Joy Is Soon Coming

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

My wife Dean Lynn and I continue to count it a high and holy privilege to be a part of this season at Gateway.

We love you.

And we love what God has promised to do in protecting and providing for his church.

We're watching the Lord keep all his promises.

He directed Lisa Harper to call the church to a time of lament.

He brought the perfect person here in the form of Pastor Joachim.

Between the two of us, you have one West Texas accent and one Swedish accent.

I don't know which is harder to understand.

I love that man, and he is uniquely, uniquely qualified to be your pastor, and especially to pastor the staff during a season of struggle.

I've met your elders, I've heard their prayers, I've seen their tears, I love their hearts, and I'm praying for them.

A new season, a time in which the church will be better because of it, and stronger on the other side of it.

In one of my meetings with your elders, I asked them what they thought I should be teaching on, as I will be one of your teachers for the remainder of the year, spilling over into 2025.

And I shared several ideas with them, and we landed on this one.

It was a consensus.

We felt the Holy Spirit was directing us to focus on the topic just Jesus.

Just Jesus.

I never get tired of talking about the Jesus who saved me.

And I never get tired of saying, though sometimes the church struggles, Jesus is still building his church and he's still on the throne.

And especially this time of year, when everybody's concerned about who occupies the White House, we're celebrating who occupies the throne of thrones.

Amen.

And so my messages to you over the next few months will be exactly that.

And toward that end, I thought we could today visit the empty tomb.

I know it's not Easter.

But for the believer, every day is Easter Sunday.

And I'd luck for us to find that hope again was given to us to the empty tomb.

My wife sends her love.

She was unable to make it on this trip.

She will be on most of the trips.

I send my love to all of you who are watching online, or those of you at different campuses or in different services.

I'm a little bit old school.

I wish I could visit every campus.

I wish I could be a part of every service.

I don't think that's going to happen because there's so many of you.

I have signed up for that campus in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

However, out of a servant's heart, just out of no motive other than to get out of this Texas.

I mean, to go love those people.

Can I introduce you to him?

Travis Eades, would you stand up, please?

Bramag on Travis, everywhere I go.

Every church needs a Travis Eades.

Let's pray together and then we'll get to work.

How easy it is to sing your praises, O King of Kings.

You have never not been.

You have never heard a prayer that stumped you or been given a problem you could not solve.

You live outside of time.

You're never weary.

You are never discouraged.

You are never confused.

You have a plan for eternity that will never be disrupted.

And I stand before you, precious Lord, on behalf of the beautiful Gateway people.

And they have felt one wave after another of disappointments and discouragements.

But I am I am begging you.

I am begging you to pour your spirit out afresh upon this wonderful church.

Make us stronger because of this.

Do not allow the evil one to lead anyone away.

But make this an opportunity in which our hearts are softened, in which our tears are abundant, but our knees are bent and our hope is heavenward.

Please.

Hold them up.

Grant them the privilege of turning to you.

I beg you, dear Father, to protect that precious heart that is already fragile from the ways and the turns of the world, and now there are more.

I beg you, Lord, I beg you.

Strengthen them, call upon them, visit them, speak to them in dreams, grant them new spiritual gifts.

Allow them to sense your abiding love.

I beg you to protect these young people, like the ones who worship in this church and the ones who are struggling.

I beg you to strengthen them.

I beg you, Heavenly Father, to protect those precious souls who feel triggered, whose memories have been stirred, that you would heal them, Father.

And as you revisit those moments with them, they would hear your presence as you're saying, I am with you, I am with you, I am with you to the end of the age.

Do not hold back, Lord.

You have spoken and you have promised that at the right time and the right way there would be a second wind to blow over this wonderful church family.

May it be so.

May it be so.

And dearest Father, I beg your blessing upon the Metroplex.

It seems to have taken some knocks to the chin in several churches lately.

And we beg you that you would speak against the principalities and powers that have set themselves up as dark and foreboding clouds over this region.

They must be gone in the name of Jesus Christ.

They have no place, they have no position, they have no authority.

All authority has been given to you, Lord Jesus.

And now forgive our speaker.

You know his sins are many.

And help us to see Christ, just Christ.

Through Christ we pray.

And all God's people said.

One of my favorite passages is found in the book of Psalms.

Weeping may last for the night.

But joy comes with the morning.

Can we read that verse together out loud as a church, wherever you are?

Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.

This passage promises that despair will not rule the day.

Clouds may eclipse the sun, but they never eliminate it.

Night may prolong the dawn, but the dawn always comes.

Morning comes not as quickly as we may want, not as dramatically as we may desire, but morning comes.

And with morning comes joy.

Joy comes with the morning.

Do you need this promise?

You sense an absence of joy in your own heart.

Have you wept a river?

Have you forsaken hope?

Do you wonder if a morning will ever come to bring your night to an end?

Mary Magdalene did.

In the forest of the New Testament, she was the weeping willow.

She is the one upon whom tragedy had cast its coldest winter.

And she appears in Scripture as the woman with seven demons or seven evil spirits.

What might these afflictions have included?

Depression?

Loneliness?

Shame?

Fear?

Was she a recluse?

Was she a prostitute?

Maybe she had been abused.

And maybe she had been neglected or abandoned.

The number seven is often used in Scripture to represent the sense of completion.

Maybe her life was a complete wreck.

She was surrounded with troubles.

But then something happened, better said, then someone happened.

Jesus stepped into her world.

And he spoke.

And demons fled.

He spoke.

And for the first time in a long time, she could smile.

She could hold her head up.

She laughed.

She could eat.

She could sleep.

And the face in the mirror was no longer anguished.

And Jesus spoke life with just a word.

He spoke life into her life.

And she reciprocated.

She was among the first female followers of Jesus.

They were contributing from their own resources to support Jesus and his disciples.

Wherever Jesus went, Mary Magdalene followed.

She saw him perform miracles.

She heard him preach sermons.

Maybe she prepared meals.

She was always near Christ wherever he went.

Even at his crucifixion.

The scripture says she stood near the cross.

Close enough to hear the pounding of the hammers.

Close enough to see the blood fall upon the dirt.

And when they lowered his body from the cross, she was close enough.

She was there to help prepare it for burial.

And she observed a tragic Friday.

And then she weathered a sad, silent Sabbath.

And then when Sunday came, Mary Magdalene went to finish on Sunday the work that she had begun on Friday.

Early on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb while it was still dark.

It's something else entirely to go to Jesus while it is still dark.

And for all she knew, he was a cold, lifeless cadaver.

She was all alone.

There are those times in our spiritual journey when we seek Jesus in the dark.

When everyone else is going, and we're all dressed up in our finest Easter dress.

But on those times when it's just you standing in the cemetery, you in the icy you.

Left alone with your broken heart.

There are those times in which we're called to seek Jesus while it is still dark.

And so she did.

She knew nothing of the empty tomb.

She came with no motivation than to wash the remaining clots of blood from his beard and say goodbye.

It was a dark morning.

When she arrived at the tomb, the bad news became worse.

Mary Magdalene saw that the stone had been taken away.

She assumed that grave robbers had come and stolen the body of Jesus.

She hurried back down the trail until she found Peter and John.

She told them, they've taken the Lord away outside of the tomb.

Peter and John ran to the gravesite.

John was faster, but Peter was bolder.

He went in first and he saw and he stared.

John went in second, but he saw and he believed.

They hurried to tell the others, and we expect the camera of the gospel story to follow them.

After all, they're apostles.

They're the authors of epistles.

They are two-thirds of the inner circle.

We expect John to describe what the apostles did next, but he doesn't.

He chooses instead to tell us the story of the one who stayed behind.

But Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping.

Her face awash with tears.

Her shoulders heaved with sobs.

She felt alone.

It was just Mary, her despair.

And a vacant tomb.

As she wept, she stooped down and looked into the tomb.

And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

And they said to her, Why are you weeping?

Mary Magdalene mistook the angels for men.

She told them, They've taken away my Lord.

I don't know where they have laid him.

At this moment, Mary's world officially hit rock bottom.

Her master has been humiliated and executed.

The first man, maybe the only man, to treat her with respect and kindness.

And now his body was buried in a borrowed grave, and now his tomb has been violated, his body is stolen and two strangers she can't recognize.

They're sitting on the slab where his body had been laid and her sorrow intermingled with anger.

I'm wondering, have you ever had a moment like this?

Have you ever had a moment in which bad news became worse?

In which sadness just seemed to wrap around you like a fog and suck you down into the quick sand of despair.

Have you ever had a moment in which you came looking for God but you could not find it?

If so, you're gonna love what happened next.

Now, when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus in that grave.

She in her darkest moment.

Do you think she expected this to happen?

She turned around and she saw Jesus standing there, and she did not know it was Jesus.

And Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?

Whom are you seeking?

She, supposing him to be the gardener.

That's such a great line, isn't it?

It takes me back to the Garden of Eden.

Jesus still tending the garden.

She thinks he's the gardener.

She said, Sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.

What loyalty on the part of this daughter of God.

Tell me where he is, I'll go get him.

How did she expect to get him?

I don't know how strong she was.

But she just thought, I'll figure out a way to get him.

She would do whatever.

Again, as far as she knows, he's dead.

And he was dead and buried.

And so she's willing to go take him, carry him.

She did not recognize her Lord.

Do you know what happens next?

Jesus did something about it.

He called her by name.

Jesus said to her, Mary.

Oh, to have been there and heard that.

What was it?

When she heard the voice, she knew the source.

What was it?

Maybe it was the tone.

Maybe.

It was the Galilean accent.

Maybe it was the memory.

That moment she first heard him say it.

And say her name in a way that was unburdened with perversion or hidden agenda.

Whatever it was, when she heard Jesus say her name, she turned.

She turned and said to him, Raboni.

Which is to say, teacher.

In a moment, in a second, in a pivot of the next.

She turned.

As long as it takes to turn from here to here, her world went from despair to hope.

It can happen that way, friend.

Sometimes God takes his time.

But then sometimes He just steps in.

He just shows up and He just lifts the sadness in a moment.

Her world went from a dead Jesus to a living one.

Weeping may last through the night.

You want to say it?

But joy.

But joy.

Weeping may last through the night.

But joy.

Now look what happens.

Jesus said, Don't hold on to me.

But I have not, because I have not yet gone up to the Father.

She took a hold of him.

We know that because he said, Don't hold on to me.

Maybe she fell at his ankles and wrapped her arms around his legs.

Maybe she just put her arms around his shoulders.

And we don't know how she held him, but we know she did, and Jesus let her let her do so.

How wonderful that the resurrected Lord was not too divine, too otherworldly, too untouchable, too supernatural to be hugged.

Somebody should paint this thing.

Somebody should paint it.

Somebody should capture it on oil and frame the canvas.

If that person is you, be sure and capture that brilliant sunrise as the sun rises over the cemetery.

And if that person is you, be sure and capture the image of Jesus white robed and Mary Magdalene joy-filled, and the angels, surely white-eyed.

And if that moment is you, go ahead and paint the tears on her cheek before they dry.

But make sure there's a glint of sunlight reflecting in her tears.

But joy.

Weeping may last through the night, but joy.

Then Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had spoken these things to her.

To her.

He had just ripped the hinges off the gates of hell.

He had just defanged the devil.

He had just turned B C to A D for Christ's sake.

And yet, what is his first act as the risen Lord?

What is his first act?

But to find a woman who had had seven demons, marginalized and discarded by society.

He came to her.

Why her?

As far as we know, she never became a missionary.

If she wrote an epistle, it didn't make the canon.

Maybe she performed some miracles, but they're not recorded.

Why did he appear to her?

Might it be for you?

Might it be so that you would believe that weeping may last through the night.

You say it again.

But joy.

But joy comes with the morning.

Friend, joy comes.

It does.

I'm sorry you've buried someone you love more than life.

And I would never hurry your grief.

But joy will come.

I'm sorry that someone who made a promise to be with you throughout your life did not keep that promise.

And I do pray that you will receive help and encouragement from those who can help you.

But I do want to tell you, joy will come.

Right now you're abandoned.

You feel like your parents don't care about you.

Nobody listens to you.

Don't give up.

And joy seems like a foreign language.

It's coming.

Because with Jesus, joy always comes.

It comes.

And if we don't recognize his face when he comes, he will do with us what he did with Mary.

He will call our names.

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands, he inspired the prophet to say.

Your name is not buried in some heavenly file.

God doesn't need you to wear a name tag when you pray.

Your name is tattooed, engraved on the palm of his hand.

I once read a story about a priest from Detroit who traveled to Ireland to visit his family.

One morning, he and his uncle Seemus walked around Lake Killarney as the sun was coming up.

And the morning was so beautiful that the two stood there and scarcely saying a word for 20 minutes.

And finally, when it was time to return, the priest looked over at his uncle, and his uncle was smiling.

And the priest said, Uncle Sheemus, you're smiling.

And he said, I am.

And he said, Why are you smiling?

He said, Because the father of my Savior is very fond of me.

He's very fond of you too, my friend.

He's very fond of you.

And he loves you with an everlasting love.

Do you find this hard to believe?

You think I'm talking to someone else?

Someone who is holier.

Who's better?

Who's nicer?

Who never loses their temper, never loses their way.

You think I'm talking to someone else, someone who didn't screw up a marriage or screw up a career or screw up a savings account.

Someone who didn't get hooked on pills or someone who didn't get hooked on porn or someone who didn't hook on popularity.

You think I'm talking to somebody else.

I am not.

I'm talking straight to you.

And I'm saying that the greatest news in the world is not that God made the world, but that God loves the world.

And He loves you.

And you did not earn this love, so you cannot lose this love.

You did not earn this love.

You cannot lose this love.

He does not love you because of the good choices you've made.

He will not stop loving you because of some bad choices you may have made.

His love for you will not end if you lose your temper.

His love for you will not fade if you lose your way.

His love for you will not diminish if your discipline does.

Some years ago, we had the opportunity to introduce our grandchildren to the Pacific Ocean.

Rosie is, well, she's a fourth grader now.

But then she was barely four years old.

And as is the case with many of us in Texas, she had lived her life having never been to the ocean.

She'd been to Lake LBJ.

But never the Pacific Ocean.

And we all wondered what her reaction would be upon seeing it.

Because of the time change, she awoke early, and then she awoke her dad.

And then we all heard them and climbed out of bed and followed them as Rosie went to see the ocean for the first time.

She just stood there.

The sun was coming up and the waves were crashing.

And you could hear that roar.

You know what I'm talking about, that surf, that roar.

And Rosie didn't say anything.

For the longest time, she didn't say a word.

And finally, she turned to her daddy and she said, Daddy, when do they turn it off?

Never, sweetie.

Never.

Every person who has ever taken a breath has looked at the love of God and wondered, when is it going to get turned off?

When will I have done too much?

When will I have gone too far?

When will he turn away from me?

And my privilege is to tell you, dear child of God, you have never lived an unloved day.

Never.

Never.

And you never will.

Someone told you that God loves good people.

Wrong.

There are no good people.

Someone told you that God loves you if you love him first.

Wrong.

Right now.

He loves people all over the world who have never given him the time of day.

Somebody told you that God is ticked off, that he is cranky, that he is vindictive, wrong.

That's us.

We tend to be cranky, ticked off and vindictive.

But God, God is sure mercy and grace, not easily angered.

He's rich in love.

He doesn't endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever.

And he doesn't treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs.

As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is his love to those who fear him.

And as far as sunrise is from sunset, he has separated us from our sins.

As parents feel for their children, God feels for those who fear him.

Would you build your life on this promise?

Would you please?

When you're disappointed by people or disappointed by yourself, would you just let God love you?

And would you reflect often on this great and precious promise?

Weeping, it comes with the night, but joy comes with the morning.

Amen.

But I sense that there may be some who really needed this today.

And if so, could I offer a prayer on your behalf?

And could I ask you if you would benefit from a prayer to receive a deeper sense of God's love?

Could I be so bold?

If that describes you, would you please stand as your way of saying, look at me, Lord.

I'm doing what Mary Magdalene did.

I'm coming to you and asking for prayer.

Look upon these, your sons and your daughters, precious Lord.

Look upon them with kindness and grace.

Look upon them.

Look upon them and grant that they, Heavenly Father, could receive, maybe for the first time, an overflow of your love.

As if you're downloading it from heaven.

May it go direct.

Remove from them any excuse that would claim to be the exception to the rule.

And those voices that come up in our spirit that maybe a parent or a coach or a friend said, whatever that is, speak louder, please.

Let there be healing in your house, on every campus, in every room, any place a person is hearing these words.

Let there be healing, let there be healing, let there be healing.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.