Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Glory from the Grave | The Gospels | John 11:38–44

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Is there any hope in the face of death? Why does the grave seem to have the final word? And what does Lazarus's resurrection reveal about our own future? In today's episode, Jeff walks through John 11:38–44 and reminds us that Jesus's life-giving voice is stronger than the grave. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: John 11:38–44

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. The most significant areas of life seem to meet us at the intersection of our greatest desires and our greatest fears. They confront us with what we want most deeply and what we protect most dearly. At a fundamental level, the thing that all of us desire, the reality that we want most deeply, the reality that we want most deeply, we protect most dearly. the reality that we want most deeply is life itself. Not mere existence, but flourishing. We want that abundant life that comes from the author of life. Now, if that abundant life is our greatest

foundational desire, then our greatest foundational fear is the loss of that life. And so people strive to protect themselves from the distorting reality of death. The author Andy Crouch describes how this fear of death impacts the entire trajectory of our lives in his book Strong and Weak. He writes this, There is something deep in the human heart that knows that the last enemy to be conquered is death. Death is the last enemy, not just because it takes life, but because the fear of death prevents life.

The fear of loss has robbed our world of more life and more flourishing than any actual loss we could ever suffer. Now Crouch's point is piercing here. The fear of death prevents life. It robs us. It steals the abundant, flourishing life we were made for. even before death itself arrives on our doorstep. Death uses fear to famish the life we're meant to have with God and with each other.

And that's why so many people desire so deeply to keep their youth, to keep their ability, their intellect, their significance, and go to great lengths to protect themselves against the loss of those realities. Even those of us who seem very active and very alive can be in a kind of anxious survival mode swimming against the raging current of death's dominion. At the intersection of our desires and fears, death is a force that invades. Confronting its power makes even the most robust person feel desperate,

and then exhausted, and then hopeless. Is there any good news for us in the domain of death? This is one of the questions that's pressing into our hearts and minds as we journey through John's gospel account. And it's the question that's addressed head on in our passage today, and John chapter 11, verses 38 through 44. Here we are brought to the junction of our greatest desire and our greatest fear, and we discover the one who is greater than anything we could have imagined on our own.

In this discovery, we find salvation for the desperate, relief for the exhausted, and hope for the hopeless. As we approach God's word together, let's pause and ask for His grace to move through our time. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the gift of life and breath today, and we thank you for the gift of your word. We bring before you every part of our lived experience here and now. We bring before you our joys and our sorrows, our anxiety and our excitement, our calendars and our contingencies, all of these things that are flooding our lives today. We bring them before you. we ask you to meet us in this space.

Jesus, help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in John's gospel account. As we read your living word, may it read us and restore us to new, abundant, flourishing life with you. In Jesus' name, amen. Our passage today comes in the middle of a dramatic encounter in John. A beloved friend of Jesus named Lazarus has died. The loss of his life is met with the mourning of his sisters, Mary and Martha, and the weeping of Jesus himself. The loss of Lazarus is a powerful reminder that our lives and our world are not the way they should be.

The abundance of life has been stolen by that dominion. of death. Verse 38 begins with Jesus approaching this tomb of Lazarus, deeply moved at the loss of life before him. Now, how does Jesus respond to the dominion of death here? Let's see in the rest of our passage, picking up in verse 39. Jesus said, take away the stone. Mary, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days. Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me. 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 feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them,

Unbind him and let him go. This is an amazing, amazing passage. First, let's notice how final the domain of death seems here. Lazarus is so certainly dead that Martha is concerned about encountering the aroma of his stench, the aroma of death. And Jesus responds to Martha's comment by asking, did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? Now, this is striking and significant.

This is a really big statement for Jesus to make. Here at the intersection of our greatest desire and fear, where it seems like death reigns for good, the stench of death is just covering this scene, there's actually a glory that will arrive, a different kind of aroma, a different kind of reality. Jesus' words here remind us of his statement back in verse 4 of Chapter 11, where we recall that everything happening to Lazarus is for the sake of the glory of God and the glorifying of Jesus. this glory is the good news that we need when we feel trapped in the domain of death. It's the salvation,

the relief, the hope that we desperately need here and now. Now what does this glory look like? Let's go back to the passage. After the stone is rolled away in verse 41, Jesus cries out with a loud voice. He says, Lazarus, come out. And then as we read, in an event that defies every expectation yet fulfill, fills every longing, Lazarus, the man who died, came out. This is the glory that you and I need to see, that we need to believe in. It's the glory, it's the weight of power, the weight of love that can only happen when life comes out of death, when the raging current of death's domain is overwhelmed by the far greater glory of the author of life. Just as it was in the creation of all things,

when the voice of the author of life goes out to dead people, they cannot help but hear it, obey it, and rise again. In his commentary on John's gospel account, Don Carson notes that the authority of Jesus is so significantly powerful here that had he not specified Lazarus by name, all of the tombs would have given up their dead to resurrection life. That's how great the power, how great the love of Jesus is here.

He is the authority of the author of life. All of this is good news for people who experience and fear the immense loss of death's domain. But there is a far greater dominion. That's the hope. There's a greater dominion where our greatest fears are defeated and our greatest desires are fulfilled. This moment with Lazarus gives us a microcosm of the gospel itself. Because of Jesus, there is salvation for the desperate, relief for the exhausted,

and hope for the hopeless. Why? Well, because there is life that comes out of death. There is glory that comes from the grave. The greatest thing that meets us at that intersection of our greatest desires and fears is actually not a thing at all. It's a person. Jesus himself meets us there with his life-creating voice. Now you might be in a situation where the literal physical power of death seems far off,

yet you are living in a constant fear and anxiety about the loss of life. As Andy Crouch said, the reality of death is preventing you from having to be a constant fear and anxiety. having the abundance and the flourishing you were made for. Even though you may have many days ahead of you, your life is being robbed minute by minute. You're desperate, you're exhausted, you're hopeless. If that's you, how do you need to see the life creating power of Jesus? And how do you need to trust his voice?

When we see and hear and trust him, we're freed from the thievery of death and are able to receive every day and every moment, every breath is a gift of life, knowing that what we need for today is completely found in Jesus. Now perhaps you're in the tragic situation of facing the very literal and physical power of death itself. You know that your days are numbered, and the loss of life is not just an idea for you, it's an expectation. This moment with Jesus and Lazarus shows you the ultimate,

hope for you, a hope that goes beyond the grave. Because of his real death and resurrection, Jesus is able and willing to call you out of the grave. One day when he returns to make all things new, he will call your name just as he did for Lazarus in verse 43. And if you're trusting in him and in his glory, he will cry out to you by name. You will hear his voice. And you, like Lazarus, will obey, and you will come out into a restored life forever with him. The voice of Jesus, the king of life, is calling out. Do you hear it? Will you respond to it?

Listen as he calls you back to life. Listen as his glory comes from the grave. Heavenly Father, thank you for fulfilling your glorious promises to renew all things. Help us trust in your purposes for abundant life, both here and now and also forever. Jesus, we praise you as the one who accomplishes the great defeat of death in your resurrection. We trust you today and we long for your return where you will call us out of the grave. Holy Spirit, shape us into a people who receive every day as a gift of grace and as a people who hope in the future glory of a new heaven and new earth.

May that future glory into our hearts and our lives and our world even now. We pray all of this because of your grace, for your glory, and in your story. In Jesus' name, amen.