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Howdy. Before I get started this morning, first I wanted to remind everyone where we were last week with John's sermon out of James chapter 1, 5-8. Reason being, as we go, you will see this is in large part, what we'll be covering this morning, a continuation of the thoughts from that sermon.

In James chapter 1, 5 through 8, it was discussed that faith is an action. And he gave the illustration of the parachutes. It doesn't do much good to believe that it works if you never jump out of the plane. I like to think of faith and define it as a relationship.

And it kind of builds on the same fact that it is an action. You say, well, how is a relationship an action? And I would ask you, if I told you that I was married, but I have not seen my wife since our marriage day 13 years ago, what would your response be?

I could have the piece of paper all I want, but that is not much of a marriage. Let me use a second illustration, and this one more important even, as we go. I had the privilege this last week to go over to the Davis household, and while I was there, the Charlie acted up a little bit, received discipline, immediately acted as if the world was over, cried, and did what babies do.

But then, something rather remarkable. While crying, he immediately sought comfort in his father, the one who had just disciplined him. He immediately went up, arms extended, and sought comfort from his father. Faith in action, his trust in the father. And hold that in your mind as we go this morning.

Now, if you'll look, John 11:35 is our text. The title is the text, so you already have it there. And we're going to go back and look at the things surrounding it. But before we get started, I'm going to do something a little bit unconventional. See, I get distracted easily.

I like bunny trails. So we're going to get all of that out of the way before we even start the sermon this morning with this thing, one of my favorite words, apophysis, which is when you do something by saying you're not going to do it. So the points I am not going to make in this sermon, the distractions I am not going to be distracted by in this sermon, there are four of them very quickly.

One, It is not a sin to be troubled or to weep. Jesus does not and did not sin. 1 Peter 2, 22, our text, John 11, 35, Jesus wept, therefore, weeping is not a sin. Therefore, it is not a sin for you and I simply to weep. But we're not going to go there this morning.

Two, Jesus was and remains entirely God and entirely human. As such, he is the example for how to live as a human in the perfect manner after the perfection of our God. This includes opening ourselves up to friendships as Jesus did with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. And as Spurgeon says, quote, every friendship opens a fresh door for a grief.

If you are a friend, you are opening yourself to grief. And we are called to have friends, as Jesus did. This is not one of my points this morning. 3. Revelation 21, 4 speaks of every tear being dried, and that is a glorious promise. But also a promise to us is John 16, 33, just a little after our text, which says, in this world you will have trouble, letting alone the passion which Jesus will go through.

Just shortly after these events, letting alone all of what the apostles would go through in their grief and in their martyrdom, here we see Jesus wept. We're going to talk on this just a little bit, but one point from this I will not be making this morning is any gospel which suggests or otherwise insinuates that if you have faith as you should, you will be happy, you'll be financially blessed, you will never ever have any grief or cry.

That prosperity gospel is a lie. As much as I would like to expand on that much further, just take that, go home and consider it. And lastly, of the things not to be distracted by, but nonetheless, in the abundance of this scripture, if you look through this narrative, there's a partial belief that we see.

If you look, the 12 are willing to die. If you look in verse 16, as Thomas says, let's go with our Lord, returning towards Jerusalem to a people who want to stone him, and let us die with him. They believe. But they didn't quite trust his judgment. Martha, in verse 27 of 20, Chapter 11 gives one of the most profound professions of faith in the entire New Testament.

But in verse 39, when Jesus says to roll away the stone where Lazarus is, she pauses just a moment. Well, are you sure that's what you want to do? He stinketh. See, she has a profound belief, but there are certain limits. She wants him to do it the way she sees him doing things.

Mary in verse 32 comes and believes that Jesus has power over death, but she has been overcome with a paralysis, her grief overtaking her. She believes, but yet only to a point. You see, here is a point to be made: that belief does not stop with salvation. We can believe, we can believe in Christ and have true, genuine faith.

But it doesn't stop on that day that we say, yes, Lord. We continue in our belief. So, again, these are four things I think that are wonderful applications from this text, but not where I want to go. As Pastor Tom says, one, meaning, many implications. Numerous applications. And this particular text, as with all texts in Scripture, is deep beyond comprehension.

But I had to focus somewhere. So, with no further ado, we're going to get into it. Now, at this point, going into the text, I wanted to give the context, and I thought maybe I could just speak a quick summary. But I have decided it's a bit of a long section.

We're going to read it anyway. If I cut anything, it's going to be my words, not the scriptures. So, bear with me and let us read quickly, starting in chapter 11, verse 1. Now, a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.

It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with the fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore, the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. Then, after this, he said to the disciples, Let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to him, Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone you, and you are going there again?

Jesus answered, Are there not faith? 12 hours in the day. If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. These things he said, and after that he said to them, Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that he may wake, that I may wake him up.

Then his disciples said, Lord, if he sleeps, he will get well. However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought he was speaking about taking rest and sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe.

Nevertheless, let us go to him. Then Thomas said, Who is called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, Let us go also, that we may die with him. So when Jesus came, he found that he had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away.

And many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him, and Mary was sitting in the house. Now Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

But even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that. That he will rise again in the resurrection of the last day. And Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world. And when she had said these things, she went her way and secretly called Mary, her sister, saying, The teacher has come and calling for you.

And as soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met him. And when the Jews who were with her in the house and comforting her, when they saw that Mary rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, She is going to the tomb to weep there.

Then when Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, he groaned in his spirit and was troubled.

And he said, Where have you laid him? And they said to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, See how he loved him. And some of them said, Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept? This man from dying.

There, now you have the entire context in the best way it can be given. And as we look at this, I want you to notice two things. One, notice that we know the end before it starts. This entire story of Lazarus, we know exactly what's going to happen as it starts, it's all given to us right off the bat.

We know that Jesus loves Lazarus. It's said of him in verse 3, and Jesus Himself says it in verse 5. We know Lazarus is dead, starting in verse 11 through 14. We know why Lazarus died. It's a bit like I was debating whether to use this example or not, but for those who know, Columbo.

For those of you who don't know, it's a murder mystery show, but the unique thing about the show is that you always know exactly who did it before the show even gets started good. That's the first opening scene. You know, the whole time you know who did it.

The mystery is not who did it or how they did it. Usually it's not even why they did it. The mystery is how Columbo is going to prove they did it and how he's going to unravel it. So we know, as this story starts, exactly the entire trajectory.

And we know why. Lazarus died in two places. And this is key to understanding this whole passage. That's verse 4 and verse 15. In verse 4, this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Everything that happens, it's all predicated on the glory of God.

And verse 15, again, I'm glad for your sakes I was not there, that you may believe. So we see this. And just for a moment, what is this glory? What is glory? We use a lot of church words a whole lot and don't often stop to think about it.

Ja Vern McGee said that glory is a thing that has shape and color. Shape and color. In reference to 1 Peter 5, he cross-references Psalm 19, which says the universe declares the glory of God. And it says, the universe and all the cosmos and the boundary therein gives you your shape.

And if you look up at night, you see the color. That's glory. Glory is the sensible, visible, your five senses, what you can see about who our God is. Is this happening? This entire story of Lazarus is happening so we can see, hear, feel who God is, is for the glory of God.

And we are supposed to be familiar with the story. As you note, Mary at the very beginning, who is Mary, verse 2? It's the Mary who anointed the Lord. Interesting thing, because we don't get the account of Mary anointing the feet of the Lord until chapter 12. This is a widely publicized story.

Anybody encountering this would know the story before they started. So again, that's not the question. What happened, how it happened, and generally why. But there's something about the journey we're meant to see. And I'll note before moving off of this also that Jesus knew the end before it starts.

Now, we, obviously, were seeing this account far after the fact. It happened in history. We know the story. But Jesus knew it as it was happening. He knew of Lazarus' death. It was not a surprise. Look at verse 14. He told them plainly. And Jesus. Knew that Lazarus would be raised long before he did the act.

Verse 11, I go to awaken him. Verse 23, Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Jesus knew everything that was going to happen. And I put a little note here, duh. I mean, but yes, Jesus knew what was going to happen before it happened. We know what was going to happen before it happened.

So we're observing the journey. And as we're observing the journey between the beginning and the conclusion of the matter, and we see this is where the point of this account is, I want to draw your attention to a repetition. Anytime you see repetition, usually it's there for, well, it's always there.

Everything in Scripture is there for a reason. But I think it's drawing, it's the big bold letters. There's a repetition in this journey that we see. That Jesus could have prevented the death. I don't know if y'all picked up on this. Jesus could have prevented the death. The reader is led to this reality starting as early as verse 5 through 6.

John Piper has an entire sermon based on one word, essentially. If you look at verse 6, so stop. So I've got two words. He did one. So. Verse 5, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Verse 6, so, or therefore, or because of verse 5, he waited for two more days.

Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. And therefore, when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days. And this should just immediately, anybody reading this, this is not normal behavior. When you love somebody and they tell you that somebody you love is sick and they're asking you to come, you immediately go.

Instead, because he loved them. And the implication is, if he had gone immediately, it would not be an act of love. The fact that he waited two days was specifically and explicitly out of his love for them. What are we to do with this? The whole question: why would Jesus do that?

He could have prevented the death. Next, same question, same thought. Jesus says he could have done something about it. Look at verse 15. I am glad for your sakes I was not there, that you may believe. Implication, if I had been there, the things that are about to happen would not have happened.

If the things that are about to happen had not happened, you would not believe. Jesus, by implication, saying he could have saved Lazarus. Then we have the explicit. Verse 21, Martha. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Verse 32, Mary. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

Verse 37, everybody, the entire crowd, could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept this man from dying? It just screams at you. To steal the conclusion in Piper's sermon, love means giving us what we need most. Remember verse 4. When Jesus heard it, he said, This illness does not lead to death.

It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. What we need most in life is not our physical wellness. It is not our comfort. It is not to avoid pain. It is to believe unto life. Verse 15, for the glory of God.

God. God gives us what we need most. And what we need is to see the glory of God, to see who God is, to be able to sense, to realize, to be in the presence of our God. As wonderful, and there's nothing wrong whatsoever with physical health, but as wonderful as those things are, that is not our primary need.

Jesus could have given that as a gift, but he loved and he gave what they needed most. You say, well, Jonesy, all this is great. That's good stuff. I thought your text was verse 35. Jesus, what? Well, that's correct. Because as we're going through this text, something happens.

The great textual crash. Jesus loved them. Jesus is going to show who he is through Lazarus. And on his way, suddenly, the narrative stops. If we're looking at this, notice verse 34. Where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. Verse 35. So Jesus, going along with them, wept.

Nope, that's not what it says. Preparing to go, Jesus took a moment aside and wept. No, it's abrupt. Suddenly, the narrative stops. This is as much as I dislike many times the verse breaks. As has been noted by many scholars, this is perhaps one of the best, most appropriate verse breaks in the Bible.

It is clear it is a separate thought, entirely separate from everything before in its grammatical structure. Jesus wept. Full stop. If you, in IEW, a very short sentence. So it is meant to immediately grab your attention. It is also grammatically jarring. One thing I want to point your attention to.

In verse 33, therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping. Verse 35, Jesus wept, weeping, weeping, wept. So go almost every translation you have, with the exception of three. The LSB, interestingly enough, the amplified and the CSB slash Holman. They catch something.

Verse 33, Jesus saw Mary, Kleio. And the Jews also, Kleio. Verse 35, Jesus, Dagru. They are different words. And they mean different things. The first word, Mary, and the Jews who are with her, is an outward wailing. It's just a loss of control. It is a lament that is meant to be seen and heard.

It's visceral. And everybody around them, it gets their attention. And part of this, on the part of Mary, is just being distraught. And in those who are with her, it's part of that tradition of mourning. You have professional wailers, and it's exactly what it sounds like, wailing, for everybody to hear.

But Jesus, this word is very different. And for Jesus, the word used is silent tears, specifically. This is not meant as a public demonstration. I think it is a demonstration for us in the text to see something. But it is not in the way he was crying, joining with the cultural...

Wailing. This is a separate kind of weeping. It's meant to grab your attention. Jesus wept. Contrast from everything around it. Where does this come from? And you see this inward focus, the inward focus of his crying. Verse 33 again. Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, wailing, and the Jews who came with her weeping, wailing, he groaned in his spirit and was troubled inward.

He was troubled. Now, there's an interesting little tidbit about this groaning in his spirit. The MacArthur Study Bible describes it as snorting like a horse, is what the word means. And I don't know all that much about that, but I do think my mind goes places, and I think of a horse.

You ever have a horse that finds a mud puddle? What do they just all seem to do? It can be the littlest mud puddle, and they immediately just go at it, right? They just stomp and there's something about water. At least, and this is not the same as the snort, but this is what I was thinking of: this pestered, upset, turbulent, not just sadness, but a pent-upness is the best way I could say it.

And this is kind of the meaning of this groaning. And you see a little bit of that in the way it's said in the Old King James. His weeping and his inward feelings are being expressed to us, not just as sorrow, but more than. His tears are manifesting for us and revealed to us in this scripture to show us about who Jesus is.

Now, stop for a second. What is the point of this text? Verse 4, to show us the glory of God, to demonstrate who God is. What is glory? To make seen, felt, heard, and understood who God is. What do we have here? We have Jesus Himself showing who He is.

Something that we otherwise could not see, something that otherwise would be secret and hidden from us. The innermost feelings of Jesus Christ manifest to us. That is glory. Which, by the way, a side note, forgive me for getting distracted for a moment. What is worship? Bringing glory to God, making known who God is.

What is preaching? The revealing from God's word who God is. Worship, preaching, declaring the glory of God, lest we get distracted on that. And that's exactly what we have in this text. A demonstration of who God is. Notice also, the crowd stops. You have a crowd, picture this.

You've got Mary, who is absolutely distraught, and just Matthew Jones reading between the lines, can barely speak. She only says one line to Jesus, and that's it. And then you have this crowd that has followed her, that is wailing and moaning. Then Jesus weeps silently, and immediately, verse 36, the Jews who are around begin talking about it.

Silent tears in the midst of tears, and he gets the attention. They immediately notice, the crowd stops and notices this weeping. And they begin to talk about it. The demonstration of who God is. So the inevitable. The question that just about every study that I looked at in this is titled, Why did Jesus?

Weep? It's a natural question to ask. As I already said, this is not a ritual lament or performance. And it does not say in the text, Jesus, what? For these reasons. We are given a look into the heart of Jesus, but given very little on exactly what that he saw and thought that caused these emotions.

However, rather than speculating, is it specifically out of his love for Lazarus? Is it in communion with Mary and those who he loved? Let's look at what all of this situation holds in common. What is the baseline thread? Jesus wept due to an interaction with death, pain, sorrow, the results of death.

As in another example, Luke 19, 41, when he is weeping over Jerusalem. Death and the impacts of sin. This is the situation in which Jesus is. I dare not be more specific if Scripture is not, but this much we know. He is interacting with the effects of sin, and he weeps.

My friends, God ordains judgment. Judgment is good. It is motivated by love, but he weeps over it. God ordains that we will experience pain and suffering, the effects of sin, but he weeps over it. God cannot be happy with death and pain because he cannot be happy with sin.

He judges, he is righteous, and it is good, but that does not mean he does not weep. These things come from sin. It does not please him. If you look in Ezekiel chapter 18, verses 1 through 9, when therefore God pronounces that all souls are his own, quoting from Calvin in commentary on Ezekiel, rather, when therefore God pronounces that all souls are his own, he does not merely claim sovereignty and power, but he rather shows that he is affected with fatherly love towards the whole human race since he created and formed it.

For if a workman loves his work because he recognizes in it the fruits of his industry, so when God has manifested his power and goodness in the formation of men, he must certainly embrace them with Affection. Ezekiel 33, 11, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

Turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die? God loves everyone in this room. No caveats, no qualifications. Period. You may live in judgment. You may be condemned. That does not change the fact that God loves you, just as God loves in our narrative, Lazarus. And he wept.

John 3:16, he loved the world. Jeremiah 9, Luke 19, 41, he weeps over a lost and condemned Jerusalem. Over and over, we see this fact. Like Lazarus, God loves you. Like Lazarus, God also knows you will be raised. He knows the end. Duh, right? God knows what is in store for you.

There is life after death. 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 through 18. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with a voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Therefore, encourage one another with these words. If you are saved in this room, God loves you, God knows the future, he may allow you for this moment to experience pain. And he knows what he is doing, but he is also weeping. Then there's the other side. Revelation 20, 12 through 15.

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. The books were open. Then another book was opened, which was the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it.

Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name is not found written in the book of life, he has thrown into the lake of fire.

I don't know about you, but if I am judged for what I have done, I'm in bad shape. If that is my only hope, and God knows that this is also the future for those who are not accepting who he knows exactly who you are, and he knows you will be raised to judgment one way or the other.

He loves you, he is just, and he knows the future, just as he did with Lazarus, and Jesus wept. See, all of these things are true at the same time, and this tells us something about our God. God delights in justice, God delights in righteousness, and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth.

But he never delights in death, including eternal death, including hell, and including temporal pain in this moment that all of us experience, and some of us right this moment are experiencing in a special way. God does not delight in death or suffering. We do not have a God that is ruled by his feelings.

He does not make decisions based on feeling. But we also do not have a God devoid of feeling. That's what I want you to hear this morning. We do not have a God devoid of feeling. He is not apathetic. Like our text, we know the end already. We know where we are headed.

We have the book of Revelation, only too recently went through. Know much of what is going to happen, understand much of the future of the universe, how it ends. That is not the question. The question is: how is the end going to happen? What is going to be the journey there?

So let me recap this sermon so far. One, it is not about the destination. It is about the journey. It is not about the fact that Lazarus would be raised. We knew he would die. We knew he would be raised. The point here is seeing who God is through how this happens.

Two, God chose this journey to be about glory, showing who he is, showing that he is a God of justice, showing that he is a God in control, and also showing that he is a God who weeps. Three, disciples. Despite his permissiveness in allowing this pain, the weeping shows a love and care, an infinite love and care that our God has for us.

And who are we that God would be mindful of us? It's an amazing thing. In this, we know and are called to know Jesus. I would like to submit to you: this is all good stuff, but what are we supposed to do? Knowing these things, what do we do this morning?

What is our call to action? I think it is very simple, and my call to you is simple. Do not refuse to go to Jesus when we are not getting our way. Do not refuse comfort from the one who loves us because we are in pain. That is backwards thinking.

Matthew 18:3, we come to him like little children. Charlie went to his father when he was in pain. Despite his father allowing him to experience that pain, he came like a child to the one that he had faith in, to the one he knew loved him. Because no matter how he felt.

In that moment, no matter the discomfort and pain, he knew above and beyond that that his father cared and loved for him. We are called to do the same thing. Your God weeps for you. Stop running away from him. Stop using your pain as an excuse to distance yourself.

Have faith and go to the one that loves you. Go to him in prayer. Go to him in scripture. Go to him in the gathering of the church. Escape to God, not to comfort, to food, to entertainment, to altering substances, to all these things that you and I go to to escape the pain and the hurt and the experiences we have.

We have the ultimate, caring, loving God. He is there with open arms. Jesus wept. Let us pray. My Lord, I pray that you will be our solace, that we will know your care, your love, and your affection, that we will recognize who you are. Are and trust you and trust that what is done is for your glory and for our good and go to you with all of our cares that you will heal this body, bless the people here, and that we will be closer to you.

In Jesus' name, amen.