Sunday 3/22/15 Alive Again! (1)

Dear Father in Heaven: I love You very, very much. Thanks for taking my sins and covering them with the blood of Jesus, my dear, dear Savior. Father, thanks for a beautiful day, just beautiful. Thanks for answered prayers, Lord. Father, I give You all honor and glory for getting us through winter, and thank You for the flowers that are showing their heads in my yard. Those flowers are Indeed Alive Again. Please, Lord, be with our President, and I pray that President Obama would come to You and bow down to You and no one else. Please also be with our veterans and our current military. Please watch over them as they stand ready around the world to fight for America and to protect people and try and bring peace. Lord, please help me now with the message and then to get it dispatched. In Jesus' Name, I pray. Amen.

Good Sunday afternoon, my dear brothers and sisters. It is just a beautiful day, and after seeing snow over our lawn just this past Friday, it looks so good to see the flowers coming through the ground. Yes, they fit right in with my messages of the next few days, Alive Again. Speaking of the message, let me get to it.

Sunday: March 22, 2015: Alive Again (Day One)

John 11:17 - On His arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed home. 21 "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "If You had been here, my brother would not have died." 22 "But I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask." 23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 24 Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." 25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life, He who believes in me will live, even though he dies, 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" 27 "Yes, Lord," she told Him, "I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world." (NIV)

It is so wonderful each spring to see things as they come "Alive Again." I don't know how people can not believe in our Lord God as we all watch winter setting in and things dying off and then after record cold of a hard winter, right on schedule things come "Alive Again. All non-believers step up and tell everyone just how stupid you look and in fact really are. I think it would be harder not to believe in God than to believe in Him. Anyway, Jesus' friend Lazarus was sick and Lazarus' sisters were waiting for Jesus to come and heal Him. But as we see in scripture, until Jesus arrived His friend had passed. In fact the Word tells us Lazarus was in the tomb for four days already. Jesus goes on to tell us that if we believe in Him we will never die, never, and that's a long, long time. So after arriving at the home of Martha and Mary, Jesus is told that Lazarus has passed and was buried. Jesus then asks to go to the tomb. So Jesus was taken to the tomb.

John 11:34 - "Where have you laid him?" He (Jesus) asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied. 35 Jesus wept. (NIV)

Jesus loved His friend Lazarus and wept. Did you know that John 11:35 is the shortest verse in the Bible? "Jesus wept."

People were thinking if Jesus could open the eyes of the blind, surely if He was there He could have prevented Lazarus from dying. Let's watch as Jesus goes to the tomb.

John 11:38 - Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 "Take away the stone," He said. "But Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days." 40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" 41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that You sent Me." 43 When He said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." (NIV)

If you are like me, I try and picture things in my mind. In third grade, I had a teacher, a really sweet, very tiny lady named "Miss Allen." When she would try and teach me to spell, she would tell me to look at a word and then close my eyes and try to picture it. Well, I learned how to picture things, but I never did learn the spelling part until my classmate Patricia Wells would help me in senior high school. When I picture Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, I wonder what might have happened if Jesus had just said, "Come forth." You know, people say you save the best until last, so some sweet day Jesus will call us all home, all of us who have a personal relationship with Him. At the sound of the trumpet, will Jesus say, "Come Forth"? I am not sure of the wording, but I do know that if Jesus had said that at the tomb of Lazarus and not called him by name, all those who were dead in Christ would have come forth.

One of these days we will have a beautiful morning. May I suggest you go outside, go to your flower bed, and just talk to God and see if you might hear Him calling the flowers. Come out, pretty flowers, come out, pretty birds, come back, robins, but most of all listen to see if He is calling you. Dan, come to me, Dan, come to me. Put your name in as I have put in mine. You do have a personal relationship with Jesus, right? On that last day, will you be called forth? Are you sure? If not,will this be your day? Have you had a one-on-one with Jesus?

Brothers and sisters, I want to lead you in a sinners' prayer today, a prayer I cannot pray for you, only lead you. Now if you are Born Again, then why not use this to just clean up?

Dear Father in Heaven: I am a sinner, and today I ask You to please clean me up with the Blood of Jesus that He gave freely to me to clean me of my sins. I accept this free gift of Salvation and believe that Jesus did die for me and He was risen from the dead. I believe it in my heart and confess it to the world with my mouth. I also want to go to work for You, sharing this Good News with everyone I meet. In Jesus' Name, I ask to be cleaned and saved. Amen.

Now please go forth sharing your blessings and your love for Jesus. I love ya. Please share my love also.

Pastor Dan