Stronger than Death

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Luke chapter 7 tonight. Luke chapter 7, and this is the last message in this series on the miracles of Jesus. And we haven’t gone through every miracle that He did, because He did more than six.

He did a lot more than six. But it would have taken us more than a year of Sunday nights to go through all the miracles, I think. And so I sat down and made a list, and just in my mind, these miracles all fell into six categories.

I started looking at how did these fit together. And really, the way they demonstrated his mastery and his sovereignty over things, it illustrated his sovereignty over about six different areas. And we’ve talked about our failures and our shortcomings and how he’s more powerful even than that.

And I’ve talked to you about our sicknesses and how he’s more powerful than any sickness we face. He’s more powerful than our problems. He’s more powerful than anything in nature. And all of these fall into, and you could categorize them differently, but in my mind I saw, okay, these illustrate six different areas where he says, I’m bigger than that.

And the last one we’re going to look at tonight is the biggest of all. It’s something that comes for all of us. It’s something that nobody escapes this world unscathed by.

It’s one that many live in constant fear of, and it’s something we can’t really do anything about. It’s death. And Jesus is stronger than death.

We all die, as much as I hate to think about that. And with another birthday just having passed, I was thinking about it again. Another year closer to whenever that’s going to be, and what have I done in the last year?

You start thinking about things like that. When my kids were born, I started thinking about it for the first time ever because up until then, okay, God takes me home. Big deal. But now I’m thinking, no, I want to see them grow up.

And it changes the way you think about things. And I said something about when we were talking about the Christmas party a few weeks ago. I got excited when I found out that they were serving chicken fried steak.

I said that’s one of my favorites. But I don’t eat it very often because I’ll die. And there were several of you, I don’t even remember who all was out there, but several of you were standing around in the foyer and just kind of all looked at each other.

Nobody said anything, and then I said, well, I know I’ll die anyway. I’ll just die faster and happier if I eat lots of chicken fried steak. But we all, it’s inevitable.

No matter what we do, we can exercise and we can maybe improve the quality of our lives a little bit. My dad is a marathon runner, and it works for him. I can’t imagine myself ever wanting to do that, but it works for him.

He feels better, but it doesn’t add a day to his life beyond what God already knows is going to happen. I can choose to eat healthy garbage that tastes like, and I try, but I don’t always succeed. I can try to eat healthy food as opposed to food that tastes good, and I can do that, and I might improve the quality of my life, but I’m not going to improve the quantity of it.

and I’m certainly not going to prevent death from coming. I can see doctors and I can take medication and I can maybe stave off this illness or that illness, but it’s inevitable it comes for all of us. It’s perhaps the one thing that we all face that none of us can do anything about.

And so it’s one of the most daunting challenges we face. And yet, even as big as it is, Jesus is bigger. He’s stronger even than death.

And there are so many stories in the New Testament that we could look at tonight to illustrate that. My first thought was to go to the resurrection. But my goodness, I preached one message on the resurrection back at Easter that took three weeks.

That’s sort of my hobby horse and I’ll get wound up, we’ll be here all night. And we hear about the resurrection a lot. So I started, I thought, okay, Lazarus, we talk about that one frequently.

I wanted to look at one that we may not always look at all the time. And it brings us to Luke chapter 7, starting in verse 11. Jesus has gone into this town called Nain, as far as I can tell the pronunciation.

It says in verse 11, and it came to pass the day after that he went into a city called Nain, and that’s a village in Galilee, not too far south of Nazareth. And many of his disciples went with him and much people. At this point, he has been doing miracles for a while.

This is right after he healed the centurion servant in Capernaum. He’s been teaching. He’s been teaching multitudes of people.

He’s been cleansing lepers. He’s been healing on the Sabbath. people are starting to be drawn to Jesus.

And as I’ve said before, many of them were drawn to Jesus not because of their belief in His teachings, but they were drawn to the food and the show, which still works. If you want people to show up nowadays, free food and entertainment. But they saw these miracles and let’s follow Him.

What’s He going to do next? Or He’d feed them out in the wilderness, the feeding of the 5,000. He might feed us.

So people were following Him. It says there were much people that went with him. He was surrounded by this following that had gathered up.

And it says now, in verse 12, Now when he had come nigh, when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out. As Jesus is approaching the walls in the gate of the city, this funeral procession comes out of the city. And this is probably not going to be something that’s easy to miss.

We know a lot of times, or I don’t know if it was all the time, but in many cases in this day, they would hire professional mourners, and it would just be a big spectacle. I don’t know if this one was this big, but the sight of them carrying a dead man out of the city gates is not something you’re going to miss easily. And he was a dead man carried out the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and much people of the city was with her.

So we don’t know if these were professional mourners. This is a huge spectacle, but there were clearly many people coming to this funeral. So what we see is out here at the city gate, this huge crowd with Jesus, and this huge crowd with the woman, and these two huge crowds come sort of face to face. And you almost, I mean, if this was a movie, you’d almost expect something big is going to happen here when these two crowds meet each other.

And I’ve been studying on this story for weeks now, and something just occurred to me a little bit ago. I knew that the woman was in need. Obviously, she’s going to be devastated at the loss of her son, as any parent would be.

But I got to thinking about her condition that she would have been in. This was her only son, and he was dead. And it says she was a widow, so she had no husband.

Well, nowadays, you know, your children are gone, your husband’s gone, we’ve got social security, we’ve got all kinds of things. They didn’t have that back then. And the closest I think we, this was in a pre-industrial society, and the closest we’ve been to this in recent times is I’ve heard, I mean as far as time-wise, I’ve heard people in more traditional areas of China, I’ve heard women interviewed where they talk about the three obediences in their society.

where they were supposed to be obedient to their father before marriage, and they were supposed to be obedient to their husband during marriage, and then they were supposed to be obedient to their son after the death of their husband. Some of you ladies are thinking, listen to him, listen to my son. I don’t think so.

I know my mother would be saying that. But in these agricultural traditional societies, you were under somebody’s umbrella. As a woman, you couldn’t necessarily work outside the home, especially as an older woman, which she probably was as a widow, she wasn’t going to go find employment in somebody else’s fields and probably couldn’t take care of all of hers by herself.

Her husband would provide for her, or her son would provide for her after the death of her husband. And what this brings us to is this woman has nobody. In this traditional agricultural society, she’s probably on her own, and that’s how people end up destitute and begging.

So not only has this woman lost her son, she’s looking at a really uncertain future. What am I going to do? When I get up tomorrow, where’s my next meal coming from?

That’s probably the kind of outlook she’s going to have on life. And so thinking about the condition that would have put her in, I just started to realize the desperation here. It’s not just I’ve lost my son.

It’s I’ve lost everything. I’ve lost my son and everything else with it. And verse 13 says, and when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her.

Some of the greatest stories in the Gospels include that phrase that the Lord had compassion on somebody. God looks at us, and he doesn’t have to show us compassion, but he does. We haven’t earned his compassion.

We haven’t earned his mercy, but he looks on us, and by golly, he just loves us because he’s loving. And he takes compassion on us just because he’s compassionate. And the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said unto her, weep not.

Now, if you’re not Jesus, this is one of the dumbest things you can say to somebody when they’re facing such loss. That is not helpful. When there’s a loss, we all want to say things that are helpful and most of them aren’t.

So I’ve learned to just say I’m sorry and cry with people where that’s applicable. I used to always want to find the words that were going to make somebody feel better. And then after losing a few children, I realized there weren’t words that were going to make anybody feel better.

And most of the things that people would say, my response outwardly is thank you. And my response inwardly is I would punch you in the face if we weren’t in church and I didn’t already know you loved me. and that’s probably why you’re saying this, because that was really hurtful, what you said.

Looking at somebody who is in that kind of pain and saying, oh, don’t cry, is probably one of the worst things you can say. Just let them cry. Unless you’re Jesus.

See, it’s okay for him to tell her, don’t cry, because he knows what he’s about to do. And he knows that all the reasons that she’s mourning about are about to be gone. Her troubles are over because Jesus has shown up.

And so when he looks at her and says, weep not, when he looks at her and says, don’t cry, it’s not, I just want to throw out any words possible to make it better, it’s your situation just got a whole lot better. And so he says, weep not. And he came and touched the beer.

Jesus did not walk into a bar, ladies and gentlemen. Different spelling. I had to go look that word up.

It means coffin, or what they would have used as a coffin. He touched the coffin. That almost feels wrong to say Jesus walked up and touched the beer.

He picked up the beer. Jesus walked out and touched the coffin. And they that bear him stood still.

Now the pallbearers are out there with this heavy coffin thing, and Jesus walks up to it, and everybody, even with this huge load they’re carrying, everybody stops to see what Jesus is going to do, because they knew that the reputation had spread far and wide. They knew that this was someone who worked miracles. And he said, still in verse 14, and he said, young man, I say unto thee, arise.

Again, another thing that would be very dumb to say, unless you’re Jesus. I cannot walk up to somebody at a funeral and say, get up out of that box. And I’d probably run screaming out of the auditorium if they did.

Because I would not be expecting that. You and I don’t have that kind of power. Get up out of the box.

Get up. Come on, get up. we don’t have that kind of power.

We don’t see that happen. What he’s doing makes no sense unless he is God in the flesh as we talked about this morning. Most of the things that Jesus says and does all throughout the Gospels make no sense unless he’s God in human flesh.

And so he walks up to this coffin he puts his hand on it he touches it and he says young man get up. And I love how understated Luke is here. See, Mark would have been saying, and immediately he, you know, I’ve told you before, I feel like Mark is just so excitable.

Luke is a doctor and just very factual. And so he says in verse 15, and he that was dead sat up. I mean, there’s no hint of an exclamation mark here. Luke expected that when Jesus said, sit up, get up, dead guy, that he’s going to sit up and speak.

And he that was dead sat up and began to speak. And Luke writes it like that just happens every day. That’s every day with Jesus.

And the truth is that Jesus has that kind of power every day. But you know what? We shouldn’t lose our.

. . I’m not saying Luke wrote it wrong.

I’m telling you today, we shouldn’t get so familiar with the gospel stories that we write them off and say, oh yeah, I’ve heard that a million times. Jesus put his hands on a dead man’s coffin and said, sit up. And the guy sat up and talked.

That doesn’t happen. That does not happen unless you’re Jesus. And this dead man sits up and begins to speak.

And Jesus delivered him to his mother. Imagine. Imagine being that mother.

Imagine being somebody else standing around in the crowd. Imagine being the dead man as he sits up and begins to speak. And then Jesus helps him down out of the coffin.

Maybe the pallbearers put him down. I don’t know. Jesus helps him out of that coffin and delivers him to his mother, takes him back to his mother.

Imagine. Imagine the amazement that they would have felt. Imagine the fear that I’m sure they would have felt.

If Jesus walked through the door today and raised the dead, we’d probably all be scared to have to death ourselves. And it even says in verse 16, and there came a fear on all. I bet.

There came a fear on all, and they glorified God. they glorified God see it’s one thing to witness a miracle and say that was cool it’s quite another to see a miracle and say how amazing is the God we serve how amazing is the Lord Jesus Christ they glorified God saying that a great prophet is risen up among us and that God hath visited his people they recognized at the very least that this man was sent by God Now, many in this crowd would never recognize that Jesus was God himself, but they at least recognized that when Jesus spoke, he spoke on God’s behalf. When Jesus acted, he acted on God’s behalf.

And they were excited. This rumor of him went forth throughout all Judea and throughout all the region roundabout. See, this happened with so many of his miracles.

Even when Jesus told him, don’t tell anybody. Oh, tell everybody? Okay, I can do that.

They ran and told everyone. And I’ve asked you before, think about some great news that you’ve had in your life that you just couldn’t wait to share. And that’s how they felt when they were visited by Jesus.

I can’t not tell everybody I know about this. And the disciples of John showed him all of these things. They went to John and reported back on what he had done.

Now a couple things for us to take from this story. To apply in our own lives and to look forward to and hope. First of all, we need to recognize that Jesus had compassion on this woman before she even asked for it.

Before she’d even asked for it, Jesus looked at her and felt this love and compassion. God doesn’t start to care about us just because we bug him. Do you understand that?

It’s not. . .

The Bible encourages us to pray, and to pray, and to pray, and continue praying, and continue taking our petitions to God. But I think sometimes we get the idea that if we just bug God enough, we can get Him to care. Here’s the thing.

God cares about you and your life and your circumstances and your problems before you even ask. Now that shouldn’t make us less likely to ask, oh, he already knows and cares, so I don’t have to ask. That should make us more likely to take our real problems and petitions and needs to God because we recognize that we’re talking to a God who already cares about us.

Jesus looked at her and she, in this account at least, she hadn’t said a word to him. Jesus sees her afar off. They’re coming out of the city.

He’s coming into the city. They meet. He sees her and he has compassion on her.

He recognizes the need. and he has compassion on it before she even asks. Folks, when we face any problem, whether it’s death, whether it’s any of the other problems that we’ve talked about through this series, we don’t have to beg God to care.

He already does care. And so when we go to him and we ask him for the things that we need, when we go to him with a broken heart, when we go to him with a crushed spirit, when we go to him feeling like all hope is lost, there is hope because we are talking to a God who already loves us and already cares whatever the problem is. Verse 13, he had compassion on her and said unto her, weep not.

But the bigger part of this story is to recognize that Jesus has power over life and death. He has power over life and death. We see it right here in verse 15.

After Jesus told him to get up, he that was dead sat up. He sat up. And this wasn’t the old Ray Stevens video, sitting up with the dead, if you remember that one.

That was my favorite of all his videos that he did. If you’re not familiar with it, the guy was, he had some kind of, I can’t even think of the term. He walked crooked, bent over.

And they had to use chains to hold him down, and one snapped, and the body sat up, and everybody thought he was a zombie or something. He’d come back. Okay, this wasn’t a sitting up with the dead situation where the body just sets up.

It says he sat up and he talked. Folks, he was alive. He had been dead and now he was alive.

And usually we go the other way around. We go from being alive to being dead. So Jesus totally reversed this thing.

We can’t do that. Jesus was able to do that. He was able to take the dead and make them live again.

He was able to create life out of nothing. It’s part of what I’ve been talking about in this series on John chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God, and without Him was not made anything that was made. He made everything. He was the source of life.

He was the source of all creation. So He causes life to begin, and the Bible says it’s appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment, and God causes life to end. And he can also reverse it in the middle if he wants to.

I make this joke from time to time about my kids, but it’s really true when it comes to God. He brought us into this world and he can take us out. Or he took us out of this world and he can bring us back into it again in the case of this young man.

He has power over life and death. He can do what he wants. That’s a lot of power.

We hear these stories and we think, yeah, he brought the dead back to life. I want us never to lose our awe over what kind of power that takes. If he has power over life and death, he has power over everything.

If he can overcome death, there’s no problem he can’t overcome. And then in verse 14, it says, He came and touched the coffin, and they that bear him stood still, and he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. Yeah, he put his hand on the coffin, but it was that word that he said, Arise.

Get up. Jesus from the very beginning of the universe has created life with a word. He didn’t have to go through some kind of Frankenstein scenario where he hooks him up to a battery and all this and tries to reanimate him with the word of his mouth.

Just like in Genesis chapter 1 with the word of his mouth he made life where there was none. Oh my goodness. So not only is our God powerful enough that he has power over life and death but he has power over life and death with a word.

With a word. And all it takes is a word from our God to accomplish his will. I don’t know about y’all, but to me that’s incredible.

That’s incredible that he has that kind of power. I can look at somebody in the funeral home and say, live! And nothing happens.

I could look at somebody in traffic and say, stop living! And nothing happens. I don’t do that, by the way.

I may yell, move! But I don’t ever yell stop living. But I don’t even have the power to get them to move, let alone stop living.

And yet with the word of his mouth. Folks, what do we have to be afraid of? What really do we have to worry about.

When we are under the care and the protection of a God this powerful, and it doesn’t mean that we won’t all someday die. We will. This man eventually died.

Lazarus eventually died. Everybody Jesus healed eventually died. We are promised nowhere.

Charlie and I were talking about this this week, people that we know who lose their faith because a loved one died. Well, I won’t believe in God because he didn’t heal my grandma. God never promised to heal your grandma.

God never promised your grandma was going to live forever. God never promised my grandma was going to live forever. It’s not the way it works.

There’s no promise that he’s going to heal everybody. And we’ll all face death if he tarries his coming. It doesn’t mean that we’re any less under his control and under his protection.

And he can fix every problem. He can fix every issue. And he can orchestrate the world for our good and for his glory with just a word.

With that kind of power over us. With that kind of power protecting us. Why do we have to worry about?

It doesn’t matter what problem there is. Jesus is bigger. And Jesus is stronger.