Easter | My King Is Risen (April 12th, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

Well, good morning, redemption.

Happy Easter.

What a day.

If you would grab your Bibles now and turn to John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

Now, as you're doing that, if you're anything like me, you are fired up, right?

You are excited for everything that Easter Sunday means for us as Christ followers, for us as a church.

I always like to think of this as the biggest Sunday of the year for us.

But you know, even as I say that, I gotta be really honest with you out of the gate here, that I just miss being together for this, right?

When you you get to see and experience everyone singing and celebrating and the joy in the empty tomb, I don't think that can be replaced by what we're experiencing uh today.

And to and to miss that, to to long for that, all of that is is really good.

And I gotta say that, you know, in the same breath that I say all of that, I'm not gonna let any of it, you know, ruin my joy or cause me to despair in any way because of the very fact that the tomb is empty.

Christ is risen, right?

Our ultimate hope, our ultimate joy is tied to that stunning reality.

Hey, sure, it might be a bit of an issue that we're not all together for this, but let's not forget that our biggest issue, sin, all of that has been taken care of.

It has been resolved through the resurrection by what Jesus Christ did.

He crushed sin forever, the power of sin.

We have been set free.

That is our hope, that is our joy, that's our joy today, that's our joy tomorrow and every other day, no matter what our circumstances uh might hold.

And so, what do I want to do right now is I want to pray.

I invite you to join me in that as we anchor our hope and our joy back into what happened on Easter Sunday.

Join me as I pray, Lord.

We come before you uh right now, Lord, and we exalt in the risen Christ.

Lord, we know that this is without question the most uh important event in human history, Lord.

Nothing else even comes close to touching it because as Jesus Christ uh breathed again and rose and walked out of the tomb, Lord, sin's power was obliterated, Lord, which means uh that we are not held in bondage to our sin.

We can know you, be forgiven, and walk in newness of life.

And so, God, these are the things that we want to celebrate today.

We want to magnify Jesus.

We want to give you glory.

We want to express our joy and our love and our thanks to you.

And so, Lord, I pray that your spirit would be stirring us up, even though we're all at home right now, we're not all under one roof.

Lord, I pray that that would not dim our passion and our gratitude to you.

So, Lord, would you do all of these things we pray in Jesus' name?

Amen.

Amen.

Well, as we get started here, uh, I just want to take uh a quick second and uh welcome you if you are new with us.

See, on Easter Sundays, that's typically when we have, you know, more guests with us and sometimes people that aren't accustomed to attending church, even if that might be online as it is today.

And so I just want to welcome you and thank you for uh coming and for being a part of all of this uh today.

And really what I want to do is just take uh a moment here to bring you up to speed on where we're at.

See, we're jumping in on Easter Sunday.

It's really the conclusion to this amazing event.

Uh, but it was just three days ago on Good Friday that we took a look at how Christ was crucified on a cross and how how his death uh opened up the opportunity for you and I now to have direct access into a relationship with God.

Okay, he paid the debt that our sins owed, so there would be no more barrier between us and God anymore.

All of that is is removed.

Okay, so that now, if you and I would repent, if we would confess and admit our sins before God and believe or trust that what Jesus Christ did on the cross and through his resurrection, if we believe that that was for uh for us on our behalf, we would be forgiven, we would be declared righteous by God as an act of grace, as a gift, because he loves us so much, okay?

Treated as though we accomplished what Christ actually did uh in his death and in his resurrection.

You see, the the moment that you become a Christ follower, a Christian, that's exactly what happens.

Okay, your your sin gets gets effectively transferred to him, okay, which was which was you know paid for on the cross, and his righteousness, his perfection, his holiness, that's gets that gets transferred to your account, okay, where where now you are righteous.

That is how God sees you.

He sees you as though you accomplished what Jesus did.

That's how you begin a relationship with God.

The moment you confess your sins and ask him to be your savior, that transaction takes place.

I mean, it is amazing.

That is the message of the gospel.

That is what we've been praying for you.

And and all of that, all of that was God's plan from the beginning, right?

That was his plan all along.

And we're gonna see that here.

That actually leads us right into the first thing here.

It's on the screen for you.

My king is risen, and I will marvel at God's plan coming to fruition.

Now, in in John chapter 20, where we're picking it up here uh in the story, okay, Jesus had, you know, he had already died at this point.

John 20 · chapter mention

He had been, you know, taken down off the cross, his body had been prepared for uh for burial, and then he was placed in a tomb that was owned by a very wealthy man named Joseph of Arimathea.

He was actually part of the council that was responsible uh for condemning Jesus to death, though the Bible tells us that he didn't agree with that decision.

He was he didn't want to be a part of that, and he was actually a seeker.

He he wanted to know uh about the kingdom of God.

He was he was he was following and seeking for all of that.

Okay, now this the tomb after Jesus' body had been placed in it, it had been sealed by this massive stone.

It was about 1.5 to two tons.

I mean, this this huge stone was rolled in front to seal the tomb, okay, to seal the entrance there.

And then what happened was the Romans who were in governance over all of this, they placed Roman soldiers in place to guard the tomb to make sure that nothing happened to Jesus' body.

Okay, now all of that being said, take a look at verse one now in chapter uh 20 here as we pick it up in the story.

And as I always say, really try and imagine, you know, the sights, the sounds, the feeling.

Try and place yourself, you know, in the very shoes of the people in this text that'll allow you to understand what they were experiencing and uh and really kind of drink in this story.

Here's what it says in verse one it says, now uh on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene, who is a who is a friend of Jesus, okay, it says that she came to the tomb early while it was still dark.

Okay, so we're talking uh Sunday morning now, okay, which became from you know that moment on after Easter.

That became the traditional day that churches would now gather.

It used to be Saturday, right?

But they would gather now on Sundays uh for worship, which is pretty amazing.

It's exactly what we are doing uh today.

All right, so so Mary she sets out early on Sunday morning now.

This is the third day after uh Jesus had been killed, and she's going out to to mourn, right?

To to grieve and pay her uh respects.

Now keep going.

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

Okay, so so just imagine now how how shocking this would have been for her.

Just imagine she she she wasn't expecting this uh at all.

There's no guards in sight.

Okay, these guys were paid to stand there upon threat of death uh if they had left.

And so a really eerie scene.

It would have been really probably really quiet.

The stone is is gone.

And so what does she do?

Okay, well, it tells us there in verse 2 uh she ran.

Okay, take a look.

If she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loves.

Well, who's that guy?

Who's this other disciple?

Well, we understand this to be uh John, the very author of this gospel.

And it's a term here, the one whom Jesus loves, suggests that they had a very close, tight-knit bond, you know, probably like like being best friends kind of thing, right?

And we know that that John was the guy who who Jesus entrusted to care for his mother as Jesus was being led away to be crucified.

Okay, that would be something that you would ask a best friend to do.

Okay, so so Mary Magdalene now, she she shows up at Peter's house and and at John's front door, and she's you know likely in a panic here, like wondering what is going on here.

Well, keep going.

Okay, she showed up and said to them, uh, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.

You know, who's the we?

Well, the other gospels actually explain that it wasn't just Mary.

There were actually a number of other women with her at the time as well.

But John focuses in on Mary.

So she doesn't know where they've laid him.

Okay, so look what it says.

So Peter went out with the other disciple, okay, this is John, and they were going towards the tomb.

Okay, both of them were running together.

Okay, now just imagine their headspace here.

Just imagine the emotions that they would have been going through.

Okay, the the confusion about what is really happening.

It's, you know, maybe the fear or or or anger even.

What has happened to our friend as they grieve?

Just trying to imagine what they would have been uh feeling and experienced.

Okay, so they're both running together.

It goes on.

It says, but the other disciple, okay, outran Peter and reached the tomb first.

Stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloth lying there, but he did not go in.

Okay, so so John is just he, you know, he gets there first.

He's he's stopped in his tracks by by what he sees.

Okay, the the cloths used to, you know, uh wrap Jesus' body, you know, with spices and and perfumes, ointments, that kind of thing.

He just sees them lay there.

Okay, now verse six.

Then Simon Peter came, he was a little bit of a slower runner, I guess, following him and went into the tomb.

Okay, if you're familiar with uh Peter uh at all, as we are, you know, we we are well aware of his, you know, act first, think later uh type mentality that he always has.

So he just kind of barges right in.

It says there that 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.

Hey, now why do you think that it would mention those very specific details to us, right?

Well, well, probably to give us uh, you know, a clue here, a couple of clues, uh, that this was not uh a grave robbery.

If you think about it, grave robbers, they they hardly would have taken time to unwrap the body.

Okay, they wouldn't have done that.

You know, you picture yourself being a grave robber, you want to like get in and get out.

You're gonna grab the body, you're gonna run out there.

You're not gonna take the time.

Hmm, let's unfold this all very neatly and you know, just you know, you're not gonna do that.

Okay, you're gonna go be quick, you're gonna be, you're gonna be in and you are going to be uh out.

Okay, and they certainly, okay, they certainly wouldn't have folded up the face cloth neatly and put it in a place uh by itself.

Okay, no, the the the face cloth laying there, you know, folded up as it was, is evidence that that Christ came back from the dead, took the face cloth off, and folded it up and put it to the side himself.

Right?

What an amazing thing to consider.

What a detail there.

And and and probably the very thing that that John and Peter are processing as as they see all of this here.

Okay, you know, verse 8, keep going.

It says, and the other disciple, okay, who had reached the tomb first, that's John, he also went in and he saw, as he surveyed the scene, and believed.

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

Then the disciples, it says, went back to their homes.

Okay, so so John he he follows Peter into the tomb.

He he takes stock of everything that he's seeing, the folded cloth, the the garments that he was buried in, and he at once believes that Christ is risen.

Okay, what a moment.

But yet at the same time, he still hasn't put it all together yet, as we often see the disciples all along the way, uh, that's just the case, right?

They didn't understand, it says in verse 9, that the scriptures had foretold, not to mention that Jesus had himself told them a number of times that all of this would happen.

Okay?

Think about it, God's plan here had finally come to fruition, right?

For you know, centuries old.

I mean, we have been we've been tracking with this over the last several weeks here in our series, how at each step along the way in in Jesus' earthly ministry, he was filling uh fulfilling uh prophecies that were you know several millennia uh old, right?

Things that were promised from the very beginning.

And I mean that literally, okay?

From the very start, God, in all of his sovereignty, okay, in all of his omniscience, which it which he is he is all-knowing and all-powerful, that's his omnipotence, he knew that that his creation, that's us, would rebel against him.

Okay, he he knew that.

He wasn't caught off guard by by any of our sin.

He knew that sin would enter into the world through Adam and Eve.

I mean, the very first people that he created, he knew that they would sin, that they would reject his rule and his rules and his, you know, him being God and be able to dictate how life should should look.

He knew it was best for them.

He knew that that mankind would reject that, would run away from that and and rebel.

Okay, and he knew that that sin would ruin the perfect relationship that he had originally created Adam and Eve to have with him.

In fact, Genesis, which is the first book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, uh, when God is doling out consequences to Satan and Adam and Eve for their sin, here's what God says to Satan.

Genesis 3:15

Okay, follow along with this here.

He says, I will put enmity, enmity means hostility, I will put enmity between you, Satan, and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.

And then notice this next word.

He, okay, referring to a very specific person, shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

Hey now, yeah, we've looked at this verse before.

Do you remember the kind of the theological name for this verse or the term for this?

Right?

It's called the proto-evangelium, meaning uh first gospel.

It is the very first mention of the gospel in the Bible.

It's the first time that God hints that a rescue plan is in place.

Okay?

Eve's offspring, referring to Jesus pointing ahead to him, he will bruise, or another other translation say crush Satan's head, okay?

His head.

He will destroy him, he will destroy his power over sin.

Whereas Satan, it says, would merely bruise, okay, Christ's heel, okay, not his head.

Referring to how the cross was not actually spiritually a death blow uh at all.

Instead, it was the very means of our salvation, and the grave would be defeated now through Christ's resurrection from the dead.

Okay, so so just think about how awesome a verse like Genesis 3, 15 is.

I mean, immediately after sin enters into the picture in God's creation, God lets us in on the fact that, listen, I've I've got a plan to take care of all of this.

Right?

I'm not gonna, you know, just let you all twist in the wind and suffer forever.

He's like, Christ is coming.

My own son is coming, the Messiah, uh, to earth in the form of a man to defeat Satan and defeat the power of sin and death.

He's gonna step in and he is going to rescue us from this mess that our sin created by sacrificing himself on a cross in our place.

Okay, what an incredible thing that God tells us, his people, that right from the beginning.

Okay, this is what this is what Peter, John, and the disciples, they didn't quite realize all of this uh yet.

They didn't understand it.

Okay, up to this point, remember, they thought that that Jesus, that that the Messiah was gonna come and you know be an earthly king who would bring military victory and national, you know, dominance and triumph to Israel.

Right?

That's what they were kind of expecting.

And little did they realize that that God was planning something much, much bigger than that.

He was coming to take care of, you know, and and save the world from uh from sin, not just the Jews.

He had something far more grand in mind, right?

And we know from Acts chapter 1 and verse 3 that after his resurrection, after he came back from the dead, he would appear uh to uh many of his disciples, many, many people actually, and spent time teaching them and instructing them and filling in all the blanks in their understanding and in their in their minds, just how the scriptures prophesied about his death, his burial, and his resurrection.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Okay, and there are actually uh well over 300 very specific prophecies in the Old Testament about the Messiah that would come to fruition in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

I mean, there are so many of them, but let's just look at uh a couple of them here, okay, because I think this will encourage us so much.

If you want to just jot down Psalm 22, okay, Psalm 22 is one of them.

We're gonna see a bunch of them here in Psalm 22, and then Isaiah chapter uh 53.

Okay, Psalm 22, understand that Psalm 22 was written a thousand years before Easter.

Okay, a thousand years before Christ died and was buried and then rose.

In Psalm 22 in verse 16, it talks about how the Messiah would have his hands and feet pierced, okay?

Now that's the exact thing that happened to Jesus.

That's exactly what crucifixion is.

He would hoist him up on the cross and then pierce them through the hands and through the feet and hold them there as an excruciating, awful death that the Romans practiced uh quite regularly.

It actually says this in Matthew, uh sorry, in Psalm 22.

In verse 17 of Psalm 22, it says that the Messiah's bones would not be broken.

Okay, usually when someone was crucified, uh what they would do is they would hang there excruciatingly for days sometimes, hours at the very least.

And so, you know, to kind of speed things up a little bit, the soldiers, those in charge there, would actually break their legs so they wouldn't be able to push up and get a breath.

And see, that was really the death by by crucifixion.

You'd actually suffocate as as your lungs collapse and you would be down.

So they would no longer be able to stand up on their feet and take a breath and prolong the crucifixion.

All of that, though, that never happened with Jesus.

His bones were not broken.

And the New Testament records this in John chapter 19, starting in verse 31.

John 19 · chapter mention

You can go read that on your own time.

Now, Psalm 22, we're still in it here.

A final verse we'll look at there is verse 18.

Okay, it says that men will divide up his garments and cast lots for his clothing.

Okay, that's the very thing that the soldiers did with Jesus in Matthew.

Matthew 27, verse 35.

Matthew 27:35

Okay, amazing to think that all of that was prophesied, you know, very specific prophecies, a thousand years before Jesus came, and all of that was fulfilled perfectly in him.

Now, Isaiah 53, that's the other section that we'll look at there.

That's known as the suffering servant prophecy, and it was written about seven, more than seven hundred years before Christ.

And it says there in verse 3 that the Messiah will be rejected.

Okay, and we know that Christ was rejected by his own people, the the Jews, the Israelites, the very people that he came to save, they were the ones that said, No, you are not the Messiah.

In fact, we want you dead, and they were the ones that roped the Romans into uh accomplishing that uh for them.

If you keep going in Isaiah 53, in verses 5 to 9, it says that the Messiah will be killed as a sacrifice for the sins of his people, which is exactly what he was.

In in verse 7, it says that the Messiah will be silent in front of his accusers.

In Matthew 27, starting in verse 11, we see that that is the case.

Jesus is silent when the chief priests are accusing him, and when when Pilate is asking him questions, he doesn't he doesn't answer them.

He is silent.

In Isaiah 53, verse 9, it says that the Messiah will be buried with the rich.

Isaiah 53:9

And I also actually already mentioned that.

In in Matthew 27, Joseph of Arimathea gives up his tomb, gives his tomb so that Jesus' body could be uh buried um there.

Okay, and then in in verse 12 of Isaiah 53, it says that the Messiah will be with criminals in his death.

And we know that's exactly what happened uh to Jesus in Luke chapter uh 23 in verses 32 to 43, we see that he was hung between two criminals.

Okay, each and every one of these prophecies, and so many others, hundreds of them, okay, perfectly fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

In fact, in fact, the the the entire Old Testament, if you think about it, is just constantly and continually pointing towards our need for a savior.

Okay, if you think about the law, some of us might might think of that as as the Ten Commandments, right?

You've heard that before.

That's like God's top ten, but you know, the first five books of the Bible are considered the law, and that is where the law is explained, and we get a lot of, you know, here's how you should live, here's how you should not live.

Okay, all of that was was to really uh show and expose to mankind that we can't possibly, you know, follow all of these commands.

We can't do all of the good things that God commands us to do.

We can't stay away from all of the bad things that God commands us not to do, and all of that is to have left mankind feeling helpless, and I need I need a savior, I need someone to fix this because I have transgressed the law.

So all of that is pointing to our need for a Messiah.

But you even think about uh a character like Moses in the Old Testament, right?

Moses is the guy who who God used, who sent into Egypt.

God's people were in slavery in Egypt, and he used Moses to lead his people out of slavery.

Moses is what we would call a type of Christ, right?

He is a picture of what Jesus would come and do in the ultimate sense.

As Moses rescued his people from physical slavery, Jesus would come and rescue all of mankind from spiritual slavery to sin.

Okay, one more, David.

David is another guy who would be considered a type of Christ.

He was like the ultimate king over God's people.

They had asked for a king, and then David uh was that king.

He was a conquering king, and now Jesus would come, and he would be the ultimate king.

He would be the true conquering king who would conquer Satan, sin, and death.

They think about all of these things, and there's so many more examples that if we had time, we could go through many more of them.

These were all glimpses of what was to come, what Christ would come and fulfill and be the ultimate example and representation of.

All of it foreshadowing that Jesus, okay, was God's plan coming to fruition.

That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4, see it there, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also receive.

So he's like, this is the message that I'm declaring to you.

That Christ died for our sins, notice this, in accordance with the scriptures, just like the scriptures had foretold, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, and he says it again, in accordance with the scriptures.

Okay, so that the the Bible, okay, is so unified from start to finish.

Everything in it points to the cross and points to the resurrection, how Jesus Christ is the savior of the world.

How amazing that this book is so unified, written over a period of thousands of years by so many different authors, and their message is all the same.

Just incredible how God gave us this book and how his plan was not going to be stopped.

It all came true in Jesus.

I mean, how amazing is it that God, you know, would would give his people such hope, right?

That he just reminds people all throughout history and all through the Bible.

Listen, I I'm coming for you.

Okay, okay, don't don't worry.

I'm gonna make all things new.

I'm gonna make way so that your sins can be forgiven forever and you can find eternal life in me.

That that chasm that our our sins had created between us and God.

He he bridged that gap, he he fixed that forever through the cross and through the empty tomb, right?

That was the emphatic statement that it was all accomplished, right?

Just as God designed, just as God had planned and promised, right?

It was the it was the empty grave.

I mean, do you do you realize that this was God's plan all along, from the very beginning, right?

And does it cause you to marvel?

Right?

Even as you you you see some of these verses from from you know hundreds, if not a thousand years before Jesus came and fulfilled, and you look at how the Bible is so unified in all this.

Is it not just like blow your mind and make you want to glorify the Lord and and worship him and thank him for the cross and thank him rising from the dead, right?

And and maybe for you, like, man, just get John back up here, like leading us in some songs.

Like I'm ready to worship, I'm ready to respond in this way.

I don't feel like I need any more, but listen, listen, there is more here.

There's more to come, and it's just so important.

We'll stir up our worship even further.

Here's the final thing: my king is risen, and I will love and honor him with my whole heart.

Okay, the the narrative now in our passage here in John uh 20 uh shifts back to uh Mary, uh, who had returned back to the empty tomb, okay, after Peter and John had left.

And you know, and she's still in that place of uh uh of being overcome with grief and and and sorrow and trying to figure it all out.

She assumes that the tomb has been violated.

Now we'll see this here in verse 11.

It says, But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, right?

Because she was heartbroken.

Okay, and as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb, and and she saw two angels in white sitting where Jesus, the body of Jesus, had lain.

One at the head and one at the feet.

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

Now, it doesn't appear that she realizes there's angels, because every time we know in the scriptures, when a person sees an angel and they they know it's an angel, they they cower in fear.

It's a very terrifying moment.

They're very impressive beings, but she doesn't seem to know it.

In verse 13, she said to them, Oh, they've taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.

Again, she's so distraught here at the at the thought of his body being uh desecrated, right?

Her desire would be that he would be shown much greater respect, obviously.

And it says there, having having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing.

Okay, but look, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

Okay, so she didn't she didn't realize, you know, or recognize him uh at all.

Maybe she didn't look at him him carefully, or or perhaps she was prevented uh from from recognizing him.

We know that Jesus uh did that until he decided it was time that the disciples would realize that it was actually him that they were talking uh to.

But then verse 15 here it says, Jesus uh said to her, uh, Woman, why are you weeping?

You know, whom are you seeking?

And then it says, Supposing him to be the gardener, kind of funny, she said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.

You see how her desire again is just so strong.

She wants to honor him.

Okay, in verse 16, Jesus said to her, Mary.

And she turned and said to him in Aramaic, Raboni, which means teacher.

Okay, now verse 17, Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me.

All right.

So obviously in her relief, and you know, she's she's overjoyed.

She just expresses her love to him by grabbing hold of him and you know tightly.

And so he's saying, you know, uh, do not cling to me.

So he says, For I have not yet ascended, gone up to the Father, but go, he says, to my brothers, the other disciples, and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.

Now, uh telling Mary to not uh cling to him here might seem at first glance like kind of a chilly response, but but it's really not.

See, because Jesus, he knew her heart, he knew her intentions there, and that in her joy and her relief and all of that, in her clinging for those reasons, she was essentially saying, Listen, I am never letting you go again, right?

Have you ever like lost a child, you know, in a in a busy crowd at a mall or something, and you find them, like that's that's how you feel.

She's probably feeling something like that, probably even more so, I would imagine, here.

Okay, but but Jesus, here's the thing, he would only be staying another 40 days before ascending and being at the right side, right hand of his father.

Matthew chapter 28 tells us that.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Okay, and then and then sending, of course, his his disciples, the promised Holy Spirit, and and Jesus would then be overseeing the launch of his church.

We see all of those things in the book of Acts, the very series that we'll be getting back into uh starting uh next week.

Okay, now finally, uh verse 18, uh take a look.

It says, Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her.

In these verses here, we just see this strong desire, this strong response in Mary to love and and honor Jesus with her whole heart.

She is she's all about it, right?

She she first of all she wants to honor his his body when she thought that he had been defiled, when the tomb had been defiled, when when she first recognizes him, she calls him uh Raboni, which means teacher, of course, it says there, but but it's also actually also a stronger title than uh than the word rabbi.

It was used to express great honor, and and it was a stronger expression of reverence.

It can also mean beloved teacher.

And of course, when she clings to him here in this moment, it's out of relief and it's out of joy that that she sees him, and he's alive, of course, but it's also a clear, pretty clear sign of how much she loves him, right?

The love that she had for Christ.

Okay, and on top of that, we see her love expressed in that she obeys him.

Okay, because Jesus had said earlier, back in John chapter 14, actually in verse 15, that if you love me, you will keep my commands.

John 14 · chapter mention

Okay, so what does Jesus command her to do?

Well, he tells her to go and tell his disciples, again, that he would be ascending to his father shortly.

And so what does our text tell us?

Well, it tells us that she did that very thing.

She runs to them just like he told her to.

He says, I have she says, I've seen the Lord, and then relays everything that he had said to her.

Okay, so listen, all of that there, as we look at at Mary as the example, all of this really points to what our response should be.

It's to love and honor the Lord with our whole hearts, right?

That's it, with everything that we've got, just as we see Mary do here.

And yeah, our our our our joy and our gratitude and and our desire for him should absolutely be firing on all cylinders.

It should be, it should be very stirred up on Easter as we explore a text like this, and and our passion should be absolutely redlining and all of that, but but at the very same time here, can I just you know caution us here for for just a moment uh against emotionalism?

Okay, emotions being expressed.

That's very appropriate and and very good, right?

Mary's a great example of expressing multiple emotions here.

Okay, but Easter Sunday, or or really any Sunday, isn't just about getting us getting whipped up into some kind of emotional frenzy just for emotions' sake, right?

Just to feel good and warm and fuzzy inside.

Like the bat the pastor better say something, you know, to kind of pick me up out of my stupor, or or or the worship and the music better be a certain way so that I have that emotional experience again.

That is not the goal, okay?

That that's emotionalism, okay, like like a spiritual drug and kind of a high that can be very easy to fall into and to just be chasing after.

And I'm trying to get that spiritual high constantly.

That's not what we're going for here.

Hey, listen, listen, loving and honoring Christ with our whole hearts here, biblically understood, is when you and I respond to what we're reading today, to the gospel, okay, that our king is risen, he's alive on a heart and on a mind and a volition, which is our will, on an emotional level and also on an obedience level, right where we like 100% surrender our lives wholeheartedly to him, right?

To follow him no matter where he leads, no matter what happens, what he calls us to.

Okay, that is a radical calling that is placed on believers.

But but this is exactly what Mary and the disciples do.

We see the disciples display their love and and honor for Christ and their response to him being alive.

We see them display that through the rest of the New Testament, right?

And how they worship him passionately, how how they pray with such fervency and rely on him in that way, how they just immerse themselves into the text, into the scriptures, and and and they fearlessly evangelize.

They want to tell everybody about what Christ has done, how that they go on from there and they they plant churches and they make disciples, right?

This is just full surrender of their lives, their plans, what they wanted it to be, totally into the furthering of God's kingdom, right?

That is how they love him.

That is how they honor the risen king with their whole hearts.

And that right there is the response that Easter drives you and I to as well.

All right, so church, what'll your response be today?

Right?

Well, what's it gonna be?

Will you respond by by by first repenting of your sin and trusting Jesus as savior if you've never done that?

Right?

I can I urge you in as strong of a way as possible to to do that, right?

If you're a guest with us here today and and you've never heard the gospel, know that God loves you.

And that's why he went through all of this on Good Friday, and that's why he rose from the grave to pay for your sins so that you can be forgiven and you can be in a relationship with the one true living God, the God who made you and has a plan for your life.

He he this is why he did.

We surrender to him?

Will you do that today?

Let us know if you have done that, or if you have questions about what any of that uh means, if if that any of that is fuzzy to you.

Okay, and for us as as Christ followers here, okay, for the rest of us, you know, as we see that that Jesus is risen, right, will will we respond by by loving him and and and honoring him with our whole heart, okay?

Not not halfway.

Okay, not kind of, you know, one foot in, one foot out.

Right?

If the average person could look at your life and and not have a clue that you're a Christian, that suggests that a further response is required, that our hearts are not fully in, fully surrendered to his will, no matter what and no matter where he leads you.

Remember, our king is risen.

We will rejoice.

We will rejoice today, we will rejoice every day.

We will continue to look at this as our hope and as our joy.

We will glorify him every moment that we get.

And listen, I wanna, I wanna pray for us right now, okay?

And then we're gonna we're gonna sing, we're gonna exalt Jesus, we're gonna thank him, we're gonna glory in him as our response to these things.

Join me as I pray, Lord.

We come before you and we thank you so much for all of this, Lord.

Right?

To even say this just feels like I can't muster up enough and how strongly I mean that, Lord.

And so, God, I pray that that as your church, you know, glories in the gospel again and and and looks back at the events of Easter Sunday and and thinks about these things and and celebrates these things, Lord, I pray that we would be respond uh stirred to respond by loving you and honoring you with our whole lives.

Lord, you're not just looking for us to be, you know, jumping on some emotional hype train and and be kind of excited and and feel good about some things until that kind of wears off later this afternoon.

No, Lord, you want you want our very lives.

And Lord, you deserve that.

You deserve everything that we have.

Lord, I pray that we would surrender our will, our lives, our thinking, our plans, all of it to you so that you would use us, Lord, in the furthering of your kingdom.

And so, God, in in encourage us in these things, Lord.

I pray that as we sing now, Lord, you would be you would be honored, Lord.

That's what we want.

We want to thank you and praise you and make much of you.

Lord, be glorified.

It's in Christ's name we pray these things.

Amen.