Start of a Movement

The lesson is from the Gospel of John chapters 11 and 12 in which Jesus was notified that Lazarus was ill.  Yet he did not hurry to Bethany to see his dear friend while he yet lived, and Lazarus died.  Read the account.

The Lazarus Movement: a life-giving death-to-life movement.

   

God wants to send a revival --today! 

     Something amazing, something historic.   But revival, a movement of God, must always begin with the individual.

     First, God must do something real and big in our lives.

--Replacing spiritual growth with memories of the past = dying.

--Spiritually dead = given up, lost the faith, like Larazus: stinketh.  The attitude, the prayer life, the Bible reading, faith, all dead: stinketh.  Troublesome, for at this stage we may feel we are "too far gone." 

The miracle is that there is never a too-far-gone with the Grace of God.

Who would like to see the glory of God?  John 11:22 Mary said "Even now,"  i.e. Lazarus had been four days dead, "God will give You whatever You ask."

1.  Bystanders told to roll away the stone. (Help the spiritually dead to be set free.)

2. Jesus called for Lazarus to come out of the tomb.  (God acts when we are spiritually dead.)

3.  Lazarus came out.  (Action in response to God's life-giving grace.)

4.  People told to loose him and set him free.  (Believers nurture the newly-alive in Christ,  Walk with them in the good times and the bad.)  

We need to be set free.

When we let old things go, all things become new!

How many of us are actually going outside the self to minister to the needs of others?

We are sanctified by the Holy Spirit through the community of faith.

God wants to do something spectacular,

and he wants to start it with you and me.   

 Lazarus is alive!  In Chapter 12 we read of the resurrection party in which other people began to experience the resurrection.

Pastor Johnnie Blair

Sunday morning