The way up is to go down, which is a theme consistent with scripture, Pastor Troy Murphy said during his message on Sunday, June 9.

Seeds have to die in order to produce life. Soldiers go through boot camp in order to build themselves up. Jesus died in order to bring life.

Taking the downward way is not easy. None of us wants to experience a death, a change, a trial, an adversity. Yet going through those things makes us stronger, wiser, better.

In his message Troy examined the miracle of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11: 1-41), another example of death leading to life. Here are nine key points from the message:

1-Life comes through death. So much of what we long for in this life, we want it quick and easy on a silver platter. Yet most of the things that are good in life, that bring us life, have to experience a death.

To grow in Christ and to find that sense of joy and rootedness in your faith, something has to die inside of you. We are called to die to ourselves in order to elevate Jesus. We must experience some death now to experience deeper joy later.

Spiritual growth means something has to die and get burned up so God can do something new.

2-Life comes on God’s timing. Jesus didn’t rush to Lazarus’ side when he heard he was sick. In fact, Jesus said that Lazarus was dead and he was glad he wasn’t there. That sounds harsh, but Jesus was simply operating on God’s timing.

We want things now. We want spiritual growth to change now, our marriage to change now, our finances to change now. We want to eliminate the waiting and the journey and get to our destination. Yet Jesus gives us a different picture. Jesus was operating according to God’s timing. He is waiting for his own glory to be manifested.

Often we want Jesus to do things in our lives but we push him aside and put our own desires first. We miss the very thing that gave us life, Jesus himself.

3-Life comes through Christ alone. Our lives need to be about Jesus. He is the resurrection. He is the life.

We sometimes do certain things for God as a way of manipulation, thinking God will do something for us in return. We think that if we do the right things he’ll give us what we want.

Having a personal relationship with Jesus goes beyond living a moral life. If we operate like that we miss the deeper joy that only Jesus can bring.

4-Jesus was told that if he had been there, Lazarus wouldn’t have died. In the same way we sometimes say to God: If you answered my prayer in my time I wouldn’t have experienced pain and misery.

5-Why did Jesus cry (John 11:35) even though he knew the story would have a happy ending? The God of the universe shows his love and Jesus’ humanity in fully embracing how we feel. God feels your fear more fully than you have ever felt. He feels your sadness at a deeper level than you have felt yourself. He feels what you feel on a divine level that we can never fully understand.

God is not just with you physically, he’s with you emotionally. He feels your sadness, loneliness, anger, fear and anxiety. As Christ followers it gives us hope that God sits with us.

6-Life comes through the valleys. God loves us enough to allow us to go through valleys. We don’t always know why, or who causes our valleys — sometimes we go through them because of our bad choices or evil and sin in the world.

But God can teach us something in those valleys. Maybe we learn through difficult relationships how to forgive, or the concept of humility. Instead of posturing as the victim in a valley, we can turn it into a growing experience.

7-After going through a valley we will try to insulate ourselves because we don’t want to experience that pain again. Often when we’ve been hurt by someone we try to walk away from relational pain. Instead of trying to get out of the valley we should lean into it. As we walk through dark valleys we are assured that God is with us (Psalm 23: 4-5).

8-God’s means of delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker (Watchman Nee). That way we are more dependent on him.  Why does God let us go through valleys? So our old, prideful, independent selves die so that we might have life.

9-Life comes through death to glorify God. The valleys we go through shouldn’t be about us, they should provide an opportunity to point to God.