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Evening, folks. It's great to see you. Particularly welcome if you're new to all saints. My name's Chris. I'm one of the ministers here.

And it's just been lovely to worship with you this evening. Ollie, could you put the PowerPoint up? That'd be great. Thank you so much. Shall we pray as we dive in?

Lord Jesus, we thank you. We thank you for these precious words. I am the resurrection and the life. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you give us hope that is certain and secure. But, Lord Jesus, we have a journey to go on.

And, Lord, we want to pray that you would speak to us now by your holy spirit, from your word, Lord, about how you are with us on this journey, in this life. And, Lord, what it means to trust in you and trust in your promises. Amen.

Tonight we've got one of the gems, one of the greatest gems that maybe Jesus had ever spoken. This I am the resurrection of life. He said many amazing things. This is definitely up there. In order for this gem to shine, we have to dive into the context in which it was given.

Which, if you're following the story, was a context of a lot of sorrow and a lot of confusion and a lot of hurt and a lot of pain. And so for this gem to shine, it shines most brightly in the darkness. And so there'll be some difficult things tonight that I want to bring up. But it's because I just long for us to hear this passage as it would have been heard when it came out of Jesus' lips. Because if our faith is to hold, if you're a Christian tonight, it's got to hold in the worst possible circumstances.

And that was tested to me. One time I went into a grill, a christian event. It was a 6th form philosophy class. I was the one being grilled. And every time you go into that context, you certainly know you're going to get that question of, how can there be an all loving God and an all powerful God if there is so much suffering in the world?

And I was waiting for it, but on this particular occasion, it was phrased in a different way. And a girl put her hand up and said, what would you say to a woman whose baby had just died? And what she was wanting? Was not a philosophical answer, but it was that question of, does your faith hold up in the worst circumstances? And is there a word that your faith, that Christianity, the christian good news, can give uniquely into the worst situations?

What can it contribute? That's what I read in that question, and in my answer, I lent upon a sermon I'd heard many years ago, around 2007, 2008, there was an american pastor kind of coming out onto the global scene. His name was Tim Keller. I'm sure many of you have heard of him. And he ministered in New York.

And as a young preacher, I listened to many, many of his servants to get inspiration. And one day it occurred to me he was ministering in New York. What did he preach on Sunday? The 16 September 2001. That was five days after the Tuesday when the planes had hit the twin towers.

And as a pastor, he has five days, five emotional, busy, tiring days. So what can he say to a congregation that's not only coming to terms with a global event, a national tragedy, but one where in New York, that would have landed in his congregation among folks whose families and communities had been scarred? What did he say? Can you say anything into unspeakable tragedies? Isn't that the point?

Did they cancel the sermon and say, you know what? Let's just be with one another. Let's just talk about how we're feeling? Is that what they did? Well, I listened to the sermon.

I listened to the whole service. And sure enough, for 45 minutes, there was outpouring, there was testimony. But after that, there was a word. And that word came from John, chapter eleven. It is an incredible passage.

And I'm going to bring tonight just a bit of some of that sermon from Tim Keller and some other insights as well. We haven't got a lot of time, but let's dive in. We started reading the story sort of halfway through just to save a bit of time. But actually, in verse one, it starts with news that Mary and Martha have sent to Jesus. We read in verse five, Mary and Martha were very, very close friends of Jesus.

Jesus loved them very much, that Lazarus was sick. And at that time, Jesus is with his disciples, and he says, this sickness has happened, that I might be glorified through it. And that's another way that Jesus is saying this sickness. People are going to see in it something of my grand purpose, something of what I am doing from beginning to end. This is going to be a microcosm of something much larger that God is doing through Jesus Christ.

But we immediately have this idea that suffering can be helpful for something, it can achieve something. And in our culture, that is an unintuitive idea. We are in a culture that increasingly does not see any usefulness in suffering or cannot see that suffering can achieve things. And certainly, if that is the background from which you're asking the question about God, and suffering, you're going to go very quickly from there is suffering, therefore God can't be loving. But we have this idea that suffering can achieve things.

Certainly not a definitive answer to the issue.

This sickness happened in order that Jesus might be glorified in it. In other words, the point of what we're going to read is not just that, see that Jesus can perform miracles, but in understanding the miracle, let it point to something much greater. And rather than come immediately, Jesus stays where he is for two days rather than travelling to Bethany and Judea, where the family are. And there's a little interchange between the disciples where they warn Jesus that it's too dangerous because people are trying to kill him. But he goes anywhere and he says, lazarus has fallen asleep and I'm going to wake him up.

And the disciples don't quite understand him, they don't understand the metaphor. Jesus is then really plain. Lazarus has died. And what Jesus is hinting there, he's saying that it's as easy for me to raise someone from the dead as it is for one of us to raise someone from natural sleep. And so Jesus arrives in verse 17.

Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days and the family and the wider community are in grief. And we're going to look at how Jesus responds to that situation. Four things. Jesus' response to Martha, Jesus' response to Mary, Jesus response to death and Jesus' response to doubts. That's where we're going this evening.

So Martha, firstly, she runs out. She hears that Jesus has arrived. She runs out to meet Jesus in verse 20. But Mary stays at home. And Martha's first response is Jesus, I don't understand why this happened.

I don't understand why this happened is because I believe that if you had been here, Lazarus would not have died. I believe that you could have done something. But she adds, I believe you can still do something. And then Jesus and Mary have a theological conversation. And Jesus asks Mary about what she believes, about what her convictions are.

Do you believe in the resurrection of the dead? Your brother will rise again. Do you believe this is true? And Martha says, well, yes, I believe that one day that will be true. And there's this confusion in Martha, but it's in no way about doubting who Jesus is in everything she confesses.

She is watertight. She understands exactly who Jesus is, she understands exactly what Jesus is capable of. What she is confused about is why Jesus acted in the way she did. It's a very different sort of interchange from other miracles say, such as when Jesus calms the storm. We read in other gospels about when Jesus was with his disciples.

They're in a boat, Jesus falls asleep. This massive storm comes up and the disciples panic and they wake Jesus up. They wake Jesus up and he literally just says to the storm, just hush now, like that. And he turns to them and says, why didn't you believe? You see, the disciples, they hadn't quite grasped who Jesus was.

And that miracle of just let me show you was to show them who he was. That's not what's going on here. Martha's issue is an unbelief. She knows who Jesus is. The challenge Jesus has for Martha is this.

You know the promise, Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. Those who trust in me will live even though they die. The challenge for Martha is this. Martha, can you lean on that promise even when there's waiting, even when you don't understand what's going on? And in our lives, if we're christians, if our doctrine of Jesus may be bulletproof, but the wrestling is if Jesus is God and he's worthy of worship and he's able to do all these things, should we not expect him to act as we would?

Because if he is God, he is going to be so beyond our understanding. And Jesus calls Mary to trust, even when he is acting in ways we cannot fathom.

Jesus' response to Martha is to speak truth. Is to speak truth. A word of promise that one day death will be no more and that those who are in Jesus will rise again. Folks, there is a word in suffering. There is a word in devastation.

And that word is I am the resurrection, the life. Jesus promising that one day he will make all things new. But that word comes with all sorts of questions. Why does that day not come now? Does Jesus care about my suffering now?

Does he hear it? Does he understand it? Can we trust Jesus that these promises are true? And is the only response to this, as christians in suffering, is to say, well, hold on, because one day it will all get better? Is that the only way we respond?

If I'm speaking to that hypothetical woman that the girl brought up, do I charge him with a Bible into John, chapter eleven? Is that the first place I go? Well, the answer is it may or may not be because people are different. And in suffering, in the middle of that, our needs are different. For Martha, she needed somebody to help her wrestle with what was going on, to affirm what was good and true and to help her to wrestle.

But Mary is very different. Mary. She doesn't rush out to meet Jesus, she stays in the house. She can't quite face him. But they go get Mary.

They say, jesus is here and Mary is different. And Jesus' response to Mary is very different. Mary has the same complaint as Martha. If you had been here, this wouldn't have happened. And Jesus sees her tears and says, take me to the tomb.

And there they cry together. At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus wept. Jesus responds to us in our questions, but we are not brains on sticks. Jesus responds to us in our humanity, and so he invites us to grieve, and he grieves alongside us. Jesus' response to Mary are tears is to come alongside her in her grief.

Just because Christians have a strong and certain hope does not mean that in grief we do not need to mourn. Just because Christians have a promise doesn't mean there isn't a journey to go on. In one Thessalonians chapter four, Paul says this. We do not grieve as those who have no hope. He doesn't say, we do not grieve.

We grieve, but we do not grieve as those who have no hope. The gospel invitation, this beautiful truth of I am the way, the truth and the life is not an invitation to be stoic in the face of suffering or to pretend it isn't real and to have sorrow fester into bitterness. In our grief, there is a time for questions and there is a time for tears. But the need for tears does not relieve the need for a word, and the need for a word does not relieve the need for tears. And Jesus' response to Mary is exactly that.

He cries alongside her. That's not the only way. Jesus stands alongside his friends, and Jesus stands alongside his followers.

Jesus' response to death after he's spoken to Martha, after he's cried with Mary, Jesus stands in front of the tomb of Lazarus. And you may see in verse 38, it tells us that at the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus is once more deeply moved. And the language of that, the english language, doesn't really bring it out sufficiently. It's almost like the emotion is so strong, it's snorting with rage, it's flared nostrils. It is supreme anger.

Jesus is angry in this scene, and we ask, well, who's he angry with? Wasn't this a natural cause, a sickness? Who is there to be angry at? To which the answer is, there isn't a natural cause. We are so accustomed to think of death as natural because it happens all the time.

We forget that our gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Bible teaches us that death is unnatural death is always an intrusion. Other belief systems say death is just part of the productive circle of life. Not according to the Bible. The world needs saving for many enemies, but the greatest and last and final enemy is death. And Jesus is furious at death itself, which in our culture we so easily sanitise because we want to sort of make it normal, we want to put it away.

But perhaps we feel that sting all the more when there's a real injustice in terrorist attacks or where it's just too early. That's the point where we are reminded that death and suffering is an intrusion into this world. None of it is natural that the world needs saving. There's a journalist called Kate Andrews. She's a financial and political journalist.

She normally talks about money and taxes, but this Christmas she wrote an article called in search of a second epiphany. She writes that her first epiphany is that God exists. She writes about her christian upbringing. She said, I never had an issue with the idea that God existed. And she also talks about the fact that her faith doesn't give her the comfort that she recognises that it does in others.

She says, somehow I've managed to find the belief without the comfort. Why is that? She writes that when she was age ten, her mum died and she was angry with God because he didn't perform a miracle, just like we have here. And the need for her second epiphany, as she says, is how, in the face of suffering, can my unwavering belief in God lead me to peace? And she just ends with the article by saying this.

She says, my issue is with the omnipotent one who has the power to change things. The God who can make the lame walk and raise people from the dead and surely could have spared all sorts of suffering in this world. That he doesn't and didn't doesn't make me believe any less. It makes me angry.

And I would suggest that the starting point for her, and it is only a starting point, is to take jesus out of the dock and replace him with this image of Jesus himself standing alongside us in our anger, facing death and raging at it. It's the outrageous deaths that remind us that it's all an intrusion. And here we see not only Jesus sharing in our grief and sharing, but also sharing in our anger. Now, what I've shared is by no means like a full answer to this question of suffering, but it is a signpost towards how Jesus invites us to walk with him as he walks with us on the journey. And so we say, well, we've looked at a promise that Jesus gives for those who trust him, that one day he is putting it right.

If we trust him, if we trust in that promise. We've talked about how he walks alongside us in our grief and anger. But there are still so many unanswered questions. So what does the Bible have to say? Well, here's the thing.

The Bible never promises nor aspires to give us a full answer to the question of suffering. It contains many responses. It contains this huge richness of responses to the questions. But here's what the Bible doesn't say. If you collect these responses up, if you read enough, if you pray enough, if you meditate enough, if you suffer enough, you will finally have eyes to see the whole picture.

And then you will have tied the problem up in a bow and you will have seen it all the way to the bottom. The Bible doesn't say that. It doesn't give a full answer. But I want to put it to you that the Bible does give the fullest and the best answer to this question of suffering, to Jesus' response to death is anger standing alongside us in our anger, which is the right response. Lastly, what is Jesus' response to doubt?

How does Jesus give us that courage to trust everything he says, to trust his words? Firstly, because Jesus then goes on to raise Lazarus from the dead. Let's read this passage again. It's from verse 40. Jesus said, did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?

And so they took away the stone. And then Jesus looked up and said, father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. But I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe you sent me. When he had said this, jesus called out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped in strips of linen and a cloth around his face. And on this occasion, Jesus brings Lazarus back to life after a short space of time, just four days. And surely that should point us towards his words being trustworthy and true. That's why he does it. Wow.

Jesus, let me follow you is the rightful answer to that. But remember, the point of this event is to go beyond just Jesus can do miracles. Because if we stop at simply Jesus can do miracles in this world, we will be disillusioned. Because of course, we all know that that is not what often, usually, almost always happens. And if that's the only way we come away with, we're going to be disillusioned.

And that's the sting. Jesus can do it. Why doesn't he always do it? I want to put it to you that there is an even better answer to this question than the raising of Lazarus. And it comes in the next bit of the passage that we didn't read tonight together.

But what happens after Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead is that the teachers of law, they conspire against Jesus. Jesus has been doing miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle. And they're just saying, if he keeps on going like this, everyone is going to follow Jesus, and we are done. Our whole institution, our whole culture. And verse 53.

So from that day on, they plotted to take his life. The raising of Lazarus was the miracle that sent Jesus to the cross. Lazarus could only live because Jesus was willing to die. In raising Lazarus, Jesus sends himself to the cross. He gives up his own life, just as he earns the salvation and hope of eternity for you and for me on that same cross.

Why, when we don't have a full answer, can we trust God through suffering? Because on the cross, we have God himself entering into the fullest suffering, entering to more pain and more sorrow and more anguish than we will ever experience.

And if you ask that question of suffering at the foot of the cross, just going to wait for that, that's all right.

On the cross, Jesus himself enters into suffering through Jesus Christ. And if you ask that question of suffering at the foot of the cross, it won't tell you what the answer is, but it will tell you what the answer isn't. The answer isn't that God doesn't care. The answer isn't that God doesn't see. The answer isn't that God is distant.

We can answer that question at the foot of the cross, and the cross gives us a reason to trust. The cross gives the vindication that this Jesus Christ and his promises can be the foundation for the life that he calls us to live. But we can also answer that question not only at the tomb of Lazarus, not only at the cross of Jesus, but at the empty tomb of Jesus Christ. And we can return to that question that the girl asked me at the Q and A. What would you say to a woman whose baby had just died?

Now, she didn't know it, but it was more personal to me than she knew. We're February 2024. Right now, I want to tell you a bit about my February 2014. Almost exactly ten years ago, Ali and I had been trying to have a baby for five years. And the December before, we finally, after five years, finally we had got pregnant, and it was wonderful.

And February 2014, we discovered that pregnancy had failed. Four days later, my sister's baby, at about a week old, died because the pregnancy had ruptured and she was born too early. Around the same time, Ali's sisters had a baby who they knew couldn't survive. So in the middle of a point in our lives where our radar for what the heck is God doing and our sense of God is good through everything was starting to wear incredibly thin. We're going to two baby funerals, one of which is a christian funeral and the other of which is a secular humanist funeral.

And at the secular humanist one, they say this. They start with this. We don't know anything. We don't know anything about death or what's beyond it, but all we have is our emotions. And so all you have is an hour of your emotions, but there is no word.

There is no word at the christian one. There is outpouring of emotions, but there is a word. And the word at that funeral was John, chapter eleven. I am the resurrection of life. Jesus says, whoever believes in me, even though they die, shall live.

And he who believes in me will never die. And in my response to that girl, I said, in the midst of that suffering, you can either decide to be angry at a God you say you don't believe in, or you can say, which would I rather believe? That this world is the closest to heaven we'll ever get? Which, if you're secular humanist, that's got to be true. Or you can believe in Jesus.

Or you can believe in Jesus, and in that moment you can say to yourself, you know what? This is the closest to hell we are ever going to get. It's the closest to hell we're ever going to get. Why? Because of Jesus Christ, who not only gives us the promise that he is making all things new, that death will be swallowed up in victory, but also gives us the resources for the journey.

As by his spirit, he walks with us through our tears, through our anger, through our confusion, as we ask our questions and bring them to the foot of the cross and to his empty tomb. My friends, there is no gospel like this gospel. There is no news like this news. Give me the idea of any arbitrary God. I would go, yeah, I don't get it at all.

But it is this gospel. It is the God of the Bible is the God of Jesus Christ. It is the God of resurrection who makes sense of it all. And maybe there's folks here tonight that need the ministry of Jesus by the spirit. This evening.

But shall we pray?

Lord Jesus, we thank you for these precious words. We thank you for your precious promises. And Lord Jesus, we thank you that you went to the cross to remove the sting of death, which is sin. And Lord, we thank you that one day you'll make all things new. And Lord Jesus, we thank you that when we trust in you, we can look forward to a world the likes of which no eyes see, no ear has heard.

Thank you that you are redeeming all things. And Lord, you call us to grieve, but not as those who have no hope. We thank you for John, chapter eleven. And we thank you that you have given all for us. Amen.

Close.