G'day everyone.

Dave here.

Welcome to stories of a faithful God for kids.

Did you know you can tell how important people

think something is by what they do to make it happen?

Like eating.

Most of the time you probably don't even think

too hard about eating.

But if you don't get to eat, if you haven't

had food for a long time, you're gonna start making noises like.

And you're gonna start saying things like mu, I'm so hungry.

And if it goes on even longer, you'll probably start making life hard for everyone around you

until you get food.

You'll be like, feed me.

Feed me.

Because eating food is really important.

Or what about going to the bathroom? If you really need to go, you're going to do

things to make sure it happens.

Maybe you're going to run as fast as you can

to the bathroom.

Maybe you're going to cross your legs and hop

along until you get there.

Maybe you'll make someone who's really big and

fast carry you there.

Other things aren't so important, like eating

asparagus.

Even if you like asparagus, if you don't have

it for a while, you're probably not going to do a whole lot to make sure you eat asparagus.

What about believing in Jesus? How important is that?

If it is important, what would you do to help someone believe in Jesus?

More importantly, what will Jesus do to help people believe in him?

Well, we're about to find out.

Get ready for our next episode of stories of a

faithful God for kids.

At the end of our last story, things were

totally weird because Jesus loves his disciples and Mary and Martha and Lazarus.

He'd let Lazarus die.

He hadn't traveled down to heal him.

Even weirder, now that Lazarus has died, Jesus wants to travel down to him now.

Even weirder, Jesus said before that Lazarus sickness will not end in death.

But now he's dead.

Even weirder, the town where Lazarus died,

Bethany, is just down the road from Jerusalem where people want to kill Jesus.

So why would Jesus want to go to a town near where people want to kill him?

To see a guy who can't be healed anymore.

And how's that?

A way of showing love and care to people.

And why did Jesus say that Lazarus wouldn't

end up dead? This needs checking out.

Jesus gets to Bethany and he discovers that Lazarus dead body had been in the tomb for

four days in Mary and Martha's house.

Lots of people have come from Jerusalem to

help Mary and Martha in their sadness.

I know Jerusalem where lots of people want to

kill Jesus anyway.

Martha hears that Jesus is on his way and she

goes out to meet him.

Mary stays at home, though.

Now remember, Martha's brothers just died.

Jesus could have healed him.

He chose not to come.

How do you think Martha's feeling about Jesus?

Surprisingly, she still trusts him.

She says to Jesus in verse 21, lord, if you

had been here, my brother would not have died.

But I know that even now God will give you

anything you ask.

That sounds really good, doesn't it?

It sounds like she really believes in Jesus.

And so Jesus replies with some good news.

He says to her, your brother will rise and live again.

Whoa, that's a big thing to say.

And if Martha's right that God will give Jesus

anything he asks, then Jesus could ask right now.

And Lazarus will rise again right now.

Unfortunately, even though Martha said those

words, she doesn't fully believe them yet.

She doesn't actually think that Jesus can

raise Lazarus to life right now.

But she does know God's promise that at the

end of the world, God's people will be raised to life.

So she assumes that that's what Jesus is talking about.

She says in verse 24, I know that he will rise and live again in the resurrection on the last

day.

Resurrection means coming back to life.

But Jesus wants her to know and believe that she doesn't have to wait until the last day of

the universe because something wonderful has happened.

Some one wonderful has arrived.

Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the

life.

He who believes in me will have life even if

he dies.

And he who lives and believes in me will never

die.

I know this is huge.

If you remember back to the last episode, Jesus didnt want to say that Lazarus was dead.

He said hes sleeping.

And the big difference between sleeping and

death is that you can wake up from one of those.

Jesus is saying he has the power of life, the power to wake up someone whos died.

And he will wake up anyone who believes in him.

That makes believing in him really important.

It's the difference between life and death,

the difference between living forever and dying forever.

So Jesus looks at Martha and asks Martha, do you believe this?

And she replies, yes, lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God.

You are the one who is coming into the world.

That's so good.

It's great that she believes in Jesus, except just like she said good words before, that she

didn't fully believe.

Even now she doesn't fully believe Jesus.

We'll see that in a little bit.

Anyway, Martha heads back to the house and

calls her sister Mary aside.

She tells her that Jesus wants to see her.

So Mary runs out of the house.

The rest of the people in the house remember

there's a big crowd who've come to be with Mary and Martha.

They see Mary run out.

They don't know where she's going, but they

assume she's going to the tomb where Lazarus's body is.

So they all decide to follow her.

When Mary gets to Jesus, she seems angrier

than Martha was.

She falls down at his feet and says, lord, if

you had been here, my brother would not have died.

Its like shes saying, why didnt you come? You could have saved him.

I mean, imagine an ambulance turning up four days after someones died.

Itd be like, wow, you could have helped a few days ago.

Now youre pretty useless.

Except Jesus is not an ambulance.

Jesus has more power than an ambulance.

The problem is, no one seems to believe that.

Jesus looks at her crying.

He looks at all the crowd that's followed her.

They're all crying too.

They all go to the tomb where everyone's

crying.

And then Jesus cries as well.

Some of the Jews look at Jesus and they're amazed.

They're like, wow, see how much he loved Lazarus.

He's in tears.

Other people, though, are shocked for another

reason.

They're more thinking, love Lazarus.

Love Lazarus.

If he loved Lazarus so much, tell me this.

How come he didn't heal him? In verse 37, they say, if Jesus healed the

eyes of the blind man, why didn't he keep Lazarus from dying?

And that's a great question.

Why didn't Jesus stop Lazarus from dying?

And while we're at it, whys he even crying? He let Lazarus die.

Well, feeling very sad and a bit angry, Jesus and the crowd arrive at the tomb.

Theres a big stone rolled in front of the tomb, which is made out of a cave.

Jesus says, move the stone away.

I know this is so awkward.

Imagine going to a cemetery where dead bodies are buried and saying, ah, just dig up all the

soil so we can see the coffin.

Who would say that?

Who would do that? It's so weird.

Everyone's standing around thinking, did he just say that?

Finally, Martha says something that's pretty gross but true.

It's something you don't really want to have to think about with your dead brother.

She says in verse 49.

But lord, it's been four days since he died of

there will be a bad smell.

And that's when you see she doesn't actually

believe that Jesus can give her brother life.

In fact, no one there believes it.

All they're thinking about is that in the tomb, there's a dead body, and that's the end

of it.

And this is what's making Jesus so sad.

He is ready and able to give life, eternal life, to whoever believes in him.

But none of these people do believe in him.

They believe something about Jesus.

They believe that he's really good.

They believe that God sent him.

But they still don't trust him as the one to save them from death, which is so sad, because

he's the only one who can save us from death.

Jesus is the one who gives eternal life.

If you don't believe in him, you're dead.

Which is why Jesus has let this all happen.

It's why he let Lazarus die.

He needed to show Mary and Martha and Lazarus

and all the crowd and all his disciples and even us, that he has the power to give life,

that if we believe in him, we'll have eternal life.

Jesus is trying to save everyone's life.

He loves these people, and so he's set up this

situation so that they can believe.

And to do that, he had to let Lazarus die.

Or perhaps a better way to say it is he let Lazarus fall asleep.

Because Jesus has come to do something no one else can do.

Jesus has come to wake him up.

Jesus says to Martha in verse 40, didn't I

tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?

Glory is greatness.

They're going to see how great God is.

They're going to see how great Jesus is.

So they open the tomb.

And Jesus prays again in his prayer, you can see what Jesus wants.

He wants people to believe in him.

In verse 41, Jesus prays.

Father, I thank you that you heard me.

I know that you always hear me, but I said

these things because of the people here around me.

I want them to believe that you sent me.

Then he calls out in a loud voice, Lazarus,

come out.

What a strange thing to do.

As if dead people can hear you.

As if a dead person is going, what was that?

What's happening? The people look at the tomb.

Suddenly they see a hand covered in cloth.

Then an arm, then a head and a body.

Suddenly, there's Lazarus.

His hands and feet are wrapped with pieces of

cloth, and he has a cloth around his face.

The dead man just walked out of the tomb.

Jesus has made him alive.

He really is alive.

And Jesus says to the crowd, take the cloth off him and let him go.

Way back.

At the start of all this, Jesus had said that

Lazarus sickness will not end in death.

Lazarus died, but that wasn't the end.

It ended with Lazarus being raised back to life.

This is why Jesus waited.

This is why it was so important for Jesus to

wait.

This is why it was so loving for Jesus to

wait.

He needed to show everyone that he really can

give people life.

He wanted to save our lives and their lives by

helping us to believe in him.

Because just like Jesus said, whoever believes

in him will have life even if you die.

And whoever lives and believes in Jesus will

never, ever really die.

And so I'll ask you the same question that

Jesus asked Martha.

Do you believe this?

In Jesus day? Lots of people saw Jesus power and they

believed.

But not everyone.

But thats a story for next time.

Hey Im really excited about the new stories of

a faithful God kids club.

Check out the trailer in the show notes.

Sign up to be a member.

Its going to be lots of fun.

I hope to see you there.

Keep trusting Jesus.

Bye for now.