Easter - This Changes Everything

Dr. Gregg Marutzky:

Morning, church.

Morning.

Happy Easter.

Turn it off.

That must be a

All right.

I think we're okay now.

Happy Easter.

Easter folks.

This is the most important day of the year for me.

It hasn't always been, uh, even as a minister for many, many years, I, uh,

didn't grasp the total significance of Easter, but the more and more I

studied, the more and more I learned.

I became what I call a cross theologian, where the cross

is the fulcrum of my faith.

It really is the foundation of my faith.

The death bear and resurrection is the gospel of Christianity, and the

resurrection is the crowning moment.

It's the, the proof that God is all powerful, that God is greater than all

evil, that wickedness will not prevail.

That we as Christians truly are serving the true God and the one

and only Savior Jesus Christ.

And so I, uh, used to be an engineer and so it has to make sense for me.

I don't need to know everything.

I don't even need to know everything about God.

I can't get my head around God or otherwise I would explode.

Right?

And, uh, my head's too big as it is.

So, but, but I do need for it to make sense.

It's reasonable.

Wow.

The resurrection of Jesus, the empty tomb.

I wanna welcome you this morning I, uh, decided to wear a shirt

that would keep your attention.

All of the Easter colors, you know, you know all the different colors

that, of the eggs that the kids will be gathering after church decided that,

uh, uh, this would keep your attention.

The resurrection changes everything.

At least it has for me, that because of the resurrection of

Jesus Christ, I'm a Christian.

Not only am I a Christian, but I devoted my life to the ministry

because I wanted to change the world.

I'm a sixties baby, you know, I grew up in the sixties.

I wanted to change the world.

Thought about going to the moon, thought about this, and that, decided that

Jesus was the answer to the problem.

Amen.

Amen.

And I wanna start out a little bit with Good Friday because.

I want us to know who the Easter story is for.

I want you to know that it's for you

that Jesus died on the cross, but most of all, he resurrected to show

you and me how much God loves us.

All right?

And he made seven final statements on the cross that I think describe the

people that he was trying to save.

He said in Luke 23, father forgive 'em for they don't know what they're doing.

That's the crowds, that's the persecutor, that's the enemies.

If God can love his enemies, if Jesus can die and forgive the, the backers

in life, those that persecute others for no reason, those that are just.

Downright evil in some ways and mean in other ways, and heartless.

If Jesus can hang on the cross and forgive them, then hey, I think I got a chance.

I think you got a chance.

I haven't met anybody in this church that I think's even bad, and

especially the longer I've been a minister, I've never met anybody.

I gotta say it quite as bad as me.

And so, so if I can be saved, I know everyone can be saved.

Luke 2343 says to the Thief on the cross, and if you've ever

read the book, no wonder they call him the Savior by Max Cato.

I'd really encourage you to do that, but this one, that chapter, and another one in

there made me cry, two of 'em, the tail of the crucified crook that touched my heart.

Because for some reason, you know, I just felt like I, I connected with

him and I'm not a, a major thief.

You know, that's not why I haven't made, didn't make a living in

that before I became a Christian.

But the first time I ever got in big trouble is 'cause I stole marbles

from the Wilco store when I was a kid.

And my mother found them at home and made me go back and give them to the manager.

And what was so heavy about that, and it really caused me to never

steal again, was my mother just wept in shame the whole time.

She just wept.

She had a little bit of a false view of her baby boy, right?

Four boys.

She thought at least one might be good.

All right?

But I know didn't ever want to shame her like that again.

And so when I read that chapter, I thought, oh man, Jesus died for me.

And I want you to know that Jesus died for you this morning.

Whether you're a crucified crook or just done some things,

you're very much ashamed of.

John 19 verse 26, Jesus says to Mary, mother, behold, your son and son John.

John 19:26

Behold your mother, love of family.

And for some of his family's easy to love.

For others, family's hard to love.

And for some of us it's mixed.

There's Someon family that are easy.

There's Someon family that are hard, but Jesus loved his family.

Even his brothers, younger brothers that weren't with him for a long time.

Jesus died for family.

And then in Mark 15, and it says, why?

Why God have you forsaken me?

I was a chaplain for eight years at a level one trauma hospital.

Doctor of ministry in the emergency room in the A CU.

Went to all the codes, went to all the tests, and so many different people would

ask me, chappy, chappy, why my loved one?

Why my baby, why my son, why my daughter?

I've had to pray through a lot of nightmares about

those events, haunting me.

Jesus asked why too?

And the answer was for Greg, for Dallas, for Kathy, for Mandy, for Kyle, for you.

That's why it was the only way.

Yes, he did try to get out of it in the garden, but it was

the only way for us to be saved.

My God, my God.

Eloy, Eloy lama sub and then John 19, verse 28.

John 19:28

He's almost dead.

And so he can barely say anything and he raises himself up on the

cross and he says, I thirst.

And what does that say to us?

He was human.

He wasn't Superman on the cross, not feeling it.

He felt it all for you and me.

That's how much God loves us this morning, folks.

And then he finally said, it's finished.

All these naysayers have tried to get me to come down from the cross.

Satan has tried to get me to come down from the cross.

I have wanted to come down from the cross, but I, I've done it.

I've survived all the temptation and all the evil and all my own fears and

my own humanity, and I've trusted God.

And now it is finished.

Death is finished, sin is finished, evil is finished.

It's over.

God's gained the victory, it's finished.

So Father, take me Father into your hands.

I release my spirit.

Those seven things tell me that you and I need to celebrate Easter today.

Amen.

Every one of us, we fit in one of those categories this morning, and I reread

this book, the Final Words, uh, by a fellow by the name of Adam Hamilton.

And, uh, uh, he goes into great depth.

I just give this to you as a reference and, uh, if you'll, y'all

help me with the slides there.

My clicker's, uh, got a demon in it, so I'll try to exercise it here in a

minute, but if you'll help me yeah.

But I reread this book this last week just to prepare myself for that

introduction because I want us all to know that Jesus died on Friday for

us, but he rose today for us as well.

Amen.

And it's mercy.

Easter's about mercy.

Mercy to the enemies.

Mercy to the evil, mercy to the family.

Mercy to the confused and bruised and lonely, those screaming, why mercy to

self, those that are thirsty in our bodies, giving out mercy to the dying,

the suffering, the broken and the tired, and especially those that are

terminally ill and on death's door.

But today we're gonna look at John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

I encourage you to turn over there and, uh, I, uh, I have the words

for you on the screens, and we've got some great screens this morning.

One even behind me.

Amen.

You won't be focused here, you'll be focused there.

And I do not do a silhouette of me.

Okay?

Do not please brothers.

I beg for mercy.

And here's where we're going this morning.

And in this Resurrection chapter, this is a wonderful chapter.

You gotta embrace it.

It talks about the empty tomb and why it was empty in Jesus' resurrection.

And then the witnesses, Mary and others.

And then he appeared to disciples and he gave him the Holy Spirit.

And then he, he appeared to Thomas A.

Little bit of a hard head, a little bit stubborn like some of us men.

All right?

And so there's four resurrection theories, and you've probably heard of them.

This is review for many of you.

But the four resurrection theories is he didn't.

A lot of people gnostics later on in the, the latter part of the first

and second century, didn't believe that Jesus even came as a human.

That he was a just a spirit.

He was an emanation of God, is how they say it.

And he just swooned.

It's the swoon theory.

He really didn't die.

He just fainted.

And they thought he was dead.

And even though the Romans were great at killing people, you know, they killed

about half the Earth at one point, right?

At least the known world.

They conquered the civilized world.

But for some reason, people didn't think that they really knew how to kill Jesus.

But after all that torture and all that beating and all that crucifixion,

and then with the spear in the side, some will still say he just

swooned, but he did more the swoon.

He died.

And so others will say, well, the Romans, they stole the body because

they did not want Jesus to be a martyr.

And so they didn't want his.

The place he was buried and they didn't want him to be worship,

and so they stole the body.

But if you think about that logically, that doesn't make any sense.

Because when they said he was resurrected, when the disciples and

the Christians started claiming his resurrection, what would they have done?

They had revealed the body.

These guys, they're liars.

They're liars.

Here's the body.

Here's Jesus right here.

They didn't do that.

And so then others said the Jews stole the body again.

Why wouldn't the Jews revealed the body at just the right time

to prove that it was all false?

And then they said, well, these sneaky disciples, you know, they were so smart.

You can just read the New Testament.

See how brilliant they were.

Some people are laughing it, it was meant to be a joke.

Yeah.

All right.

No, they were normal folks.

Fishermen, they were normal like us.

A few of the smarter ones came along later, Luke and Paul and others, but.

They didn't steal the body.

And how I know that is somebody always squeals, at least in my

neighborhood, that's how it was.

Just, at least in my family, one of us would squeal.

It was usually Sam.

My daughter was wondering who, who?

Uncle Sam.

'cause he was the good one.

All right?

Three of us weren't so good.

One.

Sam was good.

And he's an elder in the church now.

He'll probably watch this, so I'm glad I said that.

Amen.

But somebody would've told the truth.

Somebody would've had a conscience, somebody would admit it.

They stole the body.

Nobody did.

They went to death as martyrs for Jesus.

So I believe with all my heart that Jesus tomb on that Easter morning

and this Easter morning, and every Easter morning since has been empty.

Okay.

And a book that I want to encourage you to read is this one.

I read it as a sophomore in college and it changed my life.

It's not too big.

Neither of these books are very big.

All right.

And, uh, it's Who Moved the Stone by a man named Frank Morrison.

He goes through it much more in depth than I just did.

It goes through all these theories and other logical, plausible, uh,

explanations, and it definitely convinced me, uh, that Jesus is resurrected.

So into the verse, into the text, John chapter 20 in verse one.

John 20 · chapter mention

Let's read together.

Okay, there we go.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene

went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

Now, I haven't done any empirical research.

I haven't read any empirical research, but.

My heart, soul, and mind.

And maybe 'cause I just love my mama so much, but I think women

are more spiritual than men.

What do you think women, men, you can't answer.

Right?

You think women are more spiritual?

I think so.

Here's evidence right here.

Who was the first to the tomb?

Mary Magdalene maybe.

'cause she'd been forgiven much.

She loved much.

But sometimes I don't know about you, but women are more in touch with things.

They see it.

I'm a little slow on the uptake.

You know, I see the wind blowing after it's blown.

But women are intuitive and they have that, that that women's intuition and

that instinct, at least my mother did.

I thought she had eyes in the back of her head, you know?

Because she could be driving and she knew just which one

of us flicked the other one.

All right.

She knew who was acting up.

So Mary is the first to the tomb, and you know, let's keep reading.

In verse six, it says, oh, other direction.

Here we go.

Then Simon Peter, who had was behind him, this is, uh, uh, Peter and John had

had a race to the tomb after Mary came back and said that the tomb was empty.

Uh, then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb.

He saw the strips of linen laying there and well, as well as the barrel

cloth that had been around Jesus' head.

The cloth was full folded up by itself, separate from the linen.

Finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb first, this is John.

He always speaks in third person.

He's like, he sees himself as, uh.

Um, pretty famous or something.

I don't know.

Yeah.

He, he refers to himself in the book of John, without naming himself, he

says, he described himself as the one that Jesus loved the most, the beloved.

All right.

And now you know why he left his name off, all right.

Who had reached the tomb first, also went inside and he saw and believed, so

what's the evidence of the resurrection?

The empty tomb.

The linen cloths there.

Here's the first three witnesses, John, Peter, and Mary.

And then Jesus appears again to marry, and she gives him this big hug.

But let's read the story.

Beginning of verse 15, woman.

He said, why are you crying?

Who is it you're looking for?

Thinking He was the gardener.

Now, this was not flattering to Jesus.

I mean, Isaiah says that he wasn't.

You know, incredibly handsome, but I don't think he was that plain.

All right, but she doesn't recognize him because why?

Sometimes we don't have eyes to see.

She probably wasn't looking for Jesus.

She was looking for the tomb.

She was looking for the body, but she wasn't looking for the miracle.

Easter tells us about the greatest miracle in the world.

Yeah.

Thinking he was the gardener.

She said, sir, if you have carried him away, tell him where you

have put him and I will get him.

Jesus said to her, Mary, she turned toward him and cried in air.

Make Rob teacher anytime.

Our name is called, we pay attention, don't we?

Yes.

Mary.

Somehow, some way that he said it.

She had heard it spoken just that way before.

Maybe he had comforted to her when she was crying over her shame.

Maybe he had given her a promise that she's completely forgiven.

Mary, stop beating yourself up.

You're forgiven.

Let it go.

But when he said her name, just the way he had said it before she recognized

him, I pray with all my heart that you hear your name from the lips of Jesus.

And I believe you can.

I believe you can in prayer.

I believe you can.

As you're reading your Bible, I, I believe you can.

As you're sitting on the.

See shore watching the waves come in.

I believe that God is always trying to reach out to us.

It says in Acts 17 that he wants to connect to us, that he's among us.

He's right here all the time reaching out, you know, and

he's probably saying your name.

I'm glad I have a simple name, Greg.

Sometimes my mother would change the intonation of it when I was in trouble.

Greg,

you know, our brothers used to make fun of it.

Gra egg.

I'm not a Gregory.

You probably gathered that from my speaking already.

All right.

My parents weren't that sophisticated.

Uh, they, uh, they didn't finish.

College.

They were just very hardworking, wonderful Midwest people.

And uh, so all of us have just sort of these southern names, Jody, Charles,

Sammy, John, Philip, Neil, and Greg.

And I'm not telling you my middle name.

All

that's ornery, but I just can't do it.

We don't know each other that well.

Verse 17, let's keep going.

Jesus says to Mary, do not hold on to me.

She must have been holding on very, very tight, even to the point of

where Jesus got uncomfortable.

Mary, don't hold on for I have not yet returned to the Father.

Go and instead to my brothers and tell them I'm returning

to my Father and your Father.

And to my God and your God.

I know you wanna hold on.

I know you love, you've lost me once.

I know I, I died right in front of you.

I know it broke your heart, but now's not the time.

Don't hold on.

Keep trusting in faith.

Hold on to your faith.

Don't hold on to me physically.

Hold on to what I taught you.

Hold on to the Father, your God and my God.

And sometimes we hold on to the wrong things and Mary thought

she'd found the right thing.

Right.

And she had in that sense.

But sometimes you gotta let things go to get 'em back.

Yeah.

Right.

Those of us that are parents have learned that, haven't we?

And he goes on in verse 18, says, Mary Magdalene went to

the disciples with the news.

I've seen the Lord.

And she told them that he had said these things.

Tour and we know that at first it was a little bit difficult for 'em

to believe, but then they believed.

Then verse 19, and on the evening of that first day of the week, when

the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews,

Jesus came and stood among them, and I want to emphasize what he said.

Peace be with you.

You know, I know on a Easter service, there's a lot of

us that are seeking peace.

We sometimes wear our new Easter colored shirts.

We wear our Sunday best, we put on our Sunday smile.

We try to comb our hair,

but inside we're not always at peace, are we In this world?

Jesus said, you'll have trouble.

Right.

And I don't know about you, but the troubles has seemed to

increase the older I've gotten.

Maybe I just was oblivious in denial when I was younger, but

Satan seems to be on the war path.

Yeah.

He seems to be hurting people I love and you love.

He seems to be making more and more people sick and suffering.

There seems to be more, war, seems to be more conflict, more people

that don't seem to get along.

More prejudice, more hatred, more evil, more crime.

I don't know, maybe I'm just paying more attention now, but

I think the world needs peace.

How about that?

Isn't that what we come together for and celebrate that

Jesus is the prince of peace.

Yes.

Amen.

Amen.

And then moving on.

From verse 19, he says in verse 21, again, Jesus said, peace be

with you as the Father has sent me.

I'm sending you.

And with that, he breathed on them.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't like people invading my personal space.

When people breathe on me, I'm like, okay, let's step back a step.

I'm friendly too, but not that friendly.

I'm only married to one person.

Kathy, she can have that space.

We'll, we'll share some air, but let's not you and me share air, all right?

There's enough air to go around.

Amen.

Amen.

But it's the Ruah.

The ruah of the the, the Dset, the Holy Spirit.

It's the breath of life.

It's the breath of God that he breathes Donna.

And he says to him, receive the Holy Spirit.

And if you forgive anyone his sins, then they are forgiven and you

do not forgive them their sins.

They won't be forgiven because forgiveness is in Jesus' name.

So listen to these blessings that Jesus gave people first.

He wanted to give us peace when he resurrected.

So that's what he wants for each and every one of you.

All you beautiful college students and teens over here.

All right?

All you beautiful older singles and mature people back here, all you older legacy

people here in the middle, all right?

And all the real friendly people in the back.

That's where I like to sit too, so I can see everybody, all right?

He wants to give us peace and he wants to give us his Holy Spirit.

Why?

Because Galatians tell me if I have the spirit, and Romans chapter

seven and eight says, if I have the Spirit, I have the same power

that raised Jesus from the dead.

Most Christians I know.

I have to convince that you can do it.

You can do it.

You can live the Christian life.

You can overcome that sin.

You can be a different person.

You can be everything you want to be.

It's not in the army.

If you find that it's in the church, you find that you can be all you wanna

be with the Holy Spirit, all right?

And it's this power that defeated all evil, all the demons, all the sin.

It's living within me.

It's just a matter of tapping into that.

And that's a lifelong pursuit of how to tap into it and how to use it.

But you got the power.

You've got the power already as a Christian.

And you have the ability to share that power with other

people the same way you got it.

You share it with other people and they can be forgiven of sin

because Jesus died for them as well.

This is gospel folks.

Easter sermons are the easiest to preach 'cause it's just about good news.

It's just about gospel.

It's about the good stuff.

It's not the bad stuff.

See, if you had to come Friday, we'd had to tell you what a sinner you are and

how much Jesus's needed to die for you.

But today you're not a sinner.

You're forgiven.

Amen.

All right, you're forgiven.

Clap.

There you go, sister.

Just 'cause nobody claps with you.

Amen.

There you go.

That's gospel.

That's good news.

But then there's always a Thomas Thomas called Dimus, which means he was a twin.

So there were two Thomases.

Oh Mercy.

One of the 12.

Was not with the disciples when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord.

But he said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put

my fingers where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not

believe he was a critical thinker.

He was an analytical person.

He was a humanist.

He was empiricist.

He had, it had to be proven to him.

Well be careful when you challenge God.

'cause he might just take up that challenge.

He might just take it up.

Verse 26, let's keep going.

Week later, his disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them.

Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them

and said, what'd he say again?

He just had one refrain.

Peace be with you if, if you met Jesus today, folks, he'd say, peace be with you,

be the first thing he'd wanna say to you.

'cause he knows what we need.

Then he said to Thomas, okay, Thomas, put your finger right here.

Ooh, I don't want to touch you.

Put it right here.

Thomas.

Look at my hands.

Look at where the nails went in.

Thomas, I heard you.

You didn't think I heard, but I heard you.

I heard you scoff at me.

I heard you doubt.

I heard you didn't believe that I was resurrected.

Put your finger here.

See my hands.

Reach out your hand and put it in my side.

Stop doubting and believe.

Thomas said to him, my Lord and my God.

And I don't know everybody in the audience.

I don't know where, where you're at spiritually.

You're obviously good hearted and good looking, Southern California people.

Or you would be here.

But there's probably a little bit of Thomas in some of us, a little bit

of Thomas that just needs to stop your questioning and doubting and

defensiveness and open up your heart and let God speak to you and give you

peace, and give you power, and give you encouragement, most of all give you love.

Amen.

You know, as religious people, we haven't always conveyed the true message,

and the true message is from God.

I love you.

God wants to say to you this morning, you're my beloved.

Just as much as I love my one and only begotten son, one and only

beloved son, you're my beloved son.

You're my beloved daughter.

The cross, the bear and resurrection of Jesus is God's

way, cosmic way, universal way.

Eternal way of saying, I love you.

Amen.

Amen.

And you, I love,

you know, whenever you get that into your heart, it changes everything.

Ornery, ornery, people change.

We're gonna have some cardboard confessions after this in a moment,

and we're gonna show you one side of our sign of what we used to

be before we were Christians.

And we're gonna turn it around and show you what at least we think.

We think we are now.

And one of the, the associate ministers, Marcel, is.

Made me do it, so I'll be up there in line too, the lineup.

All right, my Lord and my God.

Verse 29, let's close out.

Then Jesus told him, because you've seen me, you've believed, blessed that are

those who have not seen and yet believe.

That's you and me.

Folks.

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which

are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe

that Jesus is who the Messiah, the Son of God, and on believing you may have

abundant life in his name, just like the centurion at the crucifixion of Jesus.

He said, seeing what had happened, he prays God and said, surely this

is a righteous man in this church.

We confess our faith.

Over and over.

It's become a habit.

Now, in our, in my sermons is to ask the congregation, because of Easter,

because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we believe these two things.

We believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that he's divine, that he's the

communicate, the bridge between us and God the mediator, the one and only mediator,

and that Jesus is Lord, that he has power.

And so I, I, I plead with all of you.

If you can say it, say it.

If you can't think about it, all right?

But let's say it together.

Say it with me.

Jesus Christ is the son of God.

In the second, Jesus is Lord.

That's gospel.

That's the message of Easter, and that's a sermon for you this morning.

Amen.

I'm gonna say a prayer before we take a communion here in OC Church.

We take a communion every Sunday.

Not all churches do, but we're sinners and we need to every week.

That was a joke, but it's true too.

All but we do.

We take it every week because we believe it is so fundamental to

our faith that gospel, the death bear and resurrection of Jesus.

This is a sacred ritual that we take here in the OC Church, and I'm gonna

play pray for these symbols and for these emblems, and then we invite you

to take of communion with the Lord.

Let's pray our great God and Father, we bow before you now on

this resurrection morning, claiming that the tomb was empty because

you conquered death conquered evil.

Conquered sin.

Father, we love you with all our hearts.

We wanna love you back.

You've given us every good and perfect gift that we have.

You've been such a wonderful, merciful, faithful God, and as we remember the

death bear and resurrection now as we take of this small piece of bread,

this emblem of the body of Christ, we pray that we'd remember that He hung

there for us, for our forgiveness and for our salvation, for our future.

And as we take of this juice, we pray that we could remember that our souls are

cleansed, that though they may have been as scarlet, now they are white as snow,

that Father, the blood of Jesus cleanses us continually, not just once, but always,

constantly to be righteous in your sight.

Our righteousness comes from you because you're so good.

We pray that you bless this moment in Jesus' name.

Amen.