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00:01 John 11. Uh we're going through a series of John. So if you have been here on
00:06 Friday, uh you would have heard of uh Elder Eden preach on uh the last uh chap
00:13 18 and 19 of John where we talked a bit about uh we talked about the crucifixion. Today uh we were last week
00:20 at John 4. Now we're jumping to John 11 because we wanted to uh capture the
00:26 spirit of Easter. So let's have a word of prayer before we start. Father, we ask that you uh we know you are present
00:32 with us. We just ask, oh Lord, humbly, oh Lord, for your grace to open up our eyes and
00:40 our hearts to really have Jesus as a resurrection and the life come alive in
00:48 us. We ask this for Jesus' sake. Amen. So I hope you all have uh this is a
00:54 devotion before the Lord's supper. So, have you got who anybody who doesn't have the Lord's
01:01 supper element? Put your hands up and the uh our assistants will come and help you. If you are in Christ, you should
01:08 have one of these. As a lady over here dressed in turquoise who needs one.
01:16 So, the climax of the word would be partaking the bread and the wine.
01:23 Someone over there, please. Someone over there. So if you are a
01:29 believer, please uh come and and and partake. Someone over there. Let me over
01:35 there in front. Second row left. Anyone else?
01:42 Lena's husband. Ling Ling Yang Yang Yang. That's right. Over there. This gentleman over here.
01:50 Okay, let's get started. There are three lessons which I want to share with us. It's a very long passage
01:57 as sister Phyllis has uh read out so beautifully. So I'm just going to draw lessons and basically three lessons to
02:04 take from this. One, we talk about death. We need to allow death to drive us to life. Two, you need to believe in
02:10 Jesus because he is the resurrection and the life. And third, we need to take hold of the eternal life now. So first
02:18 of all, my first point, allow death to drive us to life. The the scene that is set in John 11 isn't a very nice scene.
02:25 We drop in on Jesus at a funeral. Now, nobody likes to go to
02:31 funerals. How many of you like to go to funerals? Put your hands up.
02:36 Not even one. Goodness, not even Christians here. All right, we'll have hope we will change that. So, there's a
02:42 funeral. Um, and let's backtrack from the scene of the funeral. Uh, this John
02:49 puts us in the context. This is a man who was sick, must be very ill. Lazarus or Bethany, village of Mary and her
02:55 sister Martha. It was Mary. This is the one in the chapter that's in John 12. So
03:01 the the chronology is a bit off. Uh that who actually came to Jesus and anointed
03:06 his feet with eight months worth of pay. You know the such a beautiful uh
03:11 precious nard. Okay. Uh that's the one that Judas criticized. So she really
03:16 loved Jesus and she uh her brother was Lazarus who was ill. So the sister sent
03:22 to him saying Lord he whom you love is ill. Can you feel the pressure there?
03:30 The one whom you love is ill. Not not Lazarus is ill. You know the one whom you love is ill. So therefore there is a
03:37 subtle pressure that you got to do something. Isn't it? Your best friend is ill. Your bro is ill. You got to come uh
03:43 and see him. And uh so our first instinct is to prevent death. Now when I preach this sermon, I'm going to preach
03:49 this sermon just like uh uh uh GDN did inside and outside. Okay, we're going to
03:56 look at Jesus from outside. If you were standing there as a reporter for CNN,
04:01 we're going to see what happens outside and then I'm going to go through what's actually behind the scenes because what
04:07 you see outside and what you see inside are two different things. And so therefore, John mixes inside and
04:13 outside. I'm going to separate it so that it comes becomes more impactful. So as far as you're concerned, you've got
04:19 two ladies, their brother is dangerously ill in ICU. Uh and the sister sent to
04:25 him say look the one whom you love is ill. What will Jesus do? And Jesus again
04:31 John writes he loved Martha and the sister and Lazarus. He loved them. Okay.
04:39 And so word so right so he heard that Lazarus ill. He delay two days longer in
04:45 the place where he was. If you had a son in Australia and you were in ICU, you tell him, you say, "I'll wait two more
04:51 days." What kind of son would that be? And John emphasizes he loved him and
04:57 therefore he wait two more days. Wow. I wonder what happens if he hates you.
05:04 Right? So we don't want that kind of person who loves you. Right? So this is from the outside, isn't it? That's what
05:10 happens from outside. Okay. Strange behavior on the part of our lord. Okay.
05:16 And then Jesus comes into the uh like a chi funeral but using Chinese wedding
05:23 time. You come late. Okay. When Jesus came he found that Lazarus had already been to for 4 days. Hello. Hello. 4
05:30 days. He's already dead. Okay. Uh and it was Bethany was near Jerusalem about two
05:35 miles off. Many the Jews had come to Martha and Mary and consoled them considering the father. And when Martha heard that Jesus coming, she went to
05:41 meet him. But Mary remains seated in the house. So he had already been dead. The drama is over. He's being packed up.
05:48 Okay. Uh in fact 11:39 says Jesus says take away the stone. The Martha the sister of the dead man said to him Lord
05:55 by this time there will be a odor for he has been dead for 4 days. There will be a smell which means he is well and truly
06:00 dead. No doubt about it. Jesus comes late to the party. Well and truly dead.
06:07 There are two kinds of responses here. Here you actually have uh Martha. Martha
06:12 comes he heard Jesus coming and she went out to meet him. You know, you know comes out to meet him. She wants to
06:18 interact with Jesus. This is the one whom she has put all her hope on. What did Mary do?
06:26 Doesn't she know Jesus is coming? She remains seated in the house. Why? Can
06:32 they understand? You're supposed to come right. You didn't come right now. Matthew already right.
06:38 I'm a little bit as Malaysia bang inside. You're supposed to come and you didn't come. What is this? And you tell
06:46 me you love me. And and that's the horrible response we actually have of of
06:52 death. Some people are proactive and some people just collapse and get angry inside a passive aggressive reaction.
07:00 The sisters responds are identical though. All right. into one sense when they both meet Jesus the first thing
07:06 they said Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died Mary comes out to see Jesus after he was called she
07:13 fell at his feet and say Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died exactical identical twins
07:20 there is a feeling inside that Jesus should have would have come and saved
07:26 and because he did not save the brother they're now beginning to doubt he say he
07:32 loved me you know I spent eight months of uh my you know bonus on him and he
07:37 didn't even come came two days late and then the other people looking outside you see Christians you know when when
07:44 you got trouble the friends who are who are non-Christian neighbor ah like that you see yes u some of them said could
07:52 not he who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept this man from dying hello hello you're talking about Jesus you're
07:59 talking about Easter and your god has led let you down, isn't it? I was in
08:04 Berlin. So, this is Steven Fry and he's an atheist, famous comedian in Britain.
08:11 This is what he writes. I love how when people watch, I don't know, David Atenburgh of Discovery Planet type
08:18 thing, you know, where you you see the absolute phenomenal majesty and complexity and bewildering beauty of
08:25 nature and you stare at it and then somebody next to you goes, "And how can you say there's no God? Look at that.
08:32 5 minutes later, you're looking at the life cycle of a parasitic worm whose job it is to bury itself in the eyeball of a
08:38 little lamb and eat the eyeball from inside while the lamb dies a horrible agony. And then you turn to them and
08:44 say, "Yeah, where's your god now?" Isn't that what the world does? Because you're
08:49 looking from outside and as we celebrate Easter, they're going to turn around say, "Where's your God out now?" Because
08:56 you're going through such difficulty. The country is going through such difficulty. your family is going through much difficulty. This is the in Berlin,
09:03 if you recognize in World War II, they bombed the heck out of Berlin. Everything else was bombed, but they
09:08 were saying, "Oh, gee, God pres preserved this beautiful building, which is the Kaiser William uh uh church. They
09:16 can't bomb God's church, right?" But at the same time, you go to Texas and they shoot 22 people, 26 people who are
09:22 Christians in the First Baptist Church there. Where's your God? Where was he?
09:29 Uh this is a famous author called David Watson who wrote the book fear no evil.
09:34 It's very telling. Uh he's a Anglican priest uh who um was a great influence
09:40 in prison and he tells a story of two men whom he counseledled during this
09:47 time. Both men lost children at the age of about 10 and 12 years old. Similar.
09:53 One lost the son through leukemia. The other lost the son because he had
09:58 wandered to the uh open gate through onto the swimming pool and drowned. One
10:05 was a Christian and one was not a Christian. And the ironic part of this
10:11 entire testimony was that the atheist, the one who did not know God because of
10:17 this death came to know God. And then the one who was a Christian believed God
10:23 owed him life and protection over his son lost his faith. Now this is not
10:28 unusual. This is very real. When business turns bad, the first thing the
10:34 devil's going to ask you, where's your God? Could the God who saved you could not get you out of this business
10:40 problem? So we we have this problem. The normal response uh is uh Mary remaining
10:47 seated in the house mourning passive aggressive we don't know what's
10:53 in her mind. Uh this is Ernest Becker who wrote uh who actually changed our
10:58 ideas about death and he wrote the idea of death the fear of it haunts the human animal like nothing else. It's a
11:04 mainspring of human activity designed to largely avoid the fertility or death to
11:09 overcome it by denying in some way that it is a final destiny. Ernest Becker says much of culture today everything
11:16 that you actually do hinges on one thing. We're grappling subconsciously
11:21 with the fact that we are finite and we're going to die. Okay. For example, uh you know, this is the shooting in Las
11:27 Vegas. And I have a testimony of one man who was there and he was while bullets were flying and people were dying left
11:33 and right. You know what he said? He said, I said to myself, "The girls aren't going to die. I'm not going to die. I need to get home to see my
11:38 daughter. This is not happening. This is not happening." Just because you close your eyes and bullets are flying and you say, "It's not happening. It's not
11:44 happening." Doesn't mean it's not happening. Isn't that right? That's the
11:49 ironic part about it. Woody Allen says, "Life is full of loneliness and misery
11:55 and suffering and unhappiness and it's all over much too quickly." Whatever life is, we still like to hang on to it.
12:02 Isn't it? Chinese talk about death. My mother will say, "Cho tali."
12:08 Isn't it? How would you like to stand up afterwards, ask all of it and say, "I hope you have a good death. Tomorrow the
12:15 church will be empty." Right? But we as Christians should not be like that. We we shouldn't deny
12:22 death. Okay? Because we have an answer to death. So therefore, what should we
12:28 do? You know what some people do? You should migrate to where Christopher's wife comes from.
12:35 Hong Kong. You recognize that it is a place you have the highest life expectancy in the world. I couldn't
12:41 imagine. It came out in a 2018 poll. So you want to avoid death, you go to Hong Kong. you
12:47 you never go to Washington. Here they are marching because 38,000 Americans
12:53 were shot by guns. So nobody wants to go there anymore. And this march is a cultural response to what? Death, isn't
12:60 it? Young folk who shouldn't be thinking about death at the age of 18. He's too young to die now on the streets because
13:06 they have to grapple with death. They're growing up far too early. So what else do we do? The active ones like Martha
13:13 rushes up to Jesus. She's the kind of, you know, Mary will sit down and say, "Oh my goodness, I'll try to suppress
13:18 this." Martha gets comes up and she wants to do something. The active kind of person. And so what we do years ago
13:24 when they clone the sheep called Dolly, everybody's thinking about cloning. You know, uh, Chinese people like us were
13:30 much cleverer than that. We don't spend much money in cloning. In the old days, we just have many children.
13:36 After all, they have DNA from mommy and then they have DNA from papa. Isn't it? The Indians take it even further. Look
13:43 at this guy. you know, he's got like uh 94 children, 39 wives, 14
13:49 daughter-in-laws, and 33 grandchildren. All right? And he lives in this kind of house with 100 rooms. They eat about 30
13:55 chicken a day. Others would be uh like would start freezing themselves and hope that you
14:02 would be uh reincarnated later on. But the problem is even if you clone yourself,
14:07 even you have many children, when your son has a big fat meal, my son just went to uh Tokyo and he is eating a very nice
14:14 meal. He actually showed me a picture. He got coo beef. I didn't feel the pleasure in my tummy. I saying, "My
14:21 son's having coo beef and" and I didn't ask him how much it cost, but I didn't feel it in my stomach, did I? Whatever
14:28 it is, your son can do whatever he wants, but you'll be dead. Just because you share a couple of genes doesn't mean
14:35 you're there with him. Uh we can put ourselves online. Uh this is the one called lives on. Put yourself line. It
14:42 says when your heart stops beating, you'll keep tweeting. Isn't that nice? You keep tweeting,
14:47 tweeting. It's a bit weird, you know, 10 years later on when your son takes up your handphone and p papa's tweeting me
14:53 now. I know what you're thinking about me. Uh you know, you want to stay alive,
14:59 isn't it? There was so story told of of a lady who was uh cremated and then she
15:05 she said look you take my ashes I know take your ashes go to clang river and throw right no don't put in clang river
15:10 take my ashes and throw h&m at uh the sunway pyramid said why h&M go at least
15:16 my daughters will come twice a week what is the fact
15:24 and that got me thinking you know now only you got ching ming they come some of you hardly go right Put it in sun
15:30 pyramid. You should have cornered there. So when you're shopping, you drop by. All right.
15:36 Ecclesiastes says for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born, a time
15:43 to die. It's a fact. Ecclesiastes guides us and tells us what it is. And some people accept embrace death. This is the
15:50 great death embracer Steven Job. He wrote uh everybody wants to die. Nobody wants to die. Everybody who wants to go
15:56 to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is a destiny we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And
16:03 that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It
16:09 clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will
16:15 gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited. So don't waste living it. Living it living
16:22 someone else's life. Steven Job embraces death, doesn't it? It makes him more powerful. lives him lives to the limit.
16:30 However, when he died, his autobiographer Walter Isaacson wrote on
16:36 Job's reaction to pancreatic cancer. He had pancreatic cancer. You know what he did? He ignored the diagnosis. He went
16:43 for alternative therapy. He delayed it for 18 months and it was the kind of cancer that could have been cured and he
16:50 missed the cure. And this is what Isaacson wrote. I think he felt if you ignore something you don't want to
16:56 exist, you could have a magical thinking, it'll work for him in the past, he would regret it. Just because
17:03 you ignore death, ignore the diagnosis doesn't mean it'll go away. Ecclesiastes
17:09 3 said he has made, can I have the team up, please? Uh, everything beautiful in
17:14 its time. He has put eternity into the man's heart and yet so that he can not
17:21 find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Manchester bombing this last year, a
17:28 very tragic story. It was at the um Ariana Grande concert
17:34 and suddenly there was an explosion caught on video camera and uh they lost
17:40 over twi died and over 100 were injured and this
17:48 is largely in a secular country like Britain. Britain is very secular today. These are the pictures of the ones who
17:55 tragically lost their lives. And and the British people reacted. They're not
17:60 going to take this line down. Uh and they actually had another concert. It's called Love Manchester 2. Um and I can
18:09 remember the last scene in Love Manchester 2 where Ariana Grande stood
18:14 up and started to sing.
18:19 And you know what song she sang?
18:26 People were in tears. I want you to hear the song.
18:35 Somewhere over the rainbow,
18:44 way up high,
18:49 there's a land that I heard of once in a love
19:04 somewhere. where over the rainbow,
19:11 the skies are blue.
19:17 And the dreams, the dreams that you dare to dream really
19:25 do come true.
19:30 Someday I wish upon a star and wake up
19:35 where the clouds are far behind me.
19:43 Ooh, where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops.
19:51 That's where you find
19:57 me. Somewhere
20:03 over the rainbow.
20:09 Blue birds fly.
20:14 Birds fly over the rainbow.
20:21 Why then why can I
20:28 Thank you. That's better than Ariana Grande.
20:39 You see a nation in defiance stands up and the best they can offer is a dream
20:47 of a far away land which actually the song comes from the subconscious of a human being. Uh but then there's a
20:54 twist. The the the Greeks tell of a story of a myth
20:60 uh called Pandora's box. If you remember that uh guy called Prometheus, a god
21:05 called Prometheus created mankind and what he did was he uh he loved mankind
21:11 and he stole fire from the god Zeus and gave it to mankind. Zeus got very upset condemned uh um this chap to be tied up
21:19 to a big rock and the birds eat his liver. But he the zooist created a
21:25 woman, a beautiful woman. And with this woman in her diary box is a box full of
21:32 all the evils in the world. And and and Zeus knew that being a woman should be very curious, right? And one day she
21:39 opened the box. And when she opened the box, all kinds of evil fell out and flew
21:46 off and infested entire world. And this is how the Greeks see the world. Okay, we have Adam and Eve. They've got
21:53 Pandora. But there was one evil that was actually left inside the box. It wasn't
21:59 revealed. It didn't escape. It's very odd. You know what that evil was?
22:05 Hope. Hope didn't escape the box. And for for for centuries, people wondering, I
22:12 thought hope was good. What is why what why how could it be an evil that didn't escape the box? Well, the point is hope
22:19 is the feeling you have just before you're disappointed.
22:25 Hope is a feeling that Mary and Martha had just before Lazarus died because
22:31 Jesus is going to come. Jesus is going to come. Seven Calvary is going to come. But hope never materialize. And that
22:38 kind of hope destroys your faith, destroys your belief that life is worth
22:44 living. And that was the evil that was left behind. This is the woman called Martha. But
22:51 even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Martha
22:59 death drives her towards the only solution in the world and she goes to
23:04 Jesus Christ. We need to believe in Jesus because he is the resurrection life. Everything else is false hope.
23:12 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. This is broken into two parts. Whoever believes
23:19 in me, though he die, shall never live." Sorry. Shall shall yet shall he live.
23:25 Who and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. This explains
23:32 this. This explains this. And so basically what is he saying? He's saying death is off the table. It's no longer
23:38 an issue because if you die, you'll be raised. If you are alive, you will never die. Okay? And and and here we have the
23:45 reaction. Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews that comes were also weeping. He was deeply moved in the spirit and
23:52 greatly troubled. Now this has trouble theologians for years. Jesus is going to raise the guy right in about like five
23:59 minutes, right? So why would Jesus be deeply moved and troubled? Wasn't he was
24:04 he wondering whether he could do this operation or not? like I wonder every Monday can I do it? Is it okay? Will that be a
24:12 complication? It's unlikely to have felt that right. The word is um uh embroi which means in
24:19 extra biblical beat the snorting of a horse indignant
24:26 outraged and angry. All right. And what is he angry about? He's angry about two
24:31 things. the ugliness of sin moved by the people's grief and the tragedy death
24:37 causes. Just because you can fix it doesn't mean you're not angry doesn't
24:42 mean uh you're not angered by the unbelief. I was remembering years ago when I was in Koala Laboji Hitch and was
24:49 supervising traininee surgeons and we had one chap who is now a very famous surgeon today won't mention his name who
24:56 was a trainee at the time and we he in middle of night he had encountered some abdominal issue and and had surgery he
25:03 resected the piece of bowel with the with the laceration which was going to leak. So he cut off the two ends and he
25:10 joined the two ends and we joined the two ends with sutures. And then after he joined the two ends of sutures, oh he's
25:15 wondering what's happening. It's all perfectly joined but is leaking out everywhere. And and you know where it was leaking
25:21 from? From all the suture lines he put in. So he called me in and I was really upset. You coming from PJ to KL in the
25:28 middle of night and he can't even suture a piece of bowel. Went there and saw that he had used the wrong kind of
25:35 needle. There's a round bodied needle and a sharp needle. A sharp needle cut through everything. A round body is for bowel because you use long wrong needle.
25:43 Every needle hole leaks of coming out. And you think I was very happy? I
25:49 knew I could fix it, right? No problem fixing it. I'm going to fix it. But why was I upset? Well, I didn't get good
25:56 sleep. I was upset how stupid he was and upset that I had to come and fix it.
26:01 These are the emotions that you go through. Just because you got a solution doesn't mean you're very happy. Oh, come. I'm going to fix it. I'm going to
26:07 look red. No. Jesus sees sin. Jesus sees
26:13 death. And and by by John writing this, he tells us the heart of God that when
26:18 you go I mean, you don't go to a wedding. Sorry. Sorry. I don't get wrong
26:25 sermon. You don't go to a funeral dressed like a wedding, right?
26:32 Unless you're 100 years old. Someone is telling me going to Pinang and to to to
26:38 a a funeral of a relative relative 100 years old. You know what they wear? Not white, not black, but red. So everybody
26:44 goes dressed like an anga. Why? Because it's happiness time. But that's totally inappropriate. Imagine you go to a
26:51 funeral of someone and invite an elder and he's like smiling all the time. Hey man, hey. Hello. Even Jesus at a funeral
26:60 was deeply moved, angered and sad. And not only that, the shortest verse in the
27:05 Bible says Jesus wept. He absolutely wept because
27:11 this is the heart of God. Even though the cross is there, God cries. He feels
27:18 our pain as we go through life and the ravages of sin. But the crying is a
27:24 little bit different from the one of the women. The women, they use a different word. And Jesus crying is actually a
27:31 lament before a calamity. Okay. Is not a cry that there's no hope. All right.
27:37 Next one is um now let's look behind the scenes. Jesus approached the death. He's talking to um
27:45 the disciples and Jesus said um this is before Jesus goes. Okay. They tell they
27:52 told him Lord he whom you love is ill. And Jesus heard it says this illness does not lead to death. It is for the
27:59 glory of God so that the son of God may be glorified through it. And which Jesus
28:04 sees in death some light. We see in death abject misery, emptiness and
28:12 disaster. But Jesus behind the scenes says it is for the glory of God. Now Jesus loved Martha and he stayed two
28:20 days longer. Love made him deliberately delay. Uh then he talks to the disciples
28:26 and he says our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. I'm going to wake him up and disciples as usual very stupid. He
28:33 says Lord if he's fallen asleep he will recover. Jesus spoken of his death but they thought he had he meant taking rest
28:39 in sleep. Gee these guys are not very clever. And Jesus told them plainly Lazarus has
28:45 died and for your sake I'm glad I was not there so you may believe. Let's go to him. This is the reason for his
28:51 action. That's why he delayed. So the issue here when Jesus arrives 4 days later he could be confronted to two
28:57 situations. He could be confronted with resuscitation or res resurrection isn't
29:02 it? If it's resuscitation he just died maybe he's not really dead because in those days they don't have ECG EEG they
29:09 don't have you know Jesus will pull off his uh you know skirt and he's jumping on the chest all the time. That's not
29:14 quite so good because Peter can do that too right? I could do that too and some of you have trained to do that too. Not
29:20 much glory in that. So Jesus make sure you're well and truly dead four days God's smell right. So
29:27 therefore the glory that comes it's for the glory. So it's unmistakable that
29:32 Jesus has the power to raise the dead. It's accentuates the glory. Then why did
29:39 Jesus allow the death? You either cure him or you don't cure him. Curing yes
29:44 Jesus healed the blind. Everybody knows Jesus healed the the you know Jesus
29:49 heals sick every day. So what but this is the seventh miracle in John. The
29:56 seventh final miracle is no cure but miraculous resurrection power of God.
30:03 You see it is for the glory of God so that the son of man may be glorified.
30:09 See for your sake I'm glad I was not there that you may believe. You see, some of us feel, you know, why is God so
30:16 proud? Everywhere he's looking for his own glory to look good. If you had a church member like that, I think you
30:21 better run away because it's all about him, isn't it? It's all about him. And and I think sometime when you talk about
30:27 glory of God, it deep in your hearts, you feel, oh my goodness, I'm not allowed to boast, but God is allowed to be boastful. And um but if you look very
30:36 carefully, there's a reason for the glory. This is John 20. Jesus did many other signs in the present disciples
30:41 which were not written in this book but they are written so that you may believe that Jesus Christ the son of God and that by believing you may have life in
30:48 his name. Why do we see do you ever wonder why
30:54 they don't color fire extinguishers black? Anybody know why they don't cover black?
30:60 What's wrong with black? Black is beautiful. Why don't they color it black?
31:06 Anybody know? Because red pops out. Red stands out.
31:13 Red is glorified. But nothing glorifying about in the fire extinguisher or the
31:19 exit from a cockpit. If you ever in MAS 370 or 60 and then suddenly you see this
31:25 open. Okay, open. You cannot open it uh when it's flying, right? Open it when it's landed. All right. Or an exit is
31:31 always red, right? because it draws attention so that the glory of God is for the good
31:39 of man. If the red sign isn't there, then you don't know. You won't run towards it when you're dying.
31:46 When the cinema is on fire, you look for the red signs. Besides, I think we
31:52 better change the sign there. It's green. Green people will be rushing up here.
31:58 read. They'll be rushing there because they know that is the place of salvation. Isn't it
32:07 Ecclesiastes 3:4 I perceive that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it. Nothing
32:12 taken from it. God has done it so that people will fear him. So everything is done. Every evil in the world is turned
32:18 so that people will reach for the exits. God is glorified. The son of man is glorified so that people will reach out
32:25 for him and be saved. And Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life
32:30 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die." You know, um there
32:38 was a Fox News, typical Fox News, they write that want to live forever, you just have to make it to 2050. So Fox
32:46 News predicts if you live long enough to 2050, from then onwards, you will never
32:51 die. You know why? Because they're like Martha. They're going to be a proactive.
32:56 They're going to do something. They've doubled the lifespan of this worm, this particular worm 600%. Oh, you're a
33:02 mosquito. I don't know why. Why would you extend the life of mosquito by about 50%. We should decrease their life by
33:10 gene therapy. Wernner syndrome, the one that makes you grow old prematurely. They've discovered a link. Maybe we
33:16 could reverse aging or this is the first uh automatic uh 3D printing of a kidney.
33:24 Years from now I will be able to put in new kidneys. Okay. Or new brains. So we will replace
33:31 ourselves. If we can't do that then we need to become robots. This is professor Hiroshi Ishigura. He doesn't have to go
33:38 to attend a sermon right or give the sermon. He just speaks and he's robot and image. could transplant our lives
33:45 into some augmented reality. There was a survey done in the US some time ago of
33:50 2,000 respondents. If you could stop aging after 25, how many more years would you like to live? Most people
33:58 surprisingly chose 76 to 100 or 51 to 75. They didn't choose to live forever.
34:04 You know, amazing, isn't it? Why? Well, I would live longer
34:10 if you could work. 79% if you needed to work to support yourself throughout your entire extended family. Why would you
34:18 want to work but they wanted to work? Or you and your family could extend your lifespan but nobody else. Oh, that's
34:24 very nice. Or you and your spouse could extend your life and nobody else. This they give you reasons you see u because
34:33 eternal life by itself isn't quite worth it, isn't it? This is an author Brian
34:39 Appleard who wrote How to Live Forever or Die Trying. And he writes, I think there's a point that the immortalists
34:44 don't understand and it's that one exhaust one's own personality over a certain period. It's weird idea that you
34:51 would go on and on and still be interested in being yourself. I don't think anybody anybody would. I think you
34:56 get excruciatingly bored of being yourself. If you catch me every other day, I will
35:02 be at Empire sitting in front of Whisk and having my coffee. Imagine doing that
35:08 for the next hundred years. That would be terrible. You know, we
35:14 outgrow our personality. So the issue here is when he says I'm resurrection life, this life is not the normal life.
35:20 There are two Greek words for life. One is bios from which you get biology and physical life. He's talking about a
35:27 quality of life that is from heaven. It's a heavenly quality of life. Okay.
35:34 John 5:24, I say to you, whoever hears my words and believes in me who sent me has eternal life. And the word is Zoey
35:40 which is eternal quality of life. And this quality of life is that the thief comes and steals and destroy came that
35:47 they may have life and have it abundantly. So it's a quality of life that's extraordinary that's beyond what
35:54 is necessary. So I'm not going to have to sit in front of whisk for the next hundred years. And the same kind of coffee it'll be better coffee and better
36:00 coffee and better coffee. It's going to be explosion of flavors. And the the the
36:06 quality of eternal life is depending on relationships. When Jesus Christ was
36:11 resurrected, the first thing he did, he went behind closed doors and the first thing he said to them, "Peace be with
36:18 you." When he said this, he showed them his hands and sides. Disciples were glad when they saw the Lord and he said to them, "Peace be with you." What's this
36:26 deal? Jesus comes like a hippie and say, "Peace be with you." Uh Romans say, "Ever since we have been
36:32 justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." The idea of peace is taken from the Hebrew
36:37 idea of shalom, which is actual wholeness. It doesn't just mean the sensation of hostilities. It means
36:45 perfection, prosperity, total satisfaction in life, natural gifts,
36:50 fully engaged. It is a shalom, which is why Jewish people wish each other. It's a picture of a relationship, good
36:56 relationship. When it was good, he was the top player in the world. When it was bad, he looks like that.
37:04 He's not doing very well. You see, you can't do well if your wife is mad at you, is it? Can you, Jeff?
37:12 Yo, wife's mad at you. No matter what you do, there's no shalom in the house.
37:17 Shalom depends on relationships. And so, therefore, when Jesus comes, it's a restoration of relationship. It is an
37:23 eternal life that we have, we all have today. It's like Khloe Kim, you know,
37:28 she already won, isn't it? And the last jump she shouldn't have done, but she went up there and did it anyway because
37:35 it was shalom when you're absolutely performing at your absolute magnificent
37:40 best and she enjoyed it. She did threeund,080 degrees three times and she secured the
37:47 gold. Shalom is like a symphony of life made meaningful through a righteous relationship with God. It's like that
37:54 conductor ah at the end that moment of ecstasy. That is shalom. That is
37:60 something that every human being on the face of this earth is aiming towards. And you're finding in all sorts of things that doesn't quite work. It's
38:06 false hope. Jesus came that I you may have life. And this life is shalom. I am
38:15 the resurrection life. And this life is not live no longer in bondage to sin. We
38:20 don't have to continue to sin. Galatians says the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
38:26 goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That is the quality of eternal life. And you actually have
38:33 eternal life right now. Absolutely. And you notice all these terms, they're
38:39 relational. You don't sit at home and say, "Oh, I have so much peace. I feel so in love. I feel so much joy. I'm so
38:47 gentle. I'm stroking myself. I'm so controlled. You know, I'm self-control
38:53 for what? Those features of eternal life have to
38:58 be exercised in the presence of other people. When you're with other people, they'll see your gentleness. They'll see
39:05 your self-control. They'll see your peace. They'll see your joy. That's right, isn't it? And some of you want to
39:10 be Christians at home will log on to the worship site. We worship God alone.
39:15 Doesn't quite work there. Eternal life is how you change and how you relate.
39:21 It's a relational term. All right. Uh the Grant Gul Gulik study in Harvard
39:27 looked at 268 Harvard Sophenor from 1938 including John F. Kennedy followed them the
39:33 longest study in the entire world 80 years. Most of the investigators died and they found a very important part of
39:41 the human DNA. They said there are two foundational elements of the people who live to a long age. One
39:48 is love and the other is finding a way to cope with life that doesn't push love away. When the study began, no one cared
39:55 about empathy or attachment. The key to healthy relationships uh healthy aging is relationships, relationships,
40:01 relationships. Why? Because a human body is designed for relationship. were made
40:06 in the image of God and eternal life is basically going back to what we were
40:12 originally created for love. When you're lying in ICU,
40:18 who do you want to see? Your banker or your wife? Your banker will never come. You know
40:24 why? He doesn't love you. He loves your money. So, he'll be in the bank counting
40:30 your money while your wife will come. Hopefully, won't be counting your money.
40:35 But it's relationships, isn't it? Maybe the relatives will be circling
40:42 the judgment scene. When did you see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? When do we see you sick or
40:49 prison or visit and visit you? And the king will answer them truly I say to you as you did to one of the least of these
40:55 my brothers you did it to me. It's relationship. You'll be judged on your relationships in life. And you know what
41:02 she said? Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who is
41:08 coming into the world.
41:13 Lastly, we need to take hold of eternal life. Now, this is a an end with 1
41:18 Timothy 6:12. For the fight the good fight of faith, take hold of the eternal
41:25 life to which you were called, about which you made good confession and the
41:30 presence of many witnesses. The problem is we are always celebrating Easter because
41:38 we have a hope and the hope is for tomorrow, isn't it? But that's wrong.
41:44 Paul tells Timothy, take hold of eternal life for which you were called. You were
41:50 called, but you got to take hold of it. You can't live for tomorrow because it's
41:55 not about tomorrow. It's about today. When Jesus saves us, I'm the resurrection, which is future, and I am
42:01 the life. Life begins today. And a lot of us do not appropriate it. I remember
42:07 having a patient of mine who was so sad. He had some kidney stones and needed work at the Sububang Medical Center and
42:13 it wasn't cheap and he was he didn't want to go government service. He was really wrecked and going to try to sell
42:19 his house or do something. And you know what happened? He was so sad. He went home, kicked everything around, and you
42:26 know what he found on the drawer? Insurance policy, found his insurance policy, and he took
42:32 out his insurance policy. And he kissed it, he hugged it, he came running into my room. Ah, I got insurance policy. You
42:37 see, you could have an insurance policy. You could have eternal life, and you're keeping it tucked away. And you never
42:43 exercise it. It's like for the young people, uh uh uh uh uh uh remember Peter
42:48 Pan, you know, how could how could Peter Pan fly? If you look at James Barry's
42:54 novel, how could he fly? You're given pixie dust. Pixie dust sprinkle. He He
42:59 got pixie dust sprinkle, but he couldn't fly. You know why? You got to think happy thoughts. When you think happy
43:06 thoughts, then you appropriate the power of the pixie dust and you fly. The same
43:11 way for us, we are given eternal life. Eternal life starts now. But we've got
43:16 to dig into uh and believe in it. We've got to let go of your present life. You
43:24 got to appropriate it. You got to treasure it. And you got to persevere in it. Uh this is 7 to 10. Let me read to
43:32 you after this. He said to his disciples, "Let's go to Judea again." This is a scene just before they go back
43:38 to Judea. And and the people were gunning for Jesus Christ. He's going to kill him. And disciples said, "Why you want to go back there? They're going to
43:43 kill you." You know what Jesus said to them? uh uh disciples said to the rabbi the Jews are are just now seeking to
43:50 stone you and you couldn't dare again and Jesus answered are there not 12 hours in the day if anyone walks in the
43:56 day he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world but if anyone walks in the night he stumbles because
44:01 the light is not in him and this is actually a parable it actually tell is a
44:07 acted parable it tells you that when you're walking the only time you can
44:12 walk is in the day. In those days, God no lights at night. You can't walk at
44:19 night. So, while it is day, you better walk as much as possible. Jesus is saying to them, look, when it is time,
44:25 when it's light, whatever I do in the daytime, I can accomplish it. Which is basically Jesus is what? Bulletproof.
44:33 You can't touch him. But night will come where you cannot do any more work. And
44:39 it's the same for us. Each of us have been given what? eternal life. And no
44:45 matter what you do, God knows when you are going to die. If you're destined to be drowned, you will never be shot. It's
44:52 a fact. There's a space of time where you can act. And during this time, if
44:58 you really believe you have eternal life, good. Jesus has given you a bulletproof vest. Why aren't you acting
45:04 in it? You're acting as if you're a coward and not appropriating the eternal life. Eternal life is to be lived for a
45:10 particular purpose. It is not to be hidden away as if you don't have a bulletproof vest. Jesus said you have
45:16 eternal life. He who believes in me what will never die.
45:22 When you put you in the ground, you never really die because your Zoe eternal life goes on and on and on. He
45:29 has given you that life. So how do you act like rabbits or you're bold like lions?
45:36 This is I'm going to end with a reading from a lady who actually many many years
45:42 ago brilliant scholar decided to uh live in a very bad neighborhood. It's like in
45:49 Kalumpo you want to live in ge what's a bad neighborhood talked wrote with her
45:54 husband and she wrote this book of her own spiritual journey called a thousand
45:59 resurrection. I'm going to end the sermon with the reading. I didn't know that we would scrape by just above
46:06 poverty line for years. That I would live with people who heard voices, who spent most of their lives in juvenile
46:13 hall or in prison. Or that I would share a house with women who sold their bodies, snorted cocaine, whose
46:20 boyfriends would choke and punch them. I didn't know my children would be lead poisoned, their friends who ate our
46:25 table, our godson would not go to college with them, but would go to prison. that a little boy with no daddy
46:31 at home that would bake cookies in my kitchen and hunted snakes, my son would one day lie in the streets in a pool of
46:38 blood. I did not know that several times a week for years my husband would wake up in the night agonizing over the
46:45 whether we would be able to reach the neighborhood at all. I did not know that when I was scraped raw that Jesus would
46:51 heal me. That when I was broken that God would use brokenness and that life would spring up hope again. where it seemed
46:57 that dying and evil had gained the upper hand. I did not know I would witness a thousand resurrections. That church
47:04 members who struggled to pay the rent would adopt nieces and nephews to save them from drugaddicted parents. That a
47:12 woman in our church who saw a teenage mother roll a baby in a stroller into an empty house and abandon it there would
47:18 herself take on to raise that baby as her own and give that child hope and life. I did not know that the man who
47:25 snorted the men who snorted cocaine could get clean and love Jesus and women sexually abused by their fathers would
47:31 be healed could be healed and then could actually rescue other children and give them hope. I did not know that Muslims
47:37 from Iraq, atheists from China, Hindus from India would actually find Jesus and
47:43 would actually fill me with faith. I did not know they would become my heroes and
47:50 my friends. I did not know that they would be braided into my heart and that I would know the resurrection through
47:56 the resurrection of Christ in them. I have seen a thousand resurrections. Why?
48:02 Because through them in whom Christ works are united to the resurrection and
48:07 the life. I did not know. Paul writes, "We're afflicted in every
48:14 way but not crushed. Perplexed but not driven to despair. Persecuted but not
48:19 forsaken. Struck down but not destroyed. Always carrying the body the death of
48:24 Christ so that the life of Christ may be manifested in our bodies. For we who are always being given over the death for
48:30 Jesus' sake so that the life of Christ may be manifested in our mortal flesh."
48:36 The biggest power of eternal life in our lives is manifested when we are broken.
48:44 When we are tested, when we put ourselves, our lives on the line for the sake of the gospel. We as a church
48:51 cannot live like cowards and rabbits. We have been given an Easter gift of
48:59 eternal life. We need to appropriate it, believe in it, act on it, and let go of the things that drag us behind.
