.440 --> 00:26:33.080 Sunday for the baptisms have never been in church before the mums and dads will all be appearing 00:26:33.080 --> 00:26:38.440 for them and praying that they hear the word, not just in church from themselves and from others 00:26:38.440 --> 00:26:45.720 and all of you from you and me from from my life that all that we're doing that God will use it 00:26:45.720 --> 00:26:55.559 to reveal Jesus so that people might believe the focus of our friendships of our evangelism 00:26:56.519 --> 00:27:03.559 is that we will declare the glory of Jesus. What is that glory? It goes back to what he said, 00:27:04.120 --> 00:27:09.160 I am the resurrection in the life. I am the, that's the glory of God. That's what that verse 00:27:09.160 --> 00:27:13.960 refers back to what he said at the beginning. I am the resurrection in the life. That's the 00:27:13.960 --> 00:27:21.400 glory of God is a crucified Jew 2000 years ago on the third day who was resurrected. That is what 00:27:21.400 --> 00:27:25.960 we need to be telling people about. The aim of evangelism isn't to get them into church, 00:27:26.920 --> 00:27:34.120 the aim of evangelism is to tell them about Jesus and we need faith to do that and we need prayer 00:27:34.120 --> 00:27:41.799 to do that and we need hearts to be changed and rage to be directed in the right way. Wouldn't 00:27:41.799 --> 00:27:49.879 it be brilliant if all that rage that we see in society would turn towards Satan and the injustice 00:27:49.879 --> 00:27:55.000 and the darkness and the blackness and the bleakness of who he is and look to Jesus Christ for 00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:01.000 forgiveness and salvation because as I'll go on to preach on Sunday there is a day of reckoning. 00:28:02.680 --> 00:28:08.039 So you're getting a heavy lot in the next couple of days because that's the next section in Second 00:28:08.039 --> 00:28:15.960 Thessalonians. There is a day of reckoning and that's supremely important anyway. Enough said. 00:28:16.680 --> 00:28:25.319 Let's pray. Father God we ask and pray that we would hear you more clearly every day as we open 00:28:25.319 --> 00:28:33.240 these stories, stories we know from when we were we many of us, but that must remain living 00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:40.839 and must remain relevant and powerful and moving for us and we do long for this place, 00:28:41.480 --> 00:28:49.480 this building to be full of people praying on a Wednesday night and we long for it to be doubly 00:28:49.480 --> 00:28:54.759 full on the Lord's Day of people worshiping but we know that's impossible unless we are praying to 00:28:54.759 --> 00:29:06.759 the Father that they may believe and we pray that would be the case and we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.