Easter Sunday | Rejoice With Joy (April 4th, 2021) - Mike Armstrong

Amen.

All right.

Well, if you would get your Bible, if you have a copy of God's Word, you can get it flipped open to John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

Gonna be in a couple of places today, but John chapter 20, if you want, you can go there.

John 20 · chapter mention

Um and if you don't have a copy of God's word, don't sweat that.

I'm gonna read through that and you can just follow along.

Uh but during our Easter series, which has been going on now for the last week, uh starting last Sunday, Good Friday, okay, we've been really emphasizing that word rejoice.

Okay, rejoice.

Now how Palm Sunday, which again was seven days ago, uh, was the moment that the Jews rejoiced.

They rejoiced that their king had finally arrived in Jerusalem.

Now, as we understand it, we know that they didn't completely understand exactly what kind of king he was going to be.

They thought he was going to overthrow the Romans and all of that, but he was coming to defeat uh sin and death, a much deeper, much greater, much more pervasive and dangerous enemy, and that is the king that came.

But they rejoiced nonetheless, and it was Hosanna and palm branches, uh, shout of praise, all of that.

And then it was just three days ago, of course, on Good Friday, um, how we looked at at how, you know, even in the in the in the sorrow of Christ's death and just the again the atrocity that that was, how how even in that there's this immense joy, okay, that's that that's to be had for you and I as we marvel in what Jesus did for us, right?

And what his death achieved.

Now, today, today, the reason that we rejoice is is very obvious, right?

It's as clear as it gets.

We know that we're rejoicing because the tomb is empty, right?

The grave did not hold him, the power of sin and death has been vanquished, it has been crushed, it has been defeated.

Right?

The salvation of our souls is available now to you and I, all because Jesus is alive.

All right, so if you're into taking notes or trying to even just kind of focus in on one thought, here is our main idea today.

It's because Jesus saves my soul, I will rejoice with joy.

Okay, and we see this expressed very clearly in 1 Peter 1.

Okay, but before we get to that, we're gonna get to it in a moment here, but before we get to that, I wanna just kind of walk us through this text, like I said in John chapter 20, okay, which lays out for us, as we're gonna see, this narrative story that describes for us the very moment that a few of Christ's disciples realized that he had risen.

John 20 · chapter mention

Right?

The moment where it kind of hits them and settles on them that something special, something miraculous and awesome has happened.

Okay, so as we pick it up here, again, we're jumping into the middle of what has been this great story here.

And so let me again set the scene for you and give you a sense of the sequence of events.

Okay, we know that again, three days ago, Jesus was crucified.

He died uh on the cross.

After that, he was he was taken down from the cross, and and his body was prepared uh for burial as they would do it, and then and then he was his body was placed in a tomb.

Okay, this tomb was was was cut out into the rock and it was owned by a very wealthy man named uh Joseph of Arimathea.

And what they did next to seal the tomb is they rolled this massive stone.

It was somewhere around like a ton and a half to two-ton stone that they would roll in front of the entrance to seal it.

Okay, on top of all of this, the Romans dispatched uh guards to guard the tomb, to stand in front of the tomb, to make sure that uh that nothing happened to Jesus' body.

This was a major event that took place in Jerusalem during these times.

There's a lot, you know, political upheaval because of it, and so they were just trying to be as careful as possible that no funny business happened.

And that really brings us now to verse one.

And so, again, if you can read along with me, that's great.

And again, kind of put yourself in the shoes of the people uh that we're gonna talk about here and imagine what they were going through.

Okay, verse one says, uh, now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene, she was a friend of Jesus.

She's a name that pops up from time to time throughout the gospel.

Okay, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark.

Okay, so we're talking here early Sunday morning, okay, which became from that very moment on the traditional day that Christians everywhere would gather uh to worship as a church.

Okay, and so that's why we meet on Sundays.

It all began uh back on this day, or back after this day, I should say.

All right, so Mary she sets out early to visit the tomb, and she's going there to mourn, right?

To honor uh Jesus, her friend.

Now keep going.

She says it says that she saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

Okay, so we're gonna try and picture here how how utterly shocking this would have been for her.

She wasn't expecting uh this at all.

There's no guards in sight, okay, and they wouldn't just scatter for no reason.

These guys were trained and under the threat of death if they if they blew it in terms of their job here.

Okay, so this is an extremely abnormal situation that Mary is stumbling upon.

Okay, so what does she do?

Well, verse 2 tells us she ran.

Okay, she ran, she went to Simon Peter.

We know him as Peter, right?

Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.

You're like, who's that guy?

Well, that's best understood to be John.

Okay, John is, of course, the author of this gospel.

Uh we know that uh he was a good friend of Jesus, and uh that is how he's often referred in this.

But when it talks about the man who the one who Jesus loved, that's John.

Okay, so so Mary, she shows up here at Peter and John's front door, and she is like all in a panic.

She's like, I I don't understand what's happening here.

And and this is actually what she says to them, keep going.

She says to them, they've taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we, again, suggesting that she was with some other women as well, which the other gospels tell us was in fact the case, and we do not know where they have laid him.

Okay, so Peter went out with the other disciple, again, that's John, and they were going toward the tomb.

Both of them were running together.

All right, so again, just trying to envision what they must have been going through here in these events.

Okay, the emotions of all this, the the confusion, the bewilderment, you know, they're probably feeling you know, fearful about what's happened and maybe even angry, right?

This is our friend, hasn't he been through enough?

We're already devastated and and and crushed by all of this, and and so they just take out, take off in a full-blown sprint.

But notice this, it says, but the other disciple is a little faster than Peter.

He outruns him and reaches the tomb first, it says, and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.

Right?

So, so John, he's stopped dead in his tracks there by what he sees.

And what he sees is that the clods used to wrap Jesus' body as they would wrap anyone who had died.

They wrapped them with spices and ointments.

He just sees the clods lying there.

You know, verse 6.

It says, then Peter, Simon Peter came following him, and this guy, just like a bull, just went right into the tomb, it says.

Which, of course, you know, that we know that uh about Peter, right?

This fits his whole like act first, think later vibe that he brings to pretty much every story, right?

He just charges in.

Now notice this.

He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself.

Now, at first glance, you read that and you're like, man, like it kind of feels like a lot of unnecessary detail.

Right?

Like, why does John spill so much ink to give us these kinds, this kind of information about a bunch of, about a bunch of claws, to be quite frankly, but a bunch of laundry.

Like, why does he do this?

Well, probably to give us some clues as to what's taking place, right?

So to give us a strong sense here that this was not a grave robbery.

Okay, a grave robber is not going to enter a tomb and then carefully kind of unwrap everything to look for the goodies.

Okay, not gonna do that.

It's gonna be like a smash and grab job, get in and get out before the guards come back or or what have you.

Okay, so it's it's not that.

Okay, no, the the facecloth lying there folded up neatly, is evidence that Christ came back from the dead.

He rose to life, took it off, and folded it himself, and placed it down beside him.

If you think about that, that's that's an amazing detail to consider.

And again, this is probably likely what is starting to go through their minds as they're surveying the scene, right?

John runs in, he stops, he stops.

And it's kind of starting to strike him, and he's starting to wonder.

And Peter rushes in, he sees it, he gets it.

Okay, and then verse 8, look at this.

It says, then the other disciple, John, right, who reached the tomb first, he also goes in, he follows Peter, and he saw and believed.

For as yet they did not understand the scripture, the Bible, that he must rise from the dead.

Okay, then the disciples went back to their homes.

Okay, so John, again, he follows Peter into the tomb, he surveys the scene, and at once he believes and realizes Christ has risen.

Yet yet at the same time, again, as we we know this, he they they hadn't put all the pieces together.

You read through the gospel accounts and you see the disciples are like slow to kind of recognize what's really going on here.

They're slow to realize and and and again put the plan all in place in their minds.

Okay, they didn't quite get it, but they kinda get it.

They didn't understand that the scriptures, as it says in verse 9, had foretold, okay, not to mention Jesus himself had said it multiple times, that all of this would take place.

Right?

All of this was gonna happen.

In other years, on Easter Sundays, we've looked back on some of those prophecies.

There's many of them that foreshadow and tell us that a Messiah would come, a Messiah would come, a king of Israel would come, and he would save their people from sin.

And so all of this is now coming to fruition right in front of their eyes.

Now, and I think this is really cool.

If you fast forward with me here, about 60 years after the events of John 20, okay, after Peter and John's discovery at the empty tomb that day, okay, Peter, we're gonna focus on him now, okay, nearing the end of his life, okay, he he writes this letter to believers, encouraging them as to the hope and as to the joy that they have and should hold fast to because of the reality of the resurrection.

Okay, so again, 1 Peter chapter 1, 8 and 9.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

That's what we're gonna look next.

You can flip there if you want, but it's gonna be on the screen for us uh as well and up in front of you so you can see it.

Okay, so this is what Peter says after six decades of considering and thinking through and chewing on everything that he and John saw that morning.

Look what he says.

He says, Though you have not, he says, though you have not seen him, you love him.

All right, so understand this that that Jesus, after he rose, eventually what he did was he ended up appearing to hundreds of people, the scriptures tell us.

Hundreds at a time, even.

He showed up to his disciples, he showed them that he was alive, he showed Thomas the wounds in his hands and his feet and his side, right?

He revealed himself to them, he he spent time with them, he explained the scriptures to them.

A lot of the details that were hazy and fuzzy that they didn't quite get.

He helped that, he helped it all click for them, he taught them.

We know that from Matthew 28, he gave them the great commission before he ascended to his father.

He said, Listen, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

He says, Go and make disciples.

He's like, everything that you have just witnessed and you have just seen and experienced, go and share the good news now that sins are forgiven through what I have done.

And so it was through that that the church took off and exploded.

Right?

The gospel goes forward.

That's the mission that God gave these disciples and now us, you know, a couple of millennia later.

And so he's Peter now, he's writing to these believers, he's saying, though you have not seen him, he's like, I have, but I know that you have.

And this is years and years later, though you haven't seen him, you love him.

Okay, you love him.

Though you do not now see him, he says.

Okay, meaning that he hasn't returned yet.

We're all waiting for the second coming of Christ.

He's gonna come, he's gonna gather us, he's gonna bring us to glory with him.

We're all we're all very much anticipating that.

They were anticipating it then, we're still doing that now.

He says, though you do not now see him, you believe in him.

That word believe there is extremely important.

Okay, it it's it means to trust.

Right?

If you want to unpack that even a little bit more, it means to rest one's confidence in.

So when we believe in Jesus, I am I am resting my confidence in his work, in who he is and what he has done.

I am not trying to earn my way to heaven through my good deeds.

I I am choose, I'm not trusting in myself.

I am trusting in what Jesus did.

Okay, that's what it means to believe.

It means to depend on him and rest myself in.

I'm gonna rest in what he's done.

I'm not gonna wear myself out trying to morally jump through a bunch of hoops and impress God.

The scriptures say that's not salvation.

Salvation is receiving what Christ offers you as a gift.

Okay, now keep going here.

Okay, Peter continues.

He says, Though you do not now see him, you believe in him, and rejoice with joy.

You see that there?

It's like emphasized.

It's like saying the same thing twice.

He's it's like an oomph behind it.

Rejoice with joy that is inexpressible.

That word inexpressible meaning, you know, indescribable.

We have this indescribable, inexpressible joy.

It's actually the only time in the New Testament that that word is is used.

And and it means literally a joy that is so profound, this is what believers have, a joy that is so profound that it is beyond the power of words to express.

You ever experienced a moment like that where you're so thankful to the Lord for what he has done?

You're so filled with joy, you don't even know how to utter your gratitude, you don't even know how to express it.

That's the kind of joy, that's the kind of rejoicing that we are to experience as believers.

Okay, but he's not even done describing it yet.

Okay, he continues, he just called it inexpressible, we see that.

Next, he says, it's filled with glory.

It's filled with glory.

What an interesting phrase, interesting sentence.

There's a theologian named Wayne Grudom.

This is how he describes that filled with glory part of the sentence there.

He says, it's joy that has been infused with heavenly glory and that still possesses the radiance of that glory.

It is this joy that results from being in the presence of God Himself, and joy that even now partakes of the character of heaven.

And I love this.

It is the joy of heaven before heaven.

We're not there yet.

Experience now in fellowship with the unseen Christ.

That right there, that is the joy that you and I are to have.

That is the joy that is ours because of Easter Sunday.

I mean, what a what a what a description, right, of the of the horsepower that is behind the rejoicing that we bring on a day like this.

Now, if you're, I don't know, sitting here watching this maybe uh from home and someone sent you a link and you're hearing about this for the first time, or you've heard it all before, and you're skeptical, and maybe if they're kind of thinking, like, wait a second here, like you know, we're we're we're supposed to rejoice like this because you know, some dead guy came back to life 2,000 years ago.

I mean, that's impressive and all, but maybe you're thinking it seems a little bit over the top, right, that that someone should be this pumped about that.

Well, verse 9, take a look now, the rest of this verse, it gives us the reason.

Right?

It gives us the reason that Christians can and should rejoice with joy.

It's because we have obtained.

You see that word obtained meaning secured, we've grabbed hold of, we've we've obtained the outcome or the result of our faith, the salvation of your souls.

Okay, that right there is the reason why we can rejoice with such fervor, with such passion, no matter what is going on in this life.

Because Jesus Christ, through his death, through his resurrection, he's obtained salvation for us.

Our souls are spared.

Well, spared from what, Pastor?

Well, spared from the wrath of God that we deserve to have pointed at us.

That is what Christ accomplished.

Because you and I are imperfect, which means we're sinful.

All of our sin ultimately it's against the God who created us.

Right?

And we often make light of that.

We don't we don't we don't treat that as this heavy, weighty thing, but the Bible describes for us that that that sin against God offends God.

And because God is holy, because God is perfect and he is a just and good God, he has to deal with it.

He has to punish sin.

He wouldn't be a good God if he didn't.

And so, what the gospel tells us here, and what we see, is that Jesus Christ came down and took that wrath, that punishment that you and I deserve.

He took that upon himself.

His his death was substitutionary.

He stepped in where you and I should have been.

And God knew that you and I, we can't behave our way into heaven.

We can't impress God with our works and our acts and our behavior, all of that.

God already knew that.

We're helpless.

We're up a creek without a paddle, as they say.

And so, because of his immense and incredible love for you, for me, for all people, he's like, you know what, I'm gonna take care of this for them.

Even though they don't deserve it.

And even though my son was sinless and blameless and didn't deserve any of the treatment that he got, he stepped in, he died for them.

I'm gonna pour my wrath, I'm gonna punish all sin once and for all in my son.

He's the perfect sacrifice.

And he did it for them.

That is the reason we rejoice.

We rejoice because of what he did, and we rejoice because through him we have obtained the salvation of your souls.

You're wondering, like, what is what does it mean to obtain the salvation that I need?

Well, it means this believing in him.

Remember, Peter already said that in verse 8.

And so I would just ask you, do you believe in him?

Are you resting in his finished work?

Do you understand that that your sin needs to be repented of and confessed?

Do you understand that Jesus, your only hope of salvation is the work that Jesus accomplished on the cross?

If you would repent of your sin and believe in him and depend on him, rest in what he did, not in what you can do because it's inadequate, then you will be saved.

The scriptures talk about salvation being a gift of grace.

That's what it is.

We don't earn it.

We don't deserve it.

Not at all.

Salvation is a gift.

And through Christ, we can be spared of the wrath that is to come.

We can be promised heaven, we can be promised glory.

We can be forgiven of our trespasses.

We can be raised to new life as Jesus was spiritually.

We're raised to new life.

The Lord transforms us.

These are the things that we get.

These are the reasons why we rejoice, why we rejoice with joy.

And so, can I really challenge and motivate you today to consider these things very deeply if you have not?

Consider where you stand before God and realize that that Christ paid the price for you.

And that if you would believe in Him, you could be saved as well.

And then you can Rejoice as we all are going to right now as we sing.

Once more, I'm gonna pray and we're gonna continue to give glory to the King of Kings.

Lord, we thank you for this time together.

We thank you for your immense grace to us.

We pray, Lord, that you would be glorified and you would be honored.

I pray that the truth of the gospel would sink deep into our minds, into our hearts, and truly transform us, Lord.

I pray.

I pray that our hearts would be softened.

I pray that this truth, Lord, would transcend all of the challenges that we're facing in this life.

All the challenges of COVID, all the difficulties at home, the difficulties in our world, politically, health-wise, all of it, Lord, I pray, I pray that this truth would give us reason to rejoice with joy always.

And so, Lord, again, we celebrate that the grave is empty.

We celebrate that through your act we can be reconciled to our Heavenly Father.

And so, Lord, as we sing, we pray that you would be honored.

We pray it in your name.

Amen.