Unspoken Sermons -- Robert Madu
Transcript
00:00 Our church every year comes around a word and our word this year is unshakable.
00:05 We just believe that a shaky world needs an unshakable church and we're thankful
00:10 that we have an unshakable kingdom. And so we've been declaring our verse of the
00:15 year where we get our word from the years in Hebrews chapter 12 verses 28
00:19 through 29 and we have read this verse every single Sunday of the year and I
00:25 don't see a reason to stop on Resurrection Sunday. Come on, you're gonna
00:29 see the real spiritual people that got it memorized. Don't let them fool you.
00:32 They just been doing it since the beginning of the year and we're gonna
00:35 have it on the screen for you but let's read it as one big family today. You
00:38 ready? Here we go. Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom. And do you see
00:46 how thankful we must be? Not only thankful but brimming with worship,
00:52 deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He is
00:58 actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn and he won't quit
01:04 until it's all cleansed. God him is fire. Oh you sound good on Easter Sunday.
01:13 Come on. And then our verse for today in the Gospel according to John chapter
01:21 number 12. First of all shout out to our echolocation who's joining us together.
01:25 We are one church in two locations. It's good to be together as one big family
01:31 today. Social Global we love you. John chapter 12 starting at verse number 1
01:34 and it says, "Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in
01:41 Bethany the home of Lazarus, the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was
01:47 prepared in Jesus honor. Martha served and Lazarus was among those who ate with
01:52 him. Then Mary took a 12-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of
01:58 nard and she anointed Jesus feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house
02:04 was filled with the fragrance. But Judas Scariet, the original hater, the disciple
02:13 who would soon betray him." Now here's what I love. This is John's account. John is not a
02:18 synoptic gospel and John is writing in retrospect so he throws in this little
02:23 shade because he's remembering all that Judas did. He says, "That perfume was worth
02:28 a year's wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor. Not that
02:32 he cared for the poor. He was a thief and since he was in charge of disciples money
02:36 he often stole some for himself." It's like John, bro, get healed. He is still
02:42 salty about Judas betraying Jesus. Then Jesus replied, "I love when God fights
02:48 for you. Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always
02:57 have the poor among you but you will not always have me." When all the people heard
03:01 of Jesus arrival they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus
03:09 had raised from the dead. The leading priest decided to kill Lazarus too. Huh.
03:14 He already died, came back from the dead. They trying to kill him again. For it was
03:19 because of him that many people had deserted them and believed in Jesus. On
03:26 this Resurrection Sunday where we do pause to celebrate the resurrection of
03:30 Jesus, I just wanted to back that thing up biblically. To another resurrection
03:37 that occurred in the life of a man named Lazarus and it was this resurrection
03:42 that actually really instigated the murder plot that killed our Savior who
03:49 got up from the grave. I want to preach on this Easter Sunday using this as a
03:53 title "Unspoken Sermons." Unspoken sermons. Last time I had you look at your
04:01 neighbor maybe but look at the person next to you. Get in their face. Get in
04:03 their personal space and just say, "Neighbor, come on don't be afraid to talk
04:07 to your neighbor. Say, "Neighbor, unspoken sermons." Now look at the other person you
04:13 completely ignored. Say, "Other neighbor, you my second option." But I came to tell
04:20 you there is a such thing as unspoken sermons. If you believe God's gonna speak
04:29 to you give him some praise. Father speak to us today. Amen. You may be seated.
04:42 Somebody sat down like their feet were hurt. They said, "Whoa!" Relax, relax. Quick
04:52 little Easter Sunday survey. How many of you would say just by a showing of hands
04:59 that you were raised in church? Can I see your hand if you were raised in church? Oh
05:05 Lord look at all these hands. Hold on. Keep it lifted. Raised in church? I'm just
05:10 trying to see who needs the counseling. No, I'm playing. I'm playing. I'll lift my hand with you.
05:15 I'll lift my hand with you and I'll let you know that I was raised in church. As a
05:19 matter of fact, I'll declare on this Resurrection Sunday that I am
05:22 unapologetically, unashamedly a church kid. I'm a grown man but I'm a church kid.
05:29 We had to be in church every Sunday. Not just today on the Super Bowl. We had
05:35 season tickets. We had to be in church every Sunday. I'm just a church
05:39 kid. I'm talking about Sunday school attending church kid. Vacation Bible
05:45 school. Church kid. Prayer meeting. Church kid. Flannel graph. Church kid. When you're a
05:56 church kid, your life is distinctly different than other kids. You got trials
05:59 and tribulations that other people aren't even aware of. You know songs that
06:03 other people don't know. Stuff like Father Abraham. How many sons? Many sons
06:08 have Father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you. So let's just... Oh y'all are
06:12 church kids. You know how to finish statements. I mean churchy statements
06:18 like, "God is good all the time." Oh y'all went to church. Y'all went to church. You
06:25 know statements like, "He may not come when you want him but he's always..." Y'all
06:30 churchy and Baptist. Come on. And it's interesting when you're a church kid and
06:35 you're raised around church culture, you just hear a lot of sermons. I have heard
06:40 a lot of sermons in my life. I could have become a preacher just by osmosis. As a
06:44 matter of fact, I did a little assignment. I was trying to think of how many
06:47 sermons I've heard in my lifetime. And this is just an approximate number. I
06:51 probably heard about 3,844 sermons y'all. 3,844. That's a whole lot of sermons. Of
07:00 that 3,844, I probably remember like 20 of them. So I'm well aware of my value
07:07 here today. And of that 20, there's probably, I don't know, maybe about 50 of
07:15 the 3,844 that I was actually really, I mean really, listening to the sermon. You
07:23 do know there's a difference between hearing a sermon and listening to a
07:27 sermon. Never confuse listening to a sermon with hearing a sermon because
07:33 they are distinctly different. Hearing and listening are completely different
07:38 things. As a matter of fact, I'm not naive to the fact that this Resurrection Sunday,
07:42 some of you are listening to this sermon and some of you are just hearing this
07:48 sermon. Hearing is an involuntary physical ability that involves your ears.
07:53 It takes no conscious effort to hear. Hearing is one of your five senses. It
07:59 just happens all the time. It's simply the receiving of sound vibrations or
08:03 waves through your ears. Hearing is passive. But listening, y'all, listening
08:09 takes work. It takes work to really be leaned in and listen, especially in this
08:15 culture we live in this year of 2024 ADD where so many things are vying for your
08:22 attention to really listen and to let the sound waves go through your brain to
08:27 understand and comprehend what has been heard and then take the effort to
08:31 process its meaning for listening to occur. It necessitates the listener's
08:35 interest, involvement, and conscious effort. It takes work to listen to a
08:42 sermon. No wonder when Jesus would preach, the master orator, the greatest preacher
08:47 to ever live, he would conclude his sermons not by shouting, not with a Hammond
08:51 B3 organ and whooping. He would conclude every sermon with this statement right
08:55 here, "He who has an ear, let him hear." Then he dropped the mic and just walk off.
09:00 What did he mean by that? He's aware that there are people in the room who are
09:05 just hearing what he's saying, but they're not actually listening to what
09:09 he's saying. Matter of fact, one of the things that takes the pressure off of a
09:12 Sunday like this for me is to understand that the effectiveness of a message is
09:17 not just contingent upon the oratorical ability of the communicator, but there
09:21 also is a responsibility on your part as well for you to be engaged and to
09:25 actually be listening and not just hearing. I've seen people walk away from
09:30 a message and they're going, "Oh, I'm telling you that's the best message I ever heard."
09:33 And I want to be like, "No, Wood, that's the best message you ever listened."
09:37 Because you are actually posturing yourself to hear what God was trying to
09:42 say to you. How many of you know you have to be in a place in life where you're open to
09:47 hear what God wants to say? Sometimes God himself can't even speak to you until
09:52 you're at a place where you're ready to actually listen to what he's saying. As a
09:57 matter of fact, a bad sermon will touch somebody who's actually broken enough to
10:01 listen and hear. That's why I'm so thankful for today, because I know the
10:05 sovereignty of God orchestrated some of you here today, and you're actually in a
10:10 position, in a posture, where you can listen to what God is saying to you.
10:15 Some of you, it's not until you lost the job that you say, "Okay, Lord, now I'm ready
10:19 to listen." Some of you, it's not until you went through that third divorce that
10:22 you're like, "All right, Lord, I'm ready to listen." Some of you, it's not until they
10:26 broke your heart or ghosted you that you said, "All right, Lord, I'm finally ready
10:30 to hear what it is that you're saying to me, and I'm thankful for a God who not
10:35 only speaks to us, but he also listens." Elbow your neighbor and say, "He's preaching
10:40 better than you're talking." Yeah, yeah, yeah. God is a God, hear me, who speaks, but
10:48 he's also a God that listens. I'm so thankful for a God that can listen to me.
10:55 How many of you know he can hear the words that you can't even conjure up to say?
11:00 Your God knows how to listen to you. He knows what you're feeling when nobody
11:04 else around you knows what you're feeling. I'm thankful for a God that can
11:08 listen to the tears that hit my pillow at night, and he's able to decipher the
11:13 tears that are streaming down my face, because we serve a God who listens. Yes,
11:19 he speaks. Oh, I'm thankful he speaks. He's the one that spoke the world into
11:23 existence, but he also can listen. Can I take you further? Think with me, that
11:30 even when Jesus was on planet Earth, he took the time to listen to people. Come
11:37 on, y'all. Do you know how much humility it takes to be the preeminent,
11:41 preexistent, incarnate, all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing God, and still
11:46 take the time to listen to people? Can you imagine what it's like to take the
11:50 time to pause and listen to the people that you created, when you already know
11:55 what they're about to say, and yet you still lean in to listen to them? See, to
11:59 me, that is the unspoken sermon of Jesus. It's not just the
12:04 words that he said. It's what he did. The fact that he would take the time to
12:08 listen to people. You're the Alpha and the Omega, and yet you listen to people.
12:13 You're the beginning and the end, and yet you listen to people. You know every
12:18 single thought before we can ever think it, and yet you take the time to listen
12:23 to us. That he would give us the love of a lean in. That he would give people, hear
12:29 me, the courtesy of curiosity. Jesus would be talking to people, and he'd be like, "Tell me
12:34 more." When he already knew what they were about to say, he listened to Nicodemus.
12:39 He listened to that woman at the well. He listened to his disciples. He listened to
12:44 the Pharisees. I couldn't have done it. They're calling him a devil, and he still
12:48 listened. I would have just called lightning down from heaven and shrunk him, but he
12:52 listened. Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, I think our society has lost
12:57 the art of listening. We don't listen to learn. We don't listen to hear. We
13:02 actually listen to argue. We listen to the point that we get offended or we
13:07 don't like what we're hearing, and then we just categorize somebody as a hater,
13:10 and we don't want to hear anything else. The power is in listening. The greatest
13:16 communicators are the greatest listeners, and the greatest messages, hear me, are
13:21 often the unspoken sermons. That's what I want to talk about today, the unspoken
13:26 sermons. Have you ever been blessed by an unspoken sermon? My grandmama used to say,
13:32 "I'd rather see a sermon than hear a sermon any day."
13:36 Unspoken sermons. I'm talking about an unspoken sermon like when you're in the
13:39 hospital, and there's somebody that you love that is dying, and somebody comes,
13:44 and they don't give you a scripture or a word, but they just sit in the room with
13:48 you, and their presence there is an unspoken sermon. I'm talking about when
13:53 you got a court case that you're nervous about, and all of a sudden a friend says,
13:56 "I'll go to the court case with you." They're not your attorney, but they're
13:59 just there with you. They don't even have a GED, but they say, "I got you," and they just
14:02 show up there. Their presence is an unspoken sermon. Sometimes the power is
14:10 in the sermons that we don't hear but we can see. Jesus was not just a man who
14:17 spoke powerful words. His actions speak to us as unspoken sermons, and we have
14:23 one of his greatest actions in our text today. Before he ever gets up from the
14:28 grave for himself, he chooses to bring Lazarus back to life. Now before I tell
14:34 you about Lazarus, you need to know about his siblings Mary and Martha. You will
14:38 hear about them in the Gospels. This unit, these siblings, they were friends with
14:43 Jesus. They were friends. They had a different relationship with Jesus. Jesus
14:47 had some groupies. He had some people that just wanted his miracles,
14:51 but Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, they were different. They loved Jesus just
14:56 for him. Matter of fact, he would go to Martha's house whenever he wanted to
14:59 chillax and just have some chicken wings. He was tired of the crowd. He said, "I just
15:03 need a place where I can just let my hair down." That's where he would go. He
15:07 would go to Martha's house, and he would hang out with Martha and Mary and
15:12 Lazarus. They lived in this town called Bethany. Bethany translates to mean
15:16 "house of welcome." Of course they lived in a place called welcome, because I found
15:20 out that Jesus will always come to the places he is welcome. He will come to the
15:25 atmospheres that you welcome him in. I want to tell somebody, especially if this
15:30 is the only Sunday that I get you, please don't think that Jesus only shows up in
15:35 church services when we lift up our hands together, but he will show up
15:39 wherever you welcome him. If you ever just lift up your hands and open up your
15:43 mouth and call on him because he's a God who listens, how many of you know he will
15:48 come in atmospheres where you welcome him? He'll come in your cubicle when your
15:53 co-worker is getting on your last nerve, and you just start saying, "God, I need you
15:57 right now before I speak in a tongue that needs no interpretation." He will
16:01 come on a car ride when you're stressed trying to figure out how in the world
16:05 you're gonna pay your bills at the end of the month. He will come in your
16:08 bedroom if you just lift up your hands and start worshiping him. Is there
16:11 anybody that's a testimony of that? Say, "I don't really need a praise team. I
16:15 don't need a tambourine. I don't need an organ. All I need is to just lift up my
16:19 hands and worship him." And all of a sudden, I felt it before, where he steps in the
16:24 atmosphere because he inhabits the praises of his people. Oh, he'll come wherever he
16:31 is welcome, and he would often come to the house of Mary, Martha, Lazarus. And all of a
16:38 sudden, one day, Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, he gets sick. I don't know
16:46 if it started with a fever. I don't know if it started with a cough, but he gets
16:50 sick. And I know it went from bad to worse because all of a sudden, they sent
16:56 a message to Jesus. He said, "You got to do something about this. Have you ever had
17:00 a situation go from bad to worse?" Oh, that's when we start calling on God,
17:05 don't we? There's a season where some of us, we're like, "Oh, no. It's fine. It's fine."
17:08 And all of a sudden, it goes from bad to worse. You're like, "Oh, Lord, I need you
17:12 right now." I know it went from bad to worse because they sent a message to
17:18 Jesus. This is somebody who we don't know who his name is in the text, but I would
17:22 love to meet this messenger because they told whoever this messenger is, "Go tell
17:25 Jesus, here's the message. The one he loves is sick. That's the message. The one
17:32 he loves is sick." So I can see this messenger going across town. He's looking
17:37 for Jesus, and all of a sudden, he sees him. Oh, there he is right there. Oh, he
17:40 really does look that good in person. Okay. There is Jesus preaching, and I can
17:44 see him. He probably doesn't want to interrupt, and Jesus already knows what
17:47 he's about to ask. And I love that Jesus, he probably waits and waits and then just
17:50 turns to him and probably gives him a look like, "Can I help you?" He said, "Hey,
17:54 Jesus, Mr. Jesus, I'm so sorry. I don't want to interrupt your sermon. I know it's
17:57 gonna be in the Bible, but I got a message. I got a message from Mary and
18:03 Martha, and let me try to get it right. The one you love is sick." Jesus' response to
18:11 that message is, "This sickness will not end in death. It's for the glory of God.
18:17 Run and tell that." Goes right back to preaching so it could be in the Bible. So I
18:25 can see the dude probably confused like, "This sickness will not end in death." Okay, and so you see him
18:29 running probably going back to the room, and I can see Mary and Martha. Surely
18:33 they're waiting with tiptoe anticipation. What is the messenger gonna say back?
18:36 Maybe they thought he would come back with Jesus, but instead he comes back
18:39 with the Word. They're like, "What did he say? What did he say? Tell us!" First of all,
18:43 calm down. He said, "It's not gonna end in death. It's fine. He's not gonna die." Can you see
18:49 Mary and Martha having church right there? Oh, I knew it. I knew it. He's an on-time God.
18:56 Yes, he is. Okay, so y'all can coach these people. I'm trying to let y'all have church today.
19:04 Oh, they started praising God. There's nothing like getting a word from God. Have you ever been there
19:11 before where you were stressed about it, you were panicked about it, and you cried
19:15 out to God, and all of a sudden he gave you this peace, he gave you this assurance,
19:19 "Oh, it's gonna be alright. Don't worry. He's not gonna die. Don't worry. I'm gonna
19:24 take care of your kids. Don't worry. I'm Jehovah Jireh, your provider. Stop stressing about it."
19:29 Has anybody ever received a word from God that brought peace to your heart, comfort to your mind,
19:35 and you knew everything's gonna be alright? This is where Mary and Martha is. They get this word.
19:42 They said, "Oh, thank God he's not going to die." But then Lazarus gets worse, and he gets worse,
19:52 and he gets worse. Then finally, they get the news that Lazarus has died.
20:01 This is a frustrating place to be in where you've gotten a word from God, but you're looking at a
20:10 dead situation. You're trying to reconcile the incongruence of my dead brother and a Savior,
20:20 a Savior, hear me, who I followed when the crowds weren't there, a Savior who has been in my home,
20:26 a Savior who I have taken care of, a Savior who I watched heal strangers.
20:31 Now this is my brother, and you let him die? Can you imagine the pain? Can you imagine the hurt?
20:39 Can you imagine the confusion when they realize that they got a word he wasn't gonna die, and yet
20:45 the reality is their brother is dead? You know what happens when you're in that type of pain.
20:51 You look for somebody to blame. Because Jesus has not brought himself here yet,
20:57 I know exactly what Martha did. She goes, "Where's that messenger? Oh, where is he at?
21:04 I think he got the message wrong. How you gonna come over here and get my hopes up and tell me
21:09 that he wasn't gonna die? Can you see Martha looking for the messenger? Can you see the
21:14 messenger probably hiding, saying, 'Hey, uh, bro, I just want to tell you, Martha looking for you,
21:17 her earrings are off. I don't know what you need to do. Can you see him? Can you see him?'"
21:22 And finally she finds—"Oh, there you are! Come here! Hey, hey, don't kill the messenger! Oh,
21:26 I'm about to kill you! Come here! Didn't you say that he wasn't gonna die? Didn't you say he
21:31 wasn't gonna die? Explain to me why my brother is lying in the room dead! You're the one that came
21:36 and gave me the word! Tell me something! Why you coming at me? Why don't you get Jesus? I don't
21:40 know where he is! I know where you are! Tell me! What did he tell you?" I can see the messenger
21:47 panicking. He's like, "All right, calm down. Can you please put your earrings back on?"
21:50 Um, let me think. What did he say? Oh, he—no, I know he—he said this sickness will not end
22:03 in death. He said the sickness won't end in death. I am fully convinced that although Jesus told them
22:14 the sickness would not end in death because there's a difference between listening and hearing,
22:18 I think that they heard, "He's not gonna die." But Jesus didn't say he wasn't going to die.
22:26 He said this sickness will not end in death. It won't end in death. See, some of you are frustrated
22:38 about a word that God never gave you. He never said that Lazarus was not going to die. Some of
22:45 you are shaking your fist in the face of God about a promise that he never even gave you. The word
22:53 came from the mouth of the Master is that this sickness would not end in death. "End" being the
23:00 operative word, that means you might have to go through it, but death will not have the final say.
23:06 Oh, I can see Martha dazed, perplexed, and confused. I can see Mary trying to figure it out.
23:13 What do you mean it won't end in death? Death is the end, isn't it? Unless you are letting us know
23:21 something that you are redefining what the end is. Maybe you're giving us a preview of a coming
23:28 attraction of resurrection that says that you showed up not just so you could get money, not
23:33 just so you could get a blessing, not just so you could get a house, but you showed up to take the
23:38 sting out of death and to defeat hell. It's not gonna end in death. Oh, I'm telling you, Mary and
23:46 Martha missed an opportunity to get their praise on before Jesus ever got to the tomb.
23:52 They could have started praising God as soon as they got the news that he was dead. It wasn't
23:59 their job to figure out how Jesus was going to do it. It was their job to stand on his word,
24:05 and because he said it will not end in death, they should have been able to look at Lazarus'
24:10 dead body and say, "I know his body is dead, but this must not be the end because I got a word from
24:15 God that said this will not end in death." Can I make an announcement that I want to make you
24:21 shout on Resurrection Sunday? Nobody can determine your end but God. Oh, I don't know who's talking
24:29 about you. I don't know who's trying to cancel you. I don't know who's telling you it's over,
24:33 but I came to tell you on this Resurrection Sunday that nobody can say it's your end but God. Since
24:40 he makes known the end from the beginning, the one who started it is the one who will complete it.
24:45 Somebody ought to take 10 seconds and just give him some praise. It's just thankful.
24:50 Oh, can't nobody end it but Jesus. Can't nobody end it but God. Since you didn't give me a
24:59 beginning, you can give me an end. I want to praise God, not just for his power, but for his
25:05 punctuation. Don't you ever put a period where God is trying to put a comma. It's not over until God
25:12 says it's over. It won't end in death. They should have started praising God right there,
25:21 saying he might be dead, but I got a promise that it won't end in death.
25:29 Let's look at the reality. You're looking at a dead body, and you have no context or history
25:36 of a God who has ever done a resurrection. You're looking at the reality of his dead body.
25:44 You are like Mary and Martha, and you are upset. Imagine how upset they were. Watch this.
25:54 They not only had to watch him go from sickness to death, but then from death to burial.
26:02 Jesus has the nerve and the audacity to not come to the funeral. He doesn't come to the
26:09 graveside service. He don't even come to the house when they're eating potato salad and fried chicken.
26:13 He walks in, cool, calm, and collected, four days after he's been put on the tomb.
26:23 "Tell me how y'all doing. Y'all good?"
26:24 Martha couldn't take it. She went out to meet him. He said, "If you would have been here,
26:30 my brother wouldn't have died." I know you're laughing at your pastels,
26:34 but some of y'all are right there right now.
26:39 Maybe you can't even muster up the courage to articulate the fact that you are mad at God.
26:48 You're mad because you have your dead situation. You're going, "God, I feel like you betrayed me,
26:56 and I feel like you didn't come through on your word. Now I'm dealing with the pain
27:03 of an unmet expectation." Unmet expectations are dangerous, because whenever our expectations
27:14 are met, pain is the emotion, and that pain leads to anger. It's crazy what you'll do when your
27:21 expectations are met. No wonder Judas is in this text. I am convinced that Judas betrayed Jesus
27:29 because of the pain of an unmet expectation, because he sacrificed three years of his life
27:36 for this man he thought was going to overthrow the Roman Empire. All he is is talking about a kingdom
27:41 and where we're going to sit, and all of a sudden you're about to die. You're going to die when I
27:47 left everything to follow you, and when he realized that Jesus was no longer serving him,
27:52 he sold him out. That's how you know you're a Judas, is when you only serve God to the point
28:00 that it serves you. Is that too much for Easter? Anybody can serve him when everything's going
28:09 well. Anybody can bless him when you get the raise, when you get the Tesla, and when you get
28:15 the promotion, but the real place where your faith meets the road is can you still follow
28:23 when the Savior dies on Calvary, and you're not sure if what he said is really going to come to
28:28 pass. Can you really keep walking with him when your dreams have come crashing down and you've
28:34 lost all hope? Oh, that's why Judas sold him out. Don't point your finger at Judas. There's a little
28:41 Judas in all of us. No wonder that night when he got ready to have the final supper with his
28:47 disciples, Jesus says, "One of you is going to betray me." What are you talking about, "One of
28:53 you"? If it was me, because I know… "Judas, you're going to betray me." Sell out. That's not what
28:58 Jesus did. He goes, "One of you is going to betray me." Do you ever take the time to look at what the
29:05 disciples said? Not one of them said, "Judas. I knew it was him." No, each one of them said, "Lord,
29:10 is it I?" Not one of the 12 who had walked with him for three years were convinced that they did
29:17 not have the capacity within them to betray him. They said, "Lord, is it me?" Because sometimes
29:25 we have unmet expectations from a God we love, and it's easy to sell him out and to walk away.
29:32 Some of you on this Easter Sunday, even though you got on your good outfit and it's all nice and
29:37 ironed, if you're honest, you are dealing with the anger and the pain of an unmet expectation.
29:43 What do you do when God doesn't meet your expectation?
29:48 No, I really want to know. What do you do when you're mad at God? That's one thing when I'm
29:51 mad at you. What do you do when you're mad at God? What do you do? What's your response? What
29:54 do you do? You say, "I'm not going to have my quiet time." No quiet time today. It's going to be loud.
29:59 Forget this. What do you do? What do you do? Stop reading your Bible? "See if I read anything today."
30:05 No, what do you do when you get mad at God? "Oh, I got it. Stop coming to church.
30:09 Know somebody. See if I come to church." I don't even blame you, because sometimes it can be
30:16 triggering when you're mad at God and then you got to walk into church on Sunday. Walking to
30:19 church on Sunday when you got an attitude with God is kind of like hearing a song that you and
30:22 your ex used to listen to. You walk in, you say, "I'm going to come in late," because you're mad.
30:28 You walk in right where they're saying, "He's a good, good father." Is he though?
30:33 You're mad. Can I tell you, can I insert this thought? Even if you're dealing with the pain
30:41 of an unmet expectation and you're mad at God, can I encourage you on this Easter Sunday that
30:45 even when you're mad at God, please don't stop talking to God, that you can be mad at him and
30:51 still be communicating with him, that you can feel forsaken, but you can still keep on talking to him?
30:56 Do you need a model for it? Jesus is on the cross and he's dealing with the pain of the father
31:02 turning his back on him, not for his sin, but for my sin and for your sin. Even when he's feeling
31:09 forsaken, he's still talking to him, saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He didn't
31:15 say, "Peter, why has he forsaken me?" He didn't say, "Bartholomew, why has God forsaken me?" He's
31:22 being forsaken by God, and yet he's still talking to God. That's when you know you're unshakable.
31:27 It's when you feel forsaken, when you feel like your dreams have hit the ground, but yet you still
31:32 got to hallelujah anyway, but you still lift up your hands and talk to him. "God, I'm mad at you,
31:38 but I'm still talking to you." She's dealing with the pain of an unmet expectation. I'm almost done,
31:48 but actually, she doesn't just have an unmet expectation. Me and Martha have unexpressed
31:56 expectations. Generally, unmet expectations are the derivative of unexpressed expectations.
32:06 How do they have unexpressed expectations? Remember the message they sent? They said, "Jesus,
32:11 the one you love is sick." What in the world is that? That ain't no prayer request.
32:19 That's what I said unspoken. What do you mean, "The one you love is sick"? That is not an expressed
32:27 expectation. All they said is, "The one you love is sick." I hear some of y'all like, "Well,
32:31 that's Mary and Martha." I expressed my expectation. I told God, "I need to find
32:36 my husband by 25, and I'm 39, so I don't know what you're talking about." I know. I'm not talking
32:43 about those of you who told God your expectations, and he didn't meet it, because after all, that's
32:49 what he's there for, right? To do what you want him to do. But Mary and Martha, they didn't even
33:00 express the expectation. They said, "The one you love is sick." They didn't say, "Can you come heal
33:08 him?" They didn't say, "Come lay your hands on him." They said, "The one you love is sick."
33:14 So, on Easter Sunday, let's decode their unexpressed expectation.
33:20 They said, "The one you love is sick." First of all, who is that? You love everybody.
33:28 "The one you love is sick." Here's what they're saying. "Lazarus is the one you love.
33:35 If you love him, you will heal him. If you don't heal him, do you love him?"
33:46 Can I ask you something? How do you define God's love for you?
33:56 How do you define his love? By getting a house, a new car, by him healing your mom?
34:05 How do you define his love? Hear me. He can do all that. He has the power to do it.
34:12 But if you're defining his love by something he hasn't done,
34:21 are you setting yourself up for failure? I'm telling you, he has already demonstrated his
34:28 love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. If you want to know how much God
34:36 loves you, don't look at your bank account. Don't even look at your physical body. Don't look at how
34:42 many followers you have on the 'gram. If you want to know how much he loves you, look at the cross.
34:47 With his arms stretched out wide, he says, "This is how much I love you. I loved you so much that
34:53 I gave my only begotten son that whosoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting
35:00 life." I'm not saying you can't believe God for blessing. I'm not saying you can't believe God for
35:05 more. But hear me. If he didn't do anything but die for your sins so you wouldn't go to hell,
35:11 would that be enough? If he didn't do anything but shed his precious blood so that you could
35:16 have eternal life, would that be enough? I think sometimes we're coming to God
35:23 with the song of, "Well, what have you done for me lately?"
35:26 Coming to God like the woman who was in an argument with her husband. She was always asking
35:33 her husband, "Do you love me? Do you love me?" Every day, he's like, "I love you. I love you."
35:36 He's like, "Are you sure? Are you sure?" He's like, "I love you. I love you." He's like,
35:38 "Girl, I would die for you." She's like, "Yeah, you always say that, but you never do it."
35:42 Sometimes that's how we approach God, not knowing that he's already paid the ultimate price.
35:53 He loved you so much. He lived the life you were supposed to live, and he died the death
35:59 that you were supposed to die. Mary and Martha said, "If you love him,
36:06 you'll come heal him while he's sick." Jesus says, "I beg to differ. I love him so much,
36:11 I'm going to let him die. I love him so much that I'm not going to give him the gift of healing.
36:18 I'm going to give him something that he'll experience before I'll experience.
36:23 I'm about to give him resurrection. You're defining my love for him by healing. I choose
36:31 to define my love for him by resurrection, that I love him so much that I'm going to allow his
36:36 life to be a preview of a coming attraction of what I'm going to do. I'm trying to let you know
36:42 that I've healed a lot of people, but there's not a whole lot of people that went from death
36:48 to life. You want to know how much I love your brother? I love him enough to let him die and
36:53 show up four days late so the world can see that I am the resurrection and the life. I'm not just
37:00 a healer. I'm not just a protector. I'm not just a provider. I am the resurrection and the life,
37:06 and it's not over until I said it's over." Somebody that knows this, give God the best
37:12 praise that you got. Oh, look at Jesus walking in while they're crying, walking in when their
37:25 hope has been crushed, going straight to the tomb and declares the word, "Lazarus, come forth.
37:33 Lazarus, come forth." I want to pause right there and thank God that he got specific and said,
37:40 "Lazarus, come forth," because you do know his word is so powerful. If he would have just gone
37:45 to that grave and said, "Come forth," how many of you know every dead person in there would have
37:50 said, "Hold on. He must be talking about me." So, can I thank God that his word is specific?
37:55 No matter where you are, he says your name. Come out of that dead situation and come to life.
38:02 I am the resurrection. "Lazarus, come forth." They rolled the stone away.
38:13 Everybody is waiting to see, "Did the word work?" Here comes Lazarus.
38:19 Everybody is clapping and everybody is shouting, because he who was dead was now alive.
38:32 If you want a picture of what Jesus is trying to do in your life, come on. He did not come to make
38:37 bad people good. He came to make dead people come back to life. You were not stuck in your sin. You
38:43 were dead in your sin, but thanks be unto God, who is the only one who can bring resurrection.
38:50 There's Lazarus alive. The only problem is he's breathing, but he's still bound.
39:03 I found, because I'm a church kid, that this is how the Enemy wants a whole lot of believers.
39:09 You're alive. Jesus has done what only he can do, but you're still bound by depression,
39:18 still bound by an addiction, still bound by negative patterns of thinking.
39:24 What good is it to be breathing if you're still bound? But thank God for Jesus.
39:32 Thank God that Jesus does the full work of resurrection, that he is not satisfied with
39:37 you just being alive but bound. But look at what he says next. After he did what only he could do
39:44 and called Lazarus from death to life, he then tells the community around him,
39:49 "Y'all loose him and let him go." Oh, I know we live in a day and an age where people love to
39:56 talk about the church of Jesus Christ, but can I tell you there is resurrection in community.
40:02 You need some people around you. You need some people that'll help you get the grave clothes
40:07 off. You need some real people that don't care about the stink of your past that'll help you
40:12 get free so you can be free and whole. You need the church. I don't know how long it took,
40:24 but I know they took all those grave clothes off of him. Here's Lazarus
40:30 walking whole. Then he comes to my text today. Oh, that was my intro.
40:37 I'm Landon. He comes to this party with Jesus, and the Bible says that people started believing
40:48 in Jesus because of Lazarus' resurrection. That people were looking at Lazarus. Can you imagine
40:56 that party? They're trying to eat the food, and they're just staring at a man that was brought
41:01 from death to life. You know what Lazarus was at that party? He's what you and I are called to be
41:06 in this world. He was an unspoken sermon. That's what God wants, unspoken sermons. What you mean,
41:15 Pastor Robert? Lazarus never says anything in your Bible. You can't quote Lazarus. He doesn't
41:21 say a single word in Scripture. You know what Lazarus does? All he does is go from death to
41:27 life to freedom, from death to life to freedom, from death to life to freedom. What are you called
41:35 to be in the world? Somebody that stands as an unspoken sermon that went from death to life
41:42 to freedom, from death to life to freedom. What good is the resurrection if it's not a reality
41:55 in your life? He came. Our Savior did, so he could take you from death to life to freedom
42:07 and that your life could be an epistle read by those around you.
42:10 The Savior that brought me from death to life into freedom is the same one that can do it
42:16 for you. I'm going to ask everybody to stand that can. I'm going to ask every head to be bowed,
42:21 eyes to be closed, nobody moving around. Please respect this moment,
42:28 because what I'm preaching about is about to happen today.
42:36 It is not accident nor is it mere coincidence that you are here today,
42:40 but it is the sovereignty and the grace of God that has brought you here.
42:46 He wants to take you from death to life to freedom. I don't know where you are in the process.
42:58 There are some people in this room who haven't surrendered their life to this beautiful Savior,
43:05 and today, not by your works, not by your deeds, not by your record, but by what he has done,
43:11 he can take you from death to life. Some of you today have put your faith in Jesus,
43:19 but if you're honest about your condition, you are breathing and still bound.
43:24 On this Resurrection Sunday, perhaps he's calling you into community.
43:34 Jesus did what only he could do. He called him from death to life. Then he empowered those
43:42 around Lazarus to help take the grave clothes off. The only person I've seen take the grave
43:49 clothes off of himself is Jesus. Lazarus needed help. If you wonder why there's such an assault
43:58 on the church and why people don't want you in a church or in a community,
44:03 it's because they know it is in the power of community that the grave clothes come off.
44:10 God has a way of even using the church to heal your church hurt.
44:15 You're not called to live in isolation. You need somebody.
44:21 So with heads bowed and eyes closed, I want to talk to those of you who say, "Pastor Robert,
44:26 could you include me in this closing prayer? I need to go from death to life. I've never
44:31 surrendered my life to Jesus. Today's your day." I can think of no better Sunday than this
44:37 Resurrection Sunday for you to draw a line in the sand and say, "From this moment forward,
44:41 Lord, I'm walking with you." The beautiful thing is it's not on your works, not your record. The
44:51 enemy will lie to you and say, "You've got to get yourself together." Hear me. You can't get
44:55 yourself together. That's why you need a Savior. So with heads bowed and eyes closed all over this
45:01 place, if that's you, you say, "I need to surrender my life to Jesus today." Hear me.
45:05 You will give an account for your life. You will stand before a righteous and holy God.
45:10 Open up your eyes and see what's going on in the world. He is shaking things. He's coming back soon,
45:21 and he's calling somebody home today to give him your life. If that's you,
45:28 would you just lift up your hand high enough and long enough to where I could see it and say,
45:32 "Today's the day. I need to give him my life." You know when he's talking to you. I see those
45:36 hands. Thank you, God. Anybody else? Hear me. He loves you so much. He's already demonstrated
45:44 his love for you that he died. Hear me. While you were still in your sin, just so you could
45:51 have the opportunity to respond. Anybody else? I see hands all the way up in the balcony.
45:58 Even here on the floor. Thank you, Jesus. Anybody else? Say, "Today's the day. I need to give him my
46:03 life." I'm going to pray this prayer. I'm going to give you the words, but you let it come from
46:10 your heart today. In fact, I think we should say it just as one big family, but especially those
46:15 of you who responded. Normally we have people come to the front, but because of this space,
46:20 this place that we're in, I'm going to have you stay in your seat. But here's what I know. God's
46:24 presence knows no limit. He's right there. He sees you. Somebody needs to hear that. You may
46:33 have even said, "Lord, do you even see what I'm going through?" He told me to tell you he sees you.
46:38 He heard your cry. Can we pray this prayer as one big family? Would you say it? Say, "Jesus,
46:47 I need you. I cannot do life without you. I'm dead in my sin, but, Jesus, I believe
47:00 that you are the Son of God, that you live the life I was supposed to live, and you died the
47:10 death that I was supposed to die. You took my place. So, Jesus, today I respond by giving you
47:22 everything. You are the resurrection. You are the life. So, all of me belongs to you. In Jesus' name,
47:36 amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. If you meant what you prayed, would you give God praise today?