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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 the 1 who was busy cooking in the kitchen, who said, why don't you have my sister Mary help me?

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.

Lazarus might not even be hardly mentioned in the Bible if it wasn't for John chapter 11.

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.

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.

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?

Because of what was happening in the previous sentence, we are now seeing what's happening in this new sentence.

Because Lazarus was ill, they sent to Jesus.

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.

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.

Notice verse 5 says, Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

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.

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.

Another story might illustrate this just as well.

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The Long View of Love- Raising Lazarus, Part 1

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