← ArchiveSaviorFamily Day – Daniel RitchieDateApril 13, 2025SpeakerDaniel RitchieTextDanielPassages in this sermonJohn 112:14John 122:44John 2024:23John 1:124:42John 324:59Romans 626:57Ephesians 229:57Romans 1033:22TranscriptMachine transcribed. Click any line to jump there.0:00We'll be right back. Amen. Well, Bethel family, good morning. How we doing? Good. Listen, hey, my name is Daniel Ritchie. For those of you guys I've had the honor to preach for, I think this is my third time here that I've had the opportunity to come and preach at Bethel.0:30It's great to see you guys again. If you're seeing me for the first time or if you're a visitor, glad you're here. Listen, first and foremost, I don't have arms. It's okay. I know that.0:56This is not a recent development. So fear not. This is the equipment that I came with. So you have nothing to worry about. And let me encourage you, too, if you're a guest and you're here this morning, come back next week. Because Pastor Josh does come with arms and he's more engaging because he has hand motions and stuff like that while he preaches. So you guys have the unenviable task of having to deal with me this morning.1:23But we are so excited. I brought my two kiddos with me this morning who traveled with me from North Carolina yesterday. As my son likes to refer to Alabama as, this is the promised land because he is a Crimson Tide fan. And so he figured out what good college football was since we live in North Carolina. So he's been a Crimson Tide fan. So for him to make this pilgrimage and then to realize that in Leeds, there is both a Buc-ee's and a Bass Pro.1:49So he is 100% convinced this is the promised land. So congratulations to you guys who figured that out way, way before we did. Listen, if you brought a copy of God's Word with you this morning, turn with me to John chapter 11.2:14John chapter 11, we'll read verses 17 through 27 this morning. And as Pastor Josh said just to you guys a moment ago, what we celebrate today is what many within the church call Palm Sunday. And as we read through the text, this is the people of Israel truly coming to the realization that Jesus is who he says he's been saying all along the way.2:34And in John chapter 12, we get the glimpse of just finally that clicking in people's brains. But what I want us to look at this morning is in the timeline of Jesus' ministry here in John chapter 11. This is set about two weeks before Jesus enters into Jerusalem in his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.2:58What we see here in John chapter 11 is a story that for some of you may be very familiar in Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead. So what we are about to see as we celebrate on this Palm Sunday, here in John chapter 11, we get the glimpse that Jesus is going to reflect and show in power that he truly is a coming king who has the power not only over sin,3:18who has the power not only over the created order, but who also has the power over death. So a little back story as we read these few verses here in John chapter 11. In the beginning part of the chapter, Jesus gets word that his friend Lazarus is sick.3:46Lazarus and Mary and Martha is a family that Jesus knows very well. He has a great relationship with them. And so Lazarus gets desperately sick. And so his two sisters, Mary and Martha, send for Jesus because it's kind of like, you know, for those of you that maybe have a doctor in your life, somebody gets sick, you call the doctor. But for them, they don't need a doctor. They have the savior of the world that's a pretty good friend of theirs. And so they send word to Jesus, hoping that Jesus can come and heal their brother.4:15And in the beginning portions of John chapter 11, it says, Jesus receives this word that his friend Lazarus is not doing well. And he waits another two days. He gets word. He doesn't get up immediately, but he waits two days and then finally gets up, goes to Bethany where Lazarus and his family lives, only to find out that Lazarus has died. And so that's where we pick up John chapter 11, starting in verse 17.4:43So read with me John 11, verses 17 through 27. And so the word of the Lord says this. Now, when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and she met him, but Mary remained seated in the house.5:07Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been there, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. And Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. And in verse 25, Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.5:35Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who is coming into the world. Let me pray for us. Father, in these few moments, as we look at just such an amazing interaction of Martha and Jesus,5:57of the one who is the resurrection and the life, God, may we, this morning, as we look to you as our savior, our king, our hope, our life, our everything, may we, as people, even in the midst of what we have to navigate that is hard and just weighty in our life,6:20God, may we still trust you. May we still grieve in and through and around. God, just all that you have put in front of us. But God, may we be people who grieve with hope, knowing that for us in Christ, the best is yet to come. Father, we love you. We thank you. It's in Jesus' name we pray.6:49Amen. If you're taking notes this morning, there's three things that I want us to pull away from here in John chapter 11. And the first thing is this. It is a reality, I think, that I don't have to draw up very much. But the first point is death is awful. Death is awful. You see just the, you see the brokenness that's going on here. And, I mean, truthfully, if you look, if your Bibles are still open, look in verses 33 through 35.7:12And especially verse 35, I probably don't have to read that for you because especially for those of us men who don't read, that's the one verse in the Bible that we have memorized because it's two words. It is Jesus wept. Jesus wept. And why did Jesus weep? Because it's like if, as we see this interaction between Jesus and Martha, Jesus then begins to speak with Mary.7:36And finally, Jesus comes to the tomb where Lazarus is about to be raised. But as he sees all of this going about, like you see in verse 33, it says, When Jesus saw her weeping and talking about Mary, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, Where have you laid him? And they said to him, Lord, come and see.8:06Jesus wept. So here, you see a lot of grief going on. You see a lot of brokenness going on. I mean, literally, like, you look at Martha's first words to Jesus right there in verse 21. The first words out of her mouth aren't, Lord, I'm glad you're here. Lord, it's good to see you. Lord, you know, it's great to be able to just sit and break bread with you. It's none of that. First words out of Martha's mouth as soon as she locks eyes with Jesus is,8:36If you had been here, my brother wouldn't be dead. And in a lot of ways, this is not Martha being angry. This is not Martha shaking her fist at Jesus. This is Martha being broken because her brother's dead. There's a whole lot of grief and hurt. And I mean, at this point, Martha's been weeping over the death and the life of her brother now for four days. But I love Jesus' reaction to her.9:06He doesn't rebuke her. He doesn't look at her and go, woman, what are you talking about? Woman, why are you crying? Like, Jesus fully understands. And I love that you see Jesus there in verse 35. Jesus steps into the grief that this family is experiencing. And I think one of the things that for us in Christ that we have to understand is as we walk through grief in this life that is very much so a part of how we live. Jesus doesn't look at us as a bunch of ignorant and emotional people when we're broken,9:37when we're experiencing the loss of someone that we love and someone that we hold dear. Jesus enters into our brokenness. Jesus weeps with us. Jesus grieves with us. It's one of the most important lessons in ministry that I've had to learn in my life. Because, y'all, there's so many times where it's just like, in the midst of our grief,10:02there's no words we can bring to the table. There's no good advice that we can give people. There's no, like, words of solace that we can provide people. But oftentimes, the one thing we just need is just somebody to enter into our grief with us. We need somebody to suffer with us. Y'all, the first year I was in ministry, first year I was in marriage. This is a lesson that God stamped on my heart.10:30Because the four years that I was in college, my wife and I, we both worked at a camp in the mountains of North Carolina. It's where we met, where we fell in love. And so we got married the end of my senior year in college. And that whole next year following that, our first year of marriage, I stepped into youth ministry and began serving. But we still had a pretty tight relationship with the camp that we once worked at. So that following summer, a year into being gone, what had happened among that staff is one day,10:57the staff of about 150 all piled into different vehicles, drove down to Atlanta to see an Atlanta Braves game. And on their way back to camp, after watching a Braves game that night, one of those vehicles had a blowout rolled over on I-75 and all four of the occupants were ejected from the vehicle and killed.11:17And I get a call from one of my former bosses there at the camp. And they're just saying, man, there's a lot going on right now. And we just need you to come and help, come and love, come and serve. At this point in my life, I'm a 23-year-old. I'm just at fresh out of Bible college.11:45What do you go and do and say to people that have just witnessed one of the most horrific things in their life? What do you do and say? I mean, one of the boys killed was one of my best friend's little brother. And I'm sitting here going, how do I look him in the eye and say, it's okay that your brother's no longer with you? And I'm trying to walk through, like, what do I say? What do I do? And, you know, we finally get there.12:15It's a six-hour drive for us to get up there to this camp and begin seeing my friends, begin seeing my buddy, Nate, whose brother had died in the accident. And it didn't matter what I had to say. I just sat and hugged them and wept with them. And that's all I could do, just to enter into their suffering and to grieve and weep with them. I'm like, y'all, that's the biblical picture of what we see compassion is.12:41Compassion literally translated means to suffer with. And we have a God who sees our mess, who sees our brokenness, who sees the grief that we walk through in this life. And he doesn't step away from it. He doesn't look at us like we're idiotic. He enters into it and he weeps with us. He wants us to grieve and he gives us the space to do it. Church, hear me out. You might not be walking through physical loss in your life right now.13:09You might not be grieving the love of someone that you have lost. But you might be sitting in here grieving a life that you thought was going to be in a whole lot better place than you thought it was going to be right now. There might be a whole lot of grief and a whole lot of hurt and a whole lot of brokenness. But you have a God who wants you to just simply be with him and to realize it's okay to weep over that. It's okay to grieve what you have lost in this life.13:37And so for us in Christ, sometimes the best thing we can do is to just lay our hurts before the Lord. And to have a God who steps into our mess with us and loves us and weeps with us just as we see here with Mary and Martha. Second thing I want us to see from this text this morning, it is that life after death is real. Life after death is real just as much as death is awful.14:06For us in Christ, there is hope in the midst of all of that brokenness and all of that hurt and all of that death. You see in verses 22 and following, Martha is hurt just like we saw in verse 21. But I love her little like glimpse of faith that we see here in verse 22. Martha looks at Jesus and she goes, but even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.14:28In verse 23, Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. And Martha, I think like as Jesus says that, I don't think Martha even fully understands what's about to happen in the verses following as we see in the end of John chapter 11 when Jesus says, Lazarus come out. And suddenly a man who was once dead now is not and walks out of the tomb that once held his dead body, which is no longer dead.14:55The last thing that Martha expected was for that to happen. And so she's saying, she's saying there, I know in verse 24, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. But Jesus is saying, man, you're about to see, you're about to wait and see. And the beautiful thing is this, Martha was just trusting Jesus.15:24Martha knew this connection that Jesus had to the father because Jesus at this point in his ministry, word has started to spread of all of these miraculous things that Jesus is doing, that lame people are walking and blind people are seeing and all of these miracles are happening. But at this point, no dead people have become undead. In Martha's eyes, that's a pretty impossible reality. But Jesus is saying here, and as he goes on to just lay out in the rest of John chapter 11, boy, do I have something for you to see and to witness.15:52Like y'all, for us, more often than not, Jesus has plans that we don't understand and that we don't see coming. And he's just asking us to trust us in the midst of all of that. And sometimes the most godly thing we can do is just to trust God with the next 10 minutes of our life, with the next hour of our life, with the next day of our life. Sometimes the most godly thing we can do, even when we're hurt and even when we're grieving, is to go, God, I'm going to chase you for the next 10 minutes, for the next hour.16:23God, I'm just going to trust. And it's wild to watch how God blesses that sort of simplistic childlike faith. And over and over and over and over, I've seen in my life just trusting God with little, that God will open up the doors of so many more things where you see his plan unfold. Y'all, for me, back in 2019, God opened the doors for me to go on a Fox News show and to stand for the sanctity of human life.16:51And so I went on that show and I did that, and as I came back home that next day, my inbox was pretty full. You know, it's like Fox News has a pretty broad reach. And I think I had something in the neighborhood of 450 emails that had been shot my way just in less than 12 hours. And there's part of me, as a raging introvert, I didn't want to get back to all of those.17:20I didn't want to, you know, I don't want to deal with human beings that I've never met before. But I'm also realizing as, you know, to look in the rearview mirror of my life and to realize I had gone on that Fox News show to proclaim the worth and value of all human life. And for me to realize that 450 emails mean those are sent by 450 image bearers that God has formed in fashion for his glory, for his purpose.17:42And so I'm like, well, I'm a big bad jerk if I don't reply to all 450 of those emails. And so I sat for the next four days, and all I did was reply to stuff. And it was all like, it was the wide range of things, just looky-loos, people wanting to say hi to, you know, maybe people asking me to come and speak at their nonprofit or at their church.18:05Some were like literal death threats to me and my family, and some were just general questions from people. And there was this guy named James who had shot me an email, and he was just struggling with, like, the purpose of his life. He was saying he had gotten toward the end of his life, and he was just realizing it hadn't gone how he thought it was going to go.18:32He didn't think it had a whole lot of worth and had a whole lot of purpose, and he was trying to figure it out. And so we get in probably what ends up over the next week being a 20-email thread back and forth talking about just worth and purpose and just the life that God has given us. And at the very end of this email, just, you know, in me trying to be kind to this man, he sort of finishes up the email chain.19:00He's like, hey, brother, listen, I appreciated you taking all your time just talking with me and trying to encourage me. He was like, listen, I want to put you in contact with my manager just so I can say thanks. He says this, and number one, like, I normally, like, I don't like giving my cell phone number out to strangers on the internet. You know, like, that lesson wasn't ingrained in me early on in my life.19:30You know, I wasn't certain about sending this to this guy. But then when he's saying manager, I'm like, bro, you work at Old Navy? Like, you're going to get me, like, a, you know, 25% discount on jeans? Like, I didn't know what was going on. And so, against my better judgment, I send this man my cell phone number. And when, you know, by the time I'd sent the email, it was less than 10 minutes later, I get a call from a Los Angeles area code.19:53And I pick up, and this guy's like, hey, James told me to give you a call and for us to, like, link up to bringing you out to a show. And I'm like, whoa, hold on, like, what's going on? I was like, I don't, I was like, buddy, listen, full disclosure, I don't know what in the world is going on. Can you explain to me what this is all about? And he's like, oh, well, I'm the manager for James Hetfield.20:22He's the lead singer of Metallica, and he would like to bring you out to a Metallica show to say thanks. And I'm like, so wait, you're telling me this guy I've just been emailing with the whole time is, like, the dude who does all the singing on all the Metallica? Metallica stuff? And he's like, yeah. I'm like, huh. And you don't say. And so, lo and behold, we end up, like, landing on a date, and I go out to a Metallica show, and we, you know, me and one of my best friends from growing up, who is the biggest Metallica fan in the world, we go backstage and we meet the guys from Metallica.20:48And end up having more of a conversation with James while we were sitting back there backstage. And again, it's just more of his struggle of worth and life and purpose. And in that moment, as we're standing there in the green room of the Spectrum Center where the Charlotte Hornets play, I get an opportunity to share the gospel with James Hetfield and to sow the seeds of the gospel into his life.21:14Now, in that moment, did he end up, like, praying to receive Jesus as his Savior, his Lord, his King, his hope, his everything? No. But the seeds of the gospel were sowed in the life of that man by an armless redneck. Like, you know, it's just, it's the most bizarre sort of opportunity that God had set right in my lap.21:42But that conversation started in a chain of events by where I just very simply said, God, I'm going to trust you with these 450 emails. And never in a thousand years did I think that that was going to lead me to the place where I'm sharing the gospel with a guy like James Hetfield. Y'all, for us in our life, there are so many times when we say yes to God and when we trust God with this moment, with our hurt, with our gifts, with our talents, with our ability, with our very life.22:09He does things that we could never see coming. Martha never thought in a thousand years that in just a matter of minutes, her brother was going to be staring at her face-to-face alive again. That was not on her bingo card. But Jesus says, watch what happens when you just simply trust me.22:40Watch what happens when we see that, y'all, Jesus is calling us to not only trust him with our Sundays, but with all that we are. And that's the last thing I want us to see from this text this morning. It is for us to believe in the one who is life. For us, for you, for I, for everybody on this planet. The call is for us to believe in the resurrection and the life.23:05Jesus goes on to say to her in verse 25, he says to Martha, he says, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? And y'all, here in verse 27, it's one of the most just complete acts of just straight-up faith that you're going to see in the New Testament. When Martha looks at him and says, yes, Lord, I believe.23:34And she doesn't stop there. She doesn't stop in saying, I believe that you are the resurrection and the life. But she goes on to say, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who is coming into the world. Not only it's like, yeah, Jesus, do I believe you do miraculous things and you blow my mind and you're a friend of our family and you're a great person and you're a great teacher and you're all these things. No, Martha looks at Jesus and goes, you're him.24:02You're it. You're everything. You are the Messiah that for us as a Jewish people, we have waited for generations for you and for this moment. Right now, God, I believe. Y'all, that is the whole point of this whole gospel of John. Like John is written. It says this in John 20, 31, that these words are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that by believing you may have life in his name.24:23Like over and over and over, this is the drumbeat of the gospel of John, that there is one person worth building your life on and it is not you. The one person for us to build our life on that we see in the very beginning of John, John chapter one, verse one. In the beginning was the word. That word being capitalized, the word was with God. The word was God.24:53By him, all things are made. In him is life and that life is the light of the world. We see in John chapter three that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life. We see in Jesus' own words in the chapter right before this, Jesus says, I have come to give you life and life more abundant. Like y'all don't, don't miss the fact here.25:21Jesus isn't saying, I'm going to give you resurrection. I'm going to give you life. Jesus says, I, I am the resurrection. I am the life. I feel like y'all, this doesn't, this isn't Jesus pointing us to gifts. This is Jesus pointing us to the giver. This isn't us focusing on, well, God shows me mercy. God shows me love. God gives me grace.25:51God gives me strength. No, it is, I, I am love. I am grace. I am peace. I am strength. I am the resurrection and I am the life. Jesus is turning his attention to the reality that it's like, listen, what I'm about to do simply reflects the character that I already have. And I love the fact that in verse 27, Martha believes even before the resurrection happens. Martha is all in and at this point, Lazarus is still dead.26:21Jesus, I believe you. Jesus, I'm all in. Even if my brother stays stone cold dead in that tomb, I believe you're the Christ. I believe that you are the resurrection and the life. Church, is that a faith that we have this morning? Because far too often, especially in the American South, we're very content to hold Jesus as our Savior, but to not hold Jesus as our Lord. We see the mess that we're in.26:52We see the fact that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We see as Romans chapter 6 says, that the paycheck that my life has earned me is death and eternal separation from God. And so I need Jesus to save me from my sins. But here's the trap that we fall in in the American church is we confess Jesus is Lord. We come to church on Sundays. We do this whole Palm Sunday thing, Easter Sunday thing. We do this whole Christmas thing. But then we go out and we live our other 10 months of our life however we want to.27:21Or maybe best case scenario is we're good church attenders and we give and we love and we serve on Sundays. But then our other six days are on our time, pursuing our wants, pursuing our desires. And that's the difference when some see Jesus simply as Savior and not as Lord. Like, y'all, the gospel does not work like that.27:51You don't get to hold Jesus as the guy you hang out with on Sundays and then just get to put him back on your bookshelf or to put him into the corners of your life for the next six days. Either Jesus is Lord of your Sundays and Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays or Jesus is not Lord of all. Like, y'all, for some of us, we've been very content to hang out with Jesus one day or one hour a week and not any other part of our life.28:17And that's not how the gospel works. Some of us this morning, the most godly thing we can do is to trust Jesus with our Sunday mornings just as much as we trust him with our Thursday nights. To trust Jesus with our worship on Sundays just as much as we trust him with our relationships through the week. Or with our gifts. Or with our time. Or with our talents.28:47Or with what comes out of our mouth. Martha hadn't even seen the miracle yet. And she trusted God with whatever was next. Some of you this morning, you're sitting here and you're waiting on Jesus to work and move. You're waiting on some absolute miracle for Jesus to step into your mess. But, y'all, here's the reality. The gospel already shows that he's already done that.29:14Like what Jesus is doing, coming to this earth, living the perfect life we're never going to live, dying the death that we should die as someone who has rebelled against God. For Jesus to die the death on the cross just five days from now on Good Friday. For him to die the death that we should die. For him to be raised to life. To show this resurrection isn't just about Lazarus. This resurrection is his power over our lives when it comes to our spiritual death and the spiritual life that he grants us by his death and by his resurrection.29:43That is Jesus showing his power to us. Paul goes on to say this in Ephesians 2 and just painting this picture of God's power in our life. In Ephesians 2, verses 4 and 5, he says this. But God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he has loved us, even though when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, made us alive together with Christ.30:06By grace, you have been saved. Y'all, here's the good news for us. For each and every one of us in this room this morning, if you have trusted and rested in Jesus as your savior, your lord, your king, your everything, you are a walking, talking picture of a resurrected life. Because church, you were once dead in your sin and in your mess,30:32and you have been brought back to life because of the work of Christ. For those of us in this room this morning that are Christians, you are a walking, talking miracle just as much as Lazarus was. And just as much in the same way, what you go on to see in the following chapters, in the back half of John chapter 11, in the beginning part of John chapter 12, what has happened is because Lazarus is this picture of the work and the power and of the grace of God,30:58the Pharisees not only in this moment moved to kill Jesus, but they're also trying to kill Lazarus because he's this picture of what God can do in the lives of those who trust him. Lazarus was such a threatening testimony to the grace and the power of God that the Pharisees wanted to shut him up. Do you live your life in such a way that you are this picture of the power and the grace of God31:26that Satan wants nothing more than for you to shut up and get out of the way? Do I live my life in such a way that shows that truly I follow after the one who is the resurrection and who is the life? Do I live my life in such a way that I threaten the works of the kingdom of hell because the life of the Savior that I show day in and day out in what he has given me?31:54That's the level of faith and trust and life that God has called you and I to walk in. And for many of us, we've grown far too comfortable to be the people who cry Hosanna, Hosanna and then set down the palm branches once Sunday's over. As y'all heard from Pastor Josh just a few moments ago,32:23may we be the people who cry Hosanna, Hosanna even when it's not popular. May we be the people who herald the kind and loving and coming and reigning king even when it's not popular. May we be people that show the power and life and resurrection of the Savior that we follow with everything that we do day in and day out. That is the call that Jesus has set on your life.32:51And so this morning, there may be some of us in here who need to take that next step of faith. There are some of us in here that realize I've sinned and I've missed the mark that God has set for me in my life. I need Jesus to be in my life. I need Jesus to resurrect my sinful, broken, spiritually dead self and bring me to life by his work and by his cross.33:13Y'all, the promise of scripture is this in Romans chapter 10. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Some of you this morning need to take that step of faith. Some of you just very simply, in a moment when we stand in worship, some of your pastors will be up here at the front.33:36I know it might be super intimidating and super sketchy. But some of you this morning just need to come up to one of these guys and grab them by the hand. Just ask them what it means to be saved. Ask them what it means to see Jesus as the Savior and Lord of your life.34:01If that's you, I know walking up here seems super intimidating, but there is no greater decision that you will make in your life. Than to see this Savior as your resurrection and as your life and as your Savior and as your King. Church, just as much this morning. For those of us who have already made that confession, my challenge is does your life reflect that reality?34:26Do you live your life in such a way in which the kingdom of hell is threatened by how you live, how you speak, and how you worship? May we be people that live in such a way where Satan wants nothing more than for us to shut up. May we be people that live and reflect this King who is the resurrection and who is the life.34:51Let me pray for us. God.← Previous in SaviorSavior: Salvation – Foretold and Finished (John 1:1; 19:28)Next in Savior →Easter – The Savior’s VictoryMore sermons on Daniel →
