Let's take our Bibles and turn to John, chapter 11, to the second half of this chapter that we began to look at with Pastor Mewler last week. What Bible scholars call the penultimate miracle, that's not a word we use very much, although it's found its way back into our vocabulary because of Apple computers. They have just produced what they call the penultimate application, penultimate iPod. It's a new handwriting device, version 301, that's come out. Penultimate actually means next to last, it comes from two Latin words, pain A, which means almost. And Ultimus, the last or final one, so what iPod is saying is this penultimate application is not the end, there'll be another one. There'll be version 302 and then 303 and you'll have to spend $99 each time just to stay in the ultimate application of the computer. Is that good news? Well, this is the penultimate miracle. But it has an end. It's the next to the last great miracle. The resurrection of Lazarus is next to the greatest of all miracles, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ himself. In fact, it's a picture of Christ's resurrection, it's a foreshadowing of that. And that's why Bible scholars and commentaries call this the penultimate or next to the greatest, next to the last, next to the ultimate miracle. If the signs of Jesus Christ are designed to tell us who he is and what he does for us and they do. And if John is organized, his apostolic gospel around seven signs which he has, then this seventh one is the climax. And it points to the ultimate thing, no pun intended, the ultimate thing that God and Christ will do for us. I came that they might have life, not death, that they might have life and have it abundantly. I and the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me will never die. That is what Jesus Christ says in this little story. He talks about the ultimate work of God, which is to bring us out of darkness, into light, out of death, into life, out of this world and into his kingdom in heaven. And it is so significant that when Paul begins his greatest epistle of all Romans, he says that Jesus Christ was declared to be the son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead. Christ's resurrection from that is the ultimate proof that Jesus Christ is God. Jesus had said earlier, just as the Father has power in Himself to give life so the Son of God can give life to whomever He wishes. And He chooses here to give it back to Lazarus. And in a matter of a week, He will give it to Himself as He will raise Himself from the grave. This miracle comes at a tremendous point in Jesus Christ's life, His last turning point. If you notice at the end of chapter 10, the book of signs is coming to an end. Look in verse 40. He went away again across the Jordan to a place where John had been baptizing it first, and there he remained, and many came to Him. And they said, John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man is true, and many believed in him there. So this steady stream of signs, this turning of a few loaves and fishes into a massive amount of food to feed the masses, walking on water, healing people, turning water into wine, making a man's legs straight and doing all of these marvelous things, they are proof. That Jesus is who He says He is, and He can do what He promises to do. And here He gives us the greatest of all promises. I am the resurrection in the life. Whoever believes in me, though He die, yet shall He live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? That's what Christ asks us in this passage. Are we able to believe in Him as the resurrection in the life? Or again, perhaps put another way, do we believe that the words that He speaks are proven that they are vindicated, that they are exemplified by His works? And Jesus Christ do something to show us that He is the resurrection of the life. He said He was the bread of life, and then He fed thousands of people with some crumbs. He said He was the light of the world, and He made a blind man see. He said He was the way and the truth and the life that no one could walk into God's presence except to Him, and then He walked on water. And one miraculous sign after another to vindicate Himself and to prove that He is what He says. And now He says, I am the resurrection in the life. He's closing out a chapter of His life. The chapter of miracles and signs and wonders worked among the people so they would be drawn to Him and believe in Him. And He's opening up a new book in His life. Not the book of signs, but the book of suffering. He's about to take away the power of death in His own death and give us eternal life in His own resurrection, and He gives us a miracle. A taste of glory divine, as the hymnbrider said, to prove that these things are so. We at Christ covenant have a need for this now. It's only been 19 days since young Evan Wolf left us rather suddenly. His death stunned the young people who were His friends, His colabers and seek the city and rocked the parents of the whole congregation. Their deepest fears were realized that even their precious children are not insulated against this horrible thing called premature death. It tested the pastoral skills of your staff. I don't think I have ever had a more difficult week in 30 years of ministry. It has rearranged the lives of many people. We will never be the same after June 21st, 2011, than we were before. How precious it is that when we began the study of John, our sovereign God knew we would be in this chapter, the two Sundays after that incident. Isn't God good to us? Amen. And here, once more, the miracles of Jesus bring together two great themes. Look again at the beginning of chapter 1. Would you flip back to chapter 1 as the themes of Christ's life in ministry, as the themes, the two themes of this gospel introduced, they are the themes of light and life. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. In the beginning with God, all things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness is not able to overpower it. Or it can be translated, the darkness is not able to resist it. Here are the two great themes of Christ's life and ministry, of the gospel, life and light. Jesus stands in the face of death, looking into a grave and promises us even in spite of death, He will give us a life that cannot be snuffed out. And there is no place darker than the tomb, and Jesus looks into the tomb, the tomb of Lazarus, and He penetrates it with the marvelous light of His divine being. The Jews had turned against Jesus Christ by this point. When He said, I and the Father are one, it says that they wanted to stone Him so, in chapter 10, verse 40, He goes away. He goes to the other side of the Jordan, not opposite Jericho, but opposite his hometown of Nazareth, in a place called Betania, near a town called Bethany Beyond the Jordan, where John had been doing most of his baptizing. And chronologically, as Stephen ran through this last week, let's review this, let's get up to the point of the miracle itself, here's what unfolded. While he was there in Bethany Beyond the Jordan, not to be confused with Bethany, next to Jerusalem, there's two Bethany's in Israel, Bethany, next to Jerusalem, and Bethany Beyond the Jordan, way up in the north, next to Galilee. He was preaching and teaching there with His disciples, and so people came to Him and said that your best friend Lazarus is sick. Look at chapter 11, verse 1. Now, a certain man was ill, Lazarus the Bethany, in the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who had anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill, so they sent to Him saying, Lord, the one you love is ill. But Jesus says, don't worry, he's not going to die because he's sick, he's going to die because it will bring glory to God. But when Jesus heard this, He said, this illness does not lead to death, it is for the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. And so he purposefully remains there two days. He waits, it says in verses 5 and 6, not because he didn't care about Lazarus and his sisters, look what it says, Jesus loved Martha and her sister in Lazarus. So when he had heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was why in order to give Lazarus the chance to die. And then he said, let's go to Bethany and raise Lazarus from the dead, verse 7. Then after this, he said to disciples, let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to him, rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you and you are going there again. Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. After saying these things, he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep but I go to awaken him so the disciples said, in Lord if he has fallen asleep, he will recover. Now Jesus had spoken of his death but they thought that he meant taking rest and sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. And for your sake, I am glad that I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him. Thomas, the one we always disown because we call him the doubter was actually the most courageous of them all. He says, well if we are going to go to Jerusalem, it is a good place to die with a master. Look what he says in verse 16. So Thomas called the twins, said to his fellow disciples, let us go that we may die with him. Took them four days to walk a hundred miles from Bethany beyond the Jordan to Bethany of Judea. Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb 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. The younger sister, Mary, was so grieved and quite frankly so irritated that Jesus had been late. That she did not come out of the house when Jesus arrived, verse 20. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha scolds Jesus Christ. She says in verse 21, Lord, if you had been here on time, my brother would not have died. But at the same time, the woman has faith. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection in the life. Whoever believes in me, though he died, yet shall he 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. What tremendous faith in the hour of tragedy. So she goes and gets Mary and says, Jesus says, come, verse 28. When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary saying, in private, the teacher is here. It's calling for you. When she heard us, she rose quickly and went to him. Now, Jesus did not yet come into the village. It was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly to go out. They followed her supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Mary greets Jesus with the same statement that her sister did. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. That's always the case when there's a death. There's always the great if. If we had only been a little more careful. If only the doctor had gotten here sooner. If only I had been more responsible. If only this, if only that. Sometimes it's just nothing more than if only I had had the chance to say goodbye. There's always an if when death comes upon us suddenly. And Jesus takes that if away. When they say, Lord, if you had been here, if you had been on the job, if you had been doing what God should be doing, if you really loved us, if Lazarus really meant something to you, you would have come quickly. And Lazarus would not have died. That's the fact. And Jesus doesn't back away from that truth. He just says, well, let's see. I want us to see two things this morning. First of all, that Jesus loves us in our distress. And Jesus gives us life in our death. First, the love of Jesus Christ for us in our distress. Look at verse 33. When Jesus saw her weeping 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? They said to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. So that you said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying? Fair question. Lazarus, Martha Mary, were really closer to Jesus Christ than his own family were. In fact, this little house in Bethany was where Jesus Christ stayed often and over and over again when he was in his missions in Judea and around Jerusalem. One commentator said after Jesus left his natural home, at the age of around 30, to enter into his public ministry, we never read if him returning again to that home for rest and relaxation. It was to the warm hospital home in Bethany where he retired for he loved the three who lived there. Martha and Mary and Lazarus and in that order, which is something that we do not read concerning his own brothers and sisters and his own home in Nazareth. This was Jesus Christ home the way from home. These were the three people into whose fellowship Jesus found rest and refreshment and encouragement. These people meant a lot to Jesus Christ. So when he shows up to find out what's going on with the family, he is met by an entourage of a Jewish funeral. Now, the law was that even a poor family had to hire at least two flute players and one professional wailer for a funeral. They had professional wailing women. They paid a money. And when Jesus Christ saw Martha and Mary, these women cranked it up. That's what they were paid to do. They wept and they wailed and, of course, Martha and Mary were weeping and wailing because they were sincere. The other people were not and when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews would come with her also, he was deeply moved in the spirit and greatly troubled. Now listen, we don't like the way this particular text reads in the Greek because it doesn't say that Jesus was deeply moved and was troubled. It says that he was angry and he was upset. The word here is emberama omai. It's used of a horse, a war horse, that snorts an anger. It means to be indignant, to be angry, to be outraged. It means to explode in wrath. It means that Jesus Christ was angry in his spirit and the word Tarasso means to be stirred up to the point of being disconcerted. Jesus Christ was angry and he was agitated in his spirit. Now, what was he angry about? You say, Pastor, that's an unappropriate emotion at the point of death. I beg to differ loved ones. I think it's a very natural sentiment in the midst of a tragic death. The night that Evan died and I was in the gym with all these young people, one little high school girl came up to me. She put her head on my chest and she said, Pastor can I ask you a personal question? I said sure, sweetheart, what is it? She said, do you ever get angry with God? I said all the time. She said, well, I love God and I love Jesus. But I'm mad at God tonight. He could have stopped this. And I said, he could have. And I'm upset too. It's part of grieving. We go through stages of grieving. And these people, including Jesus Christ, are growing through stages. You say, who is he mad at? He's not mad at the professional whalers. Although he probably thinks that's a waste of money and is ridiculous. He's not mad at Martha and Mary. He certainly not ticked off at Lazarus. You know what he's angry about? He's angry about sin. He's angry that the wages of sin have been paid once again. He's angry at his enemy. His arc enemy. The father of death, he talked about in chapter 10, who was a liar and a murderer from the very beginning. He's upset because of what mankind has become in the fallen state of sin. I remember being in seminary in Columbia, a biblical seminary down in South Carolina, when a young man named Chester Bitterman, a young guy with a wife and three little children who were the end of age of five, who was a missionary in Columbia, South Carolina, was captured by some terrorist and he was murdered. I remember the chapel service we had. It was an emergency chapel that we would call to. And I remember all of the people weeping and crying. And I remember feeling angry that this had happened. And then I remember the president of our seminary in college. Their Robertson Lukulkins stood up and I'll never forget the way he prayed. He said, oh, Lord God, with tears coming down his cheeks. Oh, Lord God, because Chester Bitterman had been an alumnus of Columbia Bible college. We didn't know him, but Dr. McQuilkin did. He said, oh, Lord God, look at what we have become and have pity on us. Look what we have become. We send a missionary to people to talk about eternal life and the love of God and forgiveness and they kill him. We send the Son of God into the world. And the people weeping on this day in the next two weeks would say, is blood beyond us and on our children crucify him and they would kill the Lord of life. Look what we have become. When it says that Jesus wept, John does not use the standard word for weeping. He doesn't use the word that means to wail like the women who were pired for the funeral. He uses the word duckruo, which means to sob silently. Jesus Christ looks at all the people devastated by death. He looks at the world and snared by death. He stares into this tomb and he thinks of what will happen to him, that in a matter of just a few days he will go to the cross. God will forsake him for a time. The weight of sin will come crushing upon his shoulders. The wrath of God will impale him to a cross and kill him. And the one who was never intended to die will embrace death in its fullness. And he puts down his precious head, softly, quietly sobs, oh Lord God, look at what has become of us. But his weeping does not have the last word. He believes that God will answer his prayers. He knows that these people are going through a grieving process. And you know, folks, so are we. It's good for you to know, I think, what the standard grieving process entails. There are, we're taught in seminarian and counseling courses. The usual seven steps to grief. Step number one is that we are in shock, in horror, in denial. This can't be happening. It's the initial reaction when we get the bad news of someone's death. And then it's followed by step number two, profound grief, wailing of soul and weeping. Sometimes uncontrollably. There's the reproach of self. If only I had done this, if only I had been there, if only whatever. And then step four, we are angry. We're angry at God. Why did you let this happen? We're angry at others. Who's to blame? Mostly we're angry about life. Why does it have to be this way? Step five, we question. Lord, if you had been there, my brother would not have died. Lord, if you had interjected yourself, this would not have happened. And then we break through the darkness. Step six is we reconcile ourselves to reality. Our loved one is gone. And we have to move on. And step seven, which is only known by a Christian, is we find hope in healing based upon the love of God and the power of Jesus Christ for God so love the world that he gave to death. He gave to the tomb his only son so that whoever believes in him would not perish in the tomb. But would have eternal life. I don't know what stage of grief you're in. Some people move faster through these stages than others. I tend to move through them rather quickly. Other people take a longer time. But the world settles for stage six. This is the way life is. It stinks. But we just got to move on. The Christian says, no, there's more than that. There is life. The last word is never death in Jesus Christ. The last word is always life. And as always hope that's why Paul says, we do not grieve like those who have no hope. Why? Because we experience the love of Jesus Christ in our distress. And we experience the life of Jesus Christ in our death. Here comes the good part of the story. This is what I call a goose bump passage. Because you can't read this without having a tingle in your spine and a prickling on your skin and you're impressed by the power and love of God as Jesus Christ raises his friend from the dead. Lazarus comes from the Greek word lossar which means to help. And Lazarus is actually a Greek form of leazar which means he whom God helps. Now God will help Lazarus. And notice what he does. First, he gives a command in verse 38. He tells them remove the stone. Then Jesus deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and the stone lay against it. And Jesus said, take away the stone. The Greek actually reached Jesus commanded. Take away the stone. Remove that object that separates the dead sinner from the living Christ. Take it away. What is that stone? It seals off our view of something that is disconcerting a dead loved one. But it's more than that. It symbolizes that which keeps us from God the source of our life. Remove their sins. Jesus will say in the cross, father forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Take away. Roll away. Rock of offense so that the life of God through Jesus Christ might flow into them. And they might live again. I think it's interesting that when John begins his resurrection story in chapter 20, here's what he says. Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb. Roll away the stone from Lazarus. Roll away the stone from Jesus Christ. The difference is Jesus asked men to roll away the stone from Lazarus. In chapter 20 he rolls it away himself. He sends angels from heaven to roll it away. Jesus Christ will resuscitate Lazarus. He will raise him from the grave. Heaven will resurrect Jesus Christ and give him eternal life again. The second thing he does is he reinforces his promise in order to reinforce our faith. Martha the sister of the dead man said, Lord, look, by this time there will be an odor, a stench, free has been dead for four days. Jesus said, did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God so they took away the stone? Jesus reminds Martha and Mary of the promise that he's the resurrection. He reminds the apostles that this illness is not into death but for the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified. How many times does Jesus Christ have to remind us that he is the resurrection of the life, that the glory of God is manifested in our coming to life at the resurrection? How many times every time we attend a funeral? Every time we face death, every time we look into the jaws of the grave, we are reminded that Christ has the last word. Thirdly, Jesus prays. And he prays so that all people will hear him. You know, we only have, this is interesting. For as many times in the Bible that it references Jesus praying, there are only three times where we know what he prayed. The Lord's prayer, when he told us how to pray, the high priestly prayer at the last supper, and this prayer, look what he prays in verse 41. Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me. What an amazing statement. I know that you always hear me when I pray. There's no doubt that you will give to the Son whatever he asks. In fact, in a few weeks at the last supper, Jesus would say to the disciples in that upper room, my Father always gives me whatever I ask. Therefore, I will give you the Spirit that the Father may give you whatever you ask in my name. And then he commands Lazarus to come alive. When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice. Lazarus, come out. The man who had died came out. His hands and his feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with cloth. Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. I want you to know his two things here. Jesus speaks specifically to Lazarus. He doesn't look into this family tomb where there's many people buried and say, come out, they'd all come out. Everyone up. They were all waiting for that. But he had said earlier that he was a good shepherd who called the sheep by name and they followed him. He said in chapter 5 that there was some who would still living there who would hear the Son of God's voice and see people come out of the grave. And that's exactly what he does. That stole his road away. He peers in the darkness. He says, Lazarus, come out. Notice the second thing. He doesn't say, come back. Unlike Jesus Christ, whose soul had separated from his body. Lazarus' soul had remained. He did not bring Lazarus back from heaven. That is not a blessing. Evan Wolf does not want to come back with us. Lazarus had he been in heaven. Lazarus come back. The grave will have said, no, thank you Lord. He says, Lazarus, come out. Come out of that dark tomb and come back to us for a season. You know what that tells me and you? That tells me that when we die, we are numbered in a book. That's what the Bible says. There's a book of life in heaven and our name is written in it. And when Jesus comes back at the second coming, He will call us by name and tell us our bodies to come out of the tomb and come back to our souls that we might be glorified. And the amazing thing is that Lazarus obeys. He wakes up from what is a soul sleep, a nap, just what Jesus said. He was asleep. And he enters the realm of the living once again. This is a marvelous story. And this one that we need at this time in our life is family here in the church. And we need to kind of do a gut check. We need to ask ourselves, first of all, do we believe in Jesus Christ as the resurrection and the life? I know a lot of people believe in Jesus Christ for a lot of things. But Paul said, if we believe in Jesus Christ only in this life we are of all men most to be pitted. For Jesus Christ did not raise from the dead. Then you are still in your sins and you have no hope. It's one thing to believe that Jesus will forgive us. It's another thing to believe that Jesus loves us or that Jesus will promise to help us with all of our ups and downs in life. It's another thing to believe that when we die, Jesus will call us my name. And we will come back. You believe that? That's the gospel. I am the resurrection and the life. Death cannot hold me. And therefore if you are in me by faith, death will not hold you. We need also to be reminded that we hope in Christ in the face of death because we do not grieve as those who have no hope. In reality, folks, even though it does not feel like this, I need to say this. I am preaching to myself as much as I am preaching to you. For the person who is a believer in Jesus Christ there is no such thing as a tragedy. Word does not apply to us because all things are under the sob and control of God who causes all things to work together for our good. I will tell you what tragedy is to go through all of your life without Christ and die in eternity without Christ. That is a tragedy. But for us there is no such tragedy. We have hope even in the midst of what makes the rest of the world hopeless. This powerful enemy, the last to be vanquished, Paul says, this thing called death. Here's a third question for you. Does Jesus Christ know you by name? Are you one of His disciples? Are you, as He said in chapter 10, one of the sheep of His fold? Are you written in the book of life because you have surrendered to Jesus Christ and you follow Him? I am not interested about what you believe. You can believe a lot of things about Jesus Christ. But when Jesus Christ calls us to repentance in faith, He says, follow me like a shepherd who wants sheep to follow Him through the valley of the shadow of death into the light and life of eternal home in heaven called the city of God. Fourthly, if Jesus Christ called your name into your tomb, would you recognize His voice? Do you follow Him now? Day in and day out has an exercise of following Him on the great day when He calls you to come forth and go be with Him. And finally, as you grieve today, how do you grieve? Listen to Paul, brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus Christ, God will bring us with Him and those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by the Word of the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not proceed those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command and the voice of the Archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive who are left will be caught up together with Him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and we will always be with the Lord, therefore comfort one another with these words. Folks, that is just as certain to happen as the events of this moment are happening now. I don't know when, I pray, it would be sooner than later, I'd be glad if it happened after I finish my sermon. But someday, when we're going about our business as usual, all of a sudden the sky will open up and there will no longer be a veil to make the invisible kingdom of heaven invisible anymore, we will see heaven and earth connected like they really are. We will see Jesus Christ on a great white horse and all of his angels and saints following in like an army addressed in white. The Archangel Michael will blow a trumpet that will cause everything on the earth to be silent. And then Jesus Christ will give the command, saints of the earth, rise up. And that graveyard over there, just a quarter a mile from us, there will be graves that will open up and Evan Wolf and other believers' body will rise up from the ashes and come together and they will shoot up into the air where they will be met by this glorious soul, clothed in white and they will be glorified in body and soul. And we who are not yet dead will be standing there saying, I can't believe this. And then all of a sudden we will shoot up and Paul says in the twinkling of an eye, we will go from a person encased in death to a glory that is invincible, eternal, imperishable, like that. But there will be people left behind who will say on that day, you know, I just never believe this. I never believe that anything was stronger than death. They will agree for the rest of their lives, for eternity, as those who have no hope. I don't want that to happen to you or to me. I want that hope now. We need it now. And I want Jesus to come back and call every one of us by name and take us home to where death will never be again. Listen to Peter. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, who by God's power of being guarded through faith, for salvation yet to be revealed in the last time. In this you now rejoice, though, for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the testing of your faith might prove it to be genuine, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, and you may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. For though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him, and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining is the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. What a marvelous statement about Christian faith, and though you have never seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, you rejoice with joy inexpressible, full of glory, because you know there is a day in the future, when Jesus would come back and call you by name, come forth to me and die no more. Let's pray. Father, we are never as outdone as we are when we face death in all of its finality and its fate and its darkness, it seems to be the invincible force of this world. Yet we find today a reminder again that that is not so, that He who is the life and light of the world is greater than even our great enemy, Satan, and His greatest weapon, death through sin. We do love you, Father, and we love Jesus Christ for all that He went through to win for us an eternal life. We thank You that He weeps with us in our sorrow, that He aches for what we have become. Yet He acts on our behalf. It does not just feel He does. What He does for us is to save us by name individually. To reserve our bodies in a grave for a sacred day, when they shall be rejoined with our souls and we will be as we were created to be, glorious and sinless and blissful in body and soul, that He writes our names in a book on the fateful day, when history and eternity meet, He comes and calls us by name to come to Him and be born again to an eternal life. Father, there are people in our congregation this morning who don't know this Jesus and they don't have this hope because they have not trusted Him. They are not His sheep. Their names are not in the book of life. And yet you have left this season in which death seems to prevail as a time when we can come to you. We can repent of unbelief and worldliness. We can focus on the things of eternity, of a world that is without end, not like this world. We can receive the gift of eternal life through surrender and faith to Jesus Christ. And I pray that you would give your spirit even now to those who doubt and who do not believe that they might be born again with this living hope and find comfort in Jesus Christ now and at the hour of our death. For this we pray and ask for our good but also for the glory of Jesus Christ, the glorious name in which we pray. Amen.