In a continuation of our series on the miracles of Jesus, we begin an examination of the raising of Lazarus. Why did Jesus wait two days where he was before going to the aid of his friend? Does God perhaps know something beyond what we know, and see things that we can’t see? In this short sermon Pastor Clark explains how God’s view is not finite, but infinite, and he always takes the Long View of Love.

<p>In a continuation of our series on the miracles of Jesus, we begin an examination of the raising of Lazarus. Why did Jesus wait two days where he was before going to the aid of his friend? Does God perhaps know something beyond what we know, and see things that we can’t see? In this short sermon Pastor Clark explains how God’s view is not finite, but infinite, and he always takes the Long View of Love.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

The Long View of Love- Raising Lazarus, Part 1


They became known as the Stanford Marshmallow Experiments. Now these were a series of studies on delayed gratification that took place in the 1960s and 70s. It followed something that had been done overseas when they had gone to a third world country and they had given children a choice between a 1 cent's worth of candy right now or 10 cent's worth of candy every week. And Dr. Walter Mischel was a professor at Stanford University and he decided that he would start a long-term study that would look into the different ways that children thought and the effects that it had on them over their lifetime.

So this is what they did. They would take a child and they would put him in a room or her in a room and they would put in front of them either a cookie or a pretzel or a marshmallow. And this is what the researcher would say, now I'm going to leave this room for 15 minutes. If you will wait until I come back and not touch the marshmallow, I will give you 2 marshmallows." So, they would leave the room. Now it's interesting to note what these children did to try to avoid eating the marshmallow.

Some of them would cover their eyes. Some of them would turn around. Some of them would begin fiddling with something on their clothes or under the table. Some of them made it through the 15 minutes without eating the cookie or the marshmallow. Now these children were followed for the next few decades And they discovered that the children who were able to wait longer for the preferred reward, the additional rewards, tended to have better life outcomes.

Isn't that interesting? They scored higher on their SATs, they accomplished more in their educational attainment, and other life measures such as income and career and so forth. You see, there's something about living outside of the moment, living with the long view. Today we're going to be talking about the long view of love, the long view of love. Now our story is 1 of the greatest miracle stories in the Gospels.

We're taking it here from John chapter 11. We're going to go through briefly here who these characters are that are found in this story. Martha is mentioned. Perhaps she is the oldest of the siblings. We don't know that, but the way John treats her here in John chapter 11, he lists Mary and Martha and Lazarus, but then when he lists them all, he lists Martha first.

Martha was a very task-oriented person. You know that, don't you? Martha was the 1 who was busy cooking in the kitchen, who said, why don't you have my sister Mary help me? You remember that story? Martha was the 1 we find in the story of the feast at Simon's house, was the caterer of the black tie event, a very formal dinner that Simon threw to honor Jesus.

Martha was a very accomplished person, a respectable person. Mary, on the other hand, was a little bit different. We won't take time to explore her life, but we believe that Mary was someone who had sort of gone wayward as a young person, perhaps. She had spent her life in ways that she had regrets about now. And Mary, John makes a pain to point out, Mary was the 1 that wiped Jesus' feet with ointment, who anointed Jesus' feet with ointment.

Some believe Mary was even the person that is dragged before Jesus in John chapter 8, the 1 who Jesus forgave and said, I don't condemn you either, go and sin no more. Whatever it is, we know that Mary was someone who had been touched by Jesus' love, and Mary loved to sit at Jesus' feet and just learn as much as she could from the Savior, because He had saved her from her sins. Of course we must mention Lazarus. Lazarus might not even be hardly mentioned in the Bible if it wasn't for John chapter 11. We don't find much else about him.

He was there at the feast at Simon's house, we know that, but Lazarus was a good friend of Jesus. Their home in Bethany, of these siblings, their home in Bethany, just a mile and a half, 2 miles from Jerusalem, was 1 of Jesus' favorite places to go, to escape the throngs of seeking listeners and the antagonistic questions of the scribes and Pharisees. Lazarus is best known because of this story, being raised from the dead. And then there are the disciples. The disciples of Jesus are always figuring into the stories in the Gospels, and we're gonna find more about them.

We will, for the sake of time, we'll skip on down to, of course, the last character in this story is Jesus. And Jesus' long view of love is what we're looking at here this morning. If you have your Bibles, turn with me now again to John chapter 11 and we're going to read verses 1 and onward. John chapter 11, It says, Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.

So the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill. Now this is a very important point I want to just draw out as we pass these verses. It was, these were close friends of Jesus, right? And If we notice here in verse 2, it says, "'whose brother Lazarus was ill.'" So Lazarus was sick. What's the next word?

Well, in my translation, this morning I have the English Standard Version, the ESV. The next verse is, the next word is, "'So the sisters sent to him.'" So, you see that word so? It's a connecting word, isn't it? Because of what was happening in the previous sentence, we are now seeing what's happening in this new sentence. Does that make sense?

That's what the word so means. Because Lazarus was ill, they sent to Jesus. Now that makes sense, doesn't it? That's a perfectly logical connection. Lazarus is sick, Lazarus is Jesus' friend, and they are going to send for Jesus because they know that Jesus has the power to heal sick people.

It's perfectly logical. So they sent to Jesus saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill, but 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. Now, just so that we understand that this was a very unusual situation. John makes clear that these were important people to Jesus.

Verse 5, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, so when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed 2 days longer in the place where he was." Now, pause. In verses 2 and 3, we saw a perfectly logical progression of thought, right? Lazarus is sick, so they sinned for Jesus. Here you find a perfectly illogical progression of thought. These are conflictory concepts.

Notice verse 5 says, Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, what does that so mean? Based upon his love for Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed 2 days longer in the place where he was. Can you explain that to me?

This is a problematic concept for me, that Jesus would stay 2 days longer in the place that he was. Now that's problematic enough, but the fact that that so is there makes it even worse. Because of his love for Martha and Mary and Lazarus, Jesus stays 2 days longer in the place where he was. I want to propose to you this morning that it's because Jesus has the long view of love, the long view of love. You know, your view, what you see, matters a lot.

For some people, if you only saw these 2 10-year-old children being shoved violently by an adult, you would think that this person was abusive. In fact, these 2 children, these 2 10-year-old children were shoved so violently that they ended up having to be carried off to the hospital in serious condition. That shouldn't happen to children, not at the hands of adults. And if that was the only thing you saw, you would seriously question whether that adult should be allowed to be around children at all. But in fact, this adult was a school principal.

20 years she had been principal of this school near Indianapolis, an elementary school. But if you had a longer view of what was happening, you would understand. That Susan Jordan, this long-time principal, loved by her students, saw something that the children didn't see. She saw that a bus in line to pick up the kids had suddenly lurched into gear and was heading straight towards them. And in her last unselfish act as a teacher, Susan Jordan shoved these children out of the path of this oncoming bus while she herself was killed by its progress.

You see, you can see just a brief moment in time and wonder how that could be loving. But when you see the big picture, the long view, you can understand that what Susan did was an act of a hero. It was an act of a person who cared more about her children that she was responsible for taking care of than for her own life. The long view shows a different picture. Another story might illustrate this just as well.

There was a fellow by the name of Aaron Ralston who 1 day took out his pocket knife and cut off his arm. He did. I don't know very many people that could do that, even if they wanted to or they had to. But on a Saturday afternoon, Aaron was climbing rocks in the mountains of Colorado. He was by himself when a boulder slipped and pinned his arm.

It was a 1, 000 pound boulder. Now this was Saturday afternoon. By Tuesday afternoon he had run out of water, even though he had been rationing it. By Tuesday afternoon he realized that very soon he was going to start thinking crazy thoughts. He was getting dehydrated.

And he knew there was only 1 choice that he had. So he picked, pulled his pocket knife out of his gear. He cut off his arm, applied a tourniquet, fastened anchors, and repelled 60 feet below to the canyon floor and then began hiking out for help. Now if you just saw Aaron cutting off his arm, you would think you're crazy. But Aaron had the long view, didn't he?

He knew it was either his arm or his life. There was nobody going to find him, nobody coming to look for him, nobody was going to save him. He would have to save himself. You understand what I'm trying to illustrate here this morning, friends? The point is that we can see just a brief instant, And things do not make any sense, but when we see the long view, the picture becomes clear.

Now, the reality is that in the story of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, They did not have the long view, but Jesus did. Notice with me what happens here. Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed 2 days longer in the place where he was. Jesus, can't you hurry? Jesus, Lazarus is sick.

Jesus, we know you can heal him. And I can only imagine as they returned to their home to the bedside of Lazarus, the sisters must have anxiously been craning their necks and straining their eyes to see down the road. For surely that person coming over the hill or around the bend must be Jesus. He's going to come, he's going to come, he's going to come. And then Lazarus died.

Can you imagine the quandary that they faced as they found themselves mourning the loss of their brother? And in fact, when Jesus did come, He was confronted with the question, Jesus, if you had come, you could have saved him. But now he's dead. He's been dead for 4 days. You see, the family and the friends and the mourners that had gathered around the household there in Bethany, they had only a very narrow view of that brief instant, while Jesus had the long view.

You see, Jesus knew something, and we're going to spend a little more time unpacking this miracle in future times together, but Jesus knew something. Jesus knew that he was, as he says in verse 28, the resurrection and the life. And whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?

You see, Jesus knew that he had not only the power to heal Lazarus, he had the power to raise a man who had been dead for 4 days. Jesus knew that in the future, the not too distant future, He was going to say the words, roll away the stone. And these men who were confused with their instant view of what was happening, not the long view of love, these men would argue, and Mary and Martha would argue, no, he's decomposing, his body stinks by now, because they only had this narrow view of what was going on in their little world and their little reality. But Jesus would say, Lazarus come forth. And Lazarus, though those ears were dead, Lazarus' ears would hear the voice of the life giver.

And Lazarus would be restored to his sisters, to his family and friends. Jesus knew all of this. Why? Because Jesus has the long view of love. Jesus does not see as we see.

Friend of mine, you may be going through trials and tribulations. There may be difficulties in our lives, things that we don't understand, quandaries and even uncertainties that cause us to question God, but let us remember that we have a narrow view while God has the long view. Let us remember that it's as if we are living in 1 frame when Jesus has seen the whole movie already. Let us remember that our eyes are finite, God's understanding is infinite. And the long view of love allows us to understand why Jesus could love Martha and her sister and Lazarus and so he would stay and let Lazarus die.

It's because, friends, He has the long view of love. It's because He knows what we don't know. And I firmly believe that when we know some of the things that God knows, He knows them today, we will know them someday in eternity. When we know what he knows, we will say, you know what? I wouldn't choose to be led any other way than the way God led me with his long view of love, His long view of love.

You see, Jesus not only knows, not only knew, I should say, that he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, that that decomposing body would be restored and renewed and returned probably better than before to his family and friends. Jesus knows that 1 day he's going to come again. Trials and troubles will be over. Sorrow and suffering and sin will have ended. The ears of all those who have died in Jesus will be raised from the dead.

And you and I, if we're there on that resurrection morning, you and I will have the opportunity to be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. And so the Bible says to ever be with the Lord, to inherit a kingdom wherein dwells righteousness, to see the new earth recreated in perfection and beauty, and to look back and say, you know what? Heaven is cheap enough. I'm glad that God had the long view of love. Today can we trust Him?

Can we trust Him? We can trust Him because He has the long view of love. Father in heaven, today we just praise You for whatever situation we find ourselves in. We know that if we've given our lives to You, we're living for Your service. We know that we can trust you because you have the long view of love.

Lord, today we are just eternally grateful that though our understanding is finite, yours is infinite. Though we see through a glass darkly, you see very clearly. Though we only live in this moment and don't know the future, you take it all in at a glance. You know the end from the beginning. And You are able to so lead us in such a way that we would not choose to be led any other way if we knew what You know.

Someday we will. Someday You'll share with us each individually. We'll be able to just pick your brain and ask you questions and we'll be able to understand things we don't know now, but today, Father, we just thank you that we can trust you because you love us. Yes, you allow us to go through trials, but you understand the long view of love. We thank you for being such a God that we can serve you.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. This media was brought to you by AudioVerse, a website dedicated to spreading God's Word through free sermon audio and much more. If you would like to know more about AudioVerse or if you would like to listen to more sermons, please visit www.audioverse.org.

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The Long View of Love- Raising Lazarus, Part 1

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