What If? Sermon on John 11.1-45

0:00 Well, friends, allow me to pray. Good and gracious God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation upon all of our hearts be acceptable to you, our Lord and Savior. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Well, it's quite the passage, 45 verses, most of us are familiar with. The title of today's sermon is called, What If? What If? Have you all ever heard of Ray Bradbury? Yeah, famous science fiction writer, known best for one of my favorite books, Fahrenheit 451. But he wrote a lot of short stories, and one in particular is called The Sound of Thunder.

0:44 The Sound of Thunder. That story is about an illegal time machine and a man named Travis who will take people back in time for a lot of money. But Travis warns the travelers when they're traveling that there's a certain path and that it hovers and you need to stay on this path or else. He says, you can't touch anything. You can't even touch a blade of grass. And understandably, the travelers are wondering, well, why? So they ask him. He says, and quote, say we accidentally kill a mouse here.

1:19 That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed. The traveler says, well, what's the problem with that? Travis says, so what? The time traveler says, eventually it all boils down to this. 59 million years later, a caveman, one of a dozen of the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-toothed tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on a mouse that is connected to a food chain that feeds other animals, foxes and lions in that region. So the caveman starves. And the caveman is an entire future nation.

1:53 From his loins have sprung tens of thousands of suns. But you destroy this one man and you destroy a race of people and his entire history of life. The stomp of your foot on one mouse could start an earthquake that affects that of which could shake our earth and our destinies down through time. With the death of that one caveman, a billion others yet unborn are throttled in the womb. You step on one mouse and you crush the pyramids. Washington may have not crossed the Delaware.

2:21 There may not have been the United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the path. Do not step off. Now, this is science fiction. Details of time travel are still very much fiction. But this tale brings up the reality that we live in a world, and I think, where we might be sometimes haunted by our choices. How those choices may affect our future. And we wonder in our own lives and the potential future of our lives, if we step here or there, what could be the result?

2:59 For me, this story of this time traveler speaks again to our human existence. As humans, we live in a world, and at times, it presents us with tough choices. There's a demand to make a decision. Those decisions can come back to haunt us. Those hauntings can come from a variety of choices, and it creates some anxiety. It creates worry and concerns, which, in my mind, brings up the hard question that we often ask, and it's, what if? What if? We do not know what the future holds, but when future becomes present, then things slip into the past.

3:38 And depending on how we acted, it can really affect how we view life moving forward. And it can bring pain into our life. And we tend to ask these sorts of questions. What if I'd done this or that before that person got in the car, and I never saw them again? We ask those types of questions. What if I'd not said that terrible thing to that person that I love and never saw them again? What could I have done so they wouldn't have left me all alone?

4:12 Maybe, when it comes to religious things, maybe if I'd given more of this thing to God, this bad thing wouldn't be happening to me. Or on a different side, what if I'd gone to that school, then I would never have met my wife when I went to this school. What ifs come in many shapes and sizes. When you live wondering what happens if this or that, you then start to come and see fear and anxiety creeping up. And what's the right thing to do? How do I live?

4:46 Where do I go? What should I do? It can be paralyzing. Are you with me? So, what does this have to do with perhaps today's passage? Great question. The raising of Lazarus confronts us with a lot of what if ideas, especially around the issues of death, pain, mourning, and belief. And the point that I'm going to try to get across today is this. If we don't give up what ifs in life, then we as Christians are not living as Jesus wants us to. I'll say it again.

5:27 If we don't give up the what ifs in life, then we as Christians are not living the way Jesus wants us to. The resurrection to which Jesus says is available in him is meant to be lived out immediately. The resurrection Jesus is pointing to that we see in this passage should ideally overcome any sort of questions of what if and how they influence our lives. Simply put, resurrection living is not concerned with what ifs. To live in and out of the resurrection is to not live according to what if.

6:09 Are you with me? To get into that, let me look at a few verses because this is a lot of passages here. We'll look at verse 4, verses 14 and 15, 25 and 26, and briefly 40 and 42. First, verse 4, verse 4. Jesus tells his disciples that through this illness and pain within this situation, it will be a way to see God glorified through the Son. It's very interesting. In order to see the glory of God's Son, you need to believe that pain is necessary for resurrection glory and resurrection life.

6:53 Jesus is pointing to those things. Belief is a big deal in this passage. This is why Jesus says in verses 14 to 15, he is doing this to help his disciples believe. And then if you look at verse 24 and 27, we have the discussion of resurrection, the discussion of life and, again, belief. In verse 24 to 25, we read Martha has a general understanding of resurrection. The way she responds, I always love it, because she does understand in the Jewish perspective of that day, of course, there's going to be a great reckoning.

7:31 There'll be a great resurrection. But that's then. Not right now. And so she believes Jesus is the resurrection and the life, which is not crazy to believe that because Jesus appears to her to be God's anointed one with a certain authority. But I don't think she thought it would happen in front of her face like that. It's fascinating. She has no idea what is to come with her brother and Jesus' plan to resurrect him. Martha believes, but is not fully aware of what she's believing as she answers the question.

8:10 And that's part of the point. Jesus knows that the pain of Lazarus for Martha and for Jesus and for Mary and all these people, it's really overwhelming. It's overcome her in this whole community. And she's clinging to the hope that somehow Jesus is going to do something, even though she knows, I know he's something, but I'm not sure what exactly. But he can do something. And that's the point to all these things. Jesus is trying to show all of us and these people that unfortunately, you can only see the glory of God in Jesus through the necessary lens of pain and loss.

8:55 And that's a hard truth. To understand the resurrected life, you can't live under or with anxiety or fear, and especially not what-ifs. And this is not to say that I have many friends who struggle with anxiety disorders and things like that. Sometimes you cannot control those anxiety things. That's not what I'm speaking of here. What I'm speaking of is getting too caught up in things you can't control and being okay that you can't control that. We must take what-ifs for what they are, a distraction from reality of pain.

9:38 Jesus is saying to us, pain is a way to the glory of God. You must step into that pain. You must invite Jesus into that pain pain with you because you see pain as a path for Jesus' resurrection to enter you and to bring you to a place of belief and living in his resurrection. And you might say, well, I don't know. This is what Jesus himself was experiencing when it said he weeped, he felt, he was moved. And what we see happen is there's a lot of, in this passage, you see the commentators throughout the passage, they say essentially if he could have been here, it would have changed.

10:23 He should have done this. There's a whole lot of only if he did this or that. Lots of way of saying this pain could have been avoided. Everyone in this story has wondered, what could have been if Jesus had been there sooner? In verse 21, Martha says, if you'd been here, this would have never happened. But then Jesus says, I know God will give you whatever. And Martha presents Jesus with two things. She's essentially saying there's frustration, but there's faith here. Or another way of putting it, there's pain here, but there's also a promise here.

11:05 As we discussed, Martha says she believes Jesus and this view of the resurrection. But what we see happen in verse 39 is she says, the body is smelly. It's totally dead. There's no chance for you to heal a dead person. That's absurd. Is it not? And she's in such deep pain that she doesn't even think that Jesus has the power to do something. about her brother's death. And yet, even after Jesus and her just talked, in verses 24 to 27, essentially, good theology, he says, did I not tell you if you believed you would see the glory of God?

11:50 So the raising of Lazarus is preparation for her to really get it, to see it. But there still is a choice even after Jesus is risen that we see. The choice of whether you live in the life with a what-if reality or you live in the resurrection reality is going to be a choice that's presented to you. Brothers and sisters, we know what comes with Jesus. And that is he died for our sins. He was laid in the tomb and he rose again. And Jesus went through extreme physical and spiritual pain in order to blaze the trail, if you will, to the glory of resurrection and what it really means and how it influences life right now.

12:39 Are you with me? Amen. But true life, as I've been saying, it comes on the road of pain and knowing because Jesus went through that pain, you might as well too. But the question is, and it's always the same as it was to Martha and it was to you, do you believe this? Do you believe this? Do you believe this even when the pain and the what-ifs come? Do you see pain as an opportunity to reinforce what the resurrection means by life to the fullest because he makes it full and abundant even amidst the pain?

13:30 Friends, if Jesus is risen, how has he risen you over the what-ifs in your life? how is Jesus lifting you above or through the pain? Friends, if we say we believe Jesus, then that means we don't allow fear or anxiety to totally overtake us because we are living the resurrected life now. Are you with me? Amen. Let me tell you a story to illustrate what I mean and a story that will show you how if you allow what-ifs to hold you back, in many different ways, you won't be living out the resurrected life.

14:16 This is not at all biographical. There once was a young high school man who had a hard time getting a girlfriend. It was not because he was unattractive. He was funny, a good conversationalist, intelligent, and all-around good catch. However, this young man lacked the confidence to ask a girl on a date. This young man was haunted by the response of no. No, I don't want to go on a date with you. For this young man, no was death. Like most people, this young man who wanted romance was paralyzed by the fear and reality of rejection.

15:00 Time passed and now he was in college. One day, after being tired of allowing the what-ifs and the fear and the anxiety of no to hold him back from his romantic endeavors, the young man musters up all the courage that he has. He decides to ask a girl on a date. The girl was someone from high school that happened to go to the same college. Well, he approaches her, he becomes very nervous, and he stumbles out the words, Hi, you went to high school? And they chat briefly.

15:34 He asks timidly, would you like to grab coffee or something? Silence. She replies, oh, I'm sorry, but I'll be busy. He's shaken, but he doesn't give up. A few days pass. He sees her again, and he asks in a clever way, but she says no again. She appreciates the effort, though. A few days, more, and he tries one more time. Perhaps he's a little bit of a stalker. This time, he brings flowers and some production, believing that this will soften her up. She still says no.

16:24 Again, she appreciated the effort, softening the blow, but still, what he feared most was no, and it came true. At the end of this, the young man was defeated. What he feared and what he wanted to overcome only overcame him. The what if won the day, or that day at least. As he walked away, he began to think, why did I expect anything different? All the fears and the shame came flooding back. I must not be good enough. I must not be, must not be, whatever it might be.

16:56 The young man walked home with his head low. He sat on the curb of his front house. He had the broken flowers all over the place. The young man's mentor came driving up because he wanted to find out what happened. The mentor exits the car and he sits next to him down as they're sitting there in front of the home. Time passes. The mentor asks him in a compassionate tone, what's wrong? He explained and then there's some silence. The mentor says, but you did it and as much as it hurt, I believe it'll do you good one day.

17:29 The student kind of says, I hope so. The mentor asks, do you think this pain could help you the next time you ask a girl out? The student said, I guess, I believe it will help me, but I don't want to do that anytime soon. The student just sits on the curb thinking about his mentor's question. Fast forward a few years later, we have the same young man. He sees a beautiful young lady, something out of a dream. He's enraptured by her. He wants to pursue her.

18:07 But for a moment, his mind wanders to the past. He recalls how he was crushed by that girl a few years before. He started to think, what will be different this time? But then he remembered the question his mentor asked him. And in that moment, the young man said, I will believe, even though it may hurt again, I will still try. I must believe because I do not know perhaps this girl, the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, who knows? I'm going to hope.

18:38 Within that young moment, he walks over to the girl and asks her, and they talk, they chat, they discuss. Eventually, he asks, would you like to go get some coffee or something sometime? She looks at him. There's a long silence. The young man begins to tremble a little bit. His mind wanders. There's worry. There's hope. The young lady responds, I was hoping you were going to ask. I kept wondering, what if he never asked? They smile. The young man is different now. He's different because he believed that the pain that came before was a path to life.

19:28 He confronted this what if as an opportunity to live. Friends, Jesus comes into the most painful of situations to show us how you can still keep living and keep living. The resurrection that Jesus asks us, do you believe this, must be answered over and over again against any what ifs. are you with me? The resurrection we believe in is the one that allows you for nothing to be holding you back. There's no question. There's no shame. There's no past experience. The resurrection we are called to live is right now.

20:09 To live the resurrection is to proclaim and give up anything and say, I'm going to keep living. At times, it will mean facing a challenge head on. It will mean facing your fear. The resurrection will mean you may fail, but resurrection has not. Are you with me? Yes. Because failure is not death. It is in the resurrection. And you might wonder how. Because from the pain of failure, we have found more than one reason that resurrection sustains us over and over again. We have another opportunity to see how resurrection living goes over and against fear and it lies behind all those things that death wants us to think about.

20:52 But we will not because we live resurrected lives. So I proclaim to you if you want to live, allow the pain to be an opportunity to live in resurrection now. Brothers and sisters, Jesus is asking you a question. Answer it by living into the resurrection. Friends, give up the what-ifs so you can live resurrection life now. Don't let anything keep you from that. Keep you from saying, I do believe and I will live. Amen? Amen. There we go.