Celebrate The Risen King | April 5 2026

Well, good morning. Great to see you all.

He has risen. He is risen indeed.

Fantastic. If you have brought a Bible with

you and you want to follow along with me, I am in John's Gospel,

chapter 20. If you didn't, no problem.

But the if you don't know where John's Gospel is, it's right

there on the table of contents up there on the screen.

You know, one of my favorite memories of Easter week as a kid

was running it was watching all those reruns of the movies of

Jesus's life, You know, watching him teach, seeing him do

miracles, the compassion he had for people.

And of course, what stunned me was his death on the cross into

through through childhood. There was there was an intrigue

that I had about the person of Jesus Christ.

Once I hit university stage, I lost sight of who he was and I

remember being asked a question by someone saying who, what do

you think about Jesus Christ? And my answer to that question,

I realized I don't really know a lot about Jesus Christ.

I remember he taught and remember he did some miracles or

allegedly, but that he died on a cross.

That's really the main thing that I remember, that he died on

a cross. The resurrection of Jesus didn't

factor in at all for me, but my remembrance of Jesus Christ.

It was almost like the resurrection, even though I had

heard about it, was sort of detached completely from the

story of Jesus. Ever thought about that?

Like what what the what the the resurrection really has to do

with anything, and yet it is the most significant event that is

taking place in human history. You know that your birthday is

in reference to the days, months and years away from the

resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

This historical fact, every time that you open up your iPhone or

your smartphone and you look at the date right there on the

screen, it is a reminder of how many days, months, and years we

are from the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It's a reminder every day. This is how long it's been since

it's reminding us every day of the resurrection of Jesus

Christ. It is the most significant event

in history and that's why today over 2 million people around the

world, world will be gathering in churches just like this to

celebrate this historical event that has changed the world and

has split history between AD, BC and AD.

It's the reason why we're sitting here today.

This is the reason. And yet it has taken me at least

years to figure out what the resurrection was really all

about, like why it had actually had to happen.

Are you in that place you ever wondered?

Like why did the resurrection actually have to take place?

If so, you are in very good company because of the very

closest followers of Jesus Christ had no idea why it had to

happen. They were surprised, completely

surprised. And that's what John's gospel in

chapter 20 we're going to take a look at.

So just before we do read this, let's just whisper up a prayer.

Father in heaven, thank you for this beautiful day.

Thank you for the opportunity that we have to be together in

this place to hear the greatest story ever told and we pray that

you would open our eyes and soften our hearts to hear from

you today in Jesus name. E-mail John chapter 20 starting

John 20 · chapter mention

at verse one early on the first day of the week.

So that's a Sunday while it was still dark.

So that means very early in the morning Mary Magdalene went to

the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the

entrance. So she came running to Simon

Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved and said

they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where

they have put him. Just put just pause right there.

Think about this. This is John's gospel.

This is the a gospel account according to the disciple John.

And he's actually the other disciple here mentioned in verse

2. And notice how he refers to

himself, the one that Jesus loved.

He's not saying that he's the only one that Jesus loved, but

that's how he saw his primary identity as one who has been

loved by Jesus. It is awesome.

And so John focuses attention here on Mary Magdalene as the

one who is coming from the tomb. But we know that she was not

alone because she says we don't know where they had put him.

But notice her statement. They have taken the Lord out of

the tomb and we don't know where they have put him.

She was not at all expecting him to rise from the dead.

None of them were. This was an absolute shock.

It was a utter surprise trying to figure it out.

Verse 3. So Peter and the other disciple

started for the tomb. Both were running.

So it's not like, hey, you know, John, let's go for a jog right

now. No, they were sprinting all out.

They wanted to get to the tomb. Both were running, but the other

disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.

Interesting little note, Eyewitness note.

I I beat Peter. There's a little bit of

competition between the disciples.

Maybe that's coming out here. So John got there first.

He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there,

but did not go in. So John gets there first.

He looks into the tomb. So tomb would have been carved

out of rock and and he looks into the tomb and he doesn't see

the body of Jesus and say, OK, yeah, that's right, Report is

true. Jesus is not there and he just,

he just kind of turned aside. But then Peter, this is verse

six, came along behind him and went straight into the tomb.

This is just like Peter, right? Just impetuous guy.

I'm going in there to check it out.

And he saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the

cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus head.

The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.

Um, so Peter gets in there and he is studying what he has seen

these linens that were wrapped around Jesus's dead body.

And just the fact that they were there says something because

they would have been soaked in like earlier, earlier on in, in,

in chapter 19, it says that 75 lbs of aloes and murder.

These was used to wrap Jesus's body and these strips of linen.

In other words, they were clinging to his body.

So if you were stealing this body or in some way trying to

create some kind of a hoax, why would you try to go through the

go through the hassle of trying to unwrap this body, unwrap the,

the, the linen from the body? We wouldn't do that.

You just take the body, but the linens are just sitting there

just about. But by the very fact that

they're there, but the way that they were there didn't make

sense. Something unusual there was

happening. And so you have verse 8.

Finally, the other disciple, that's John, who had reached the

tomb first, just in case you've forgotten, like I'm the guy that

reached him first, also went inside.

He saw and believed just by looking at the close, at the at

at the, the the grave close, the the the strips of linen.

JC Ryle put it this way. He said we shouldn't forget that

this simple fact of the linen clothes line there was enough to

satisfy any thinking mind that something extraordinary must

have occurred. The grave clothes were just

lying there and it was as though Jesus had passed through the

grave clothes and the allows in the mirror, just like he had

passed through the walls of the disciples.

Later on here in chapter, later on in chapter 24 or sorry, yeah,

chapter chapter 20, verse 19, it says on the evening of that

first day of the week, so this is the evening of his

resurrection when the disciples were together with the doors

locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood

among them and said peace be with you.

That would have been an utter shock.

He just appeared again in verse 26.

It says that as well. Something happened and it was

enough for John, even though he had not seen Jesus, the physical

Jesus risen from the dead. Just seeing the linens there was

enough to satisfy him. He's risen, but not everybody

was at that place. But then verse 9, and this is

the kicker, says they still did not understand from Scripture

that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

They still didn't understand why it had to happen.

I find this incredibly encouraging because I'm really

slow at picking things up. I don't know about you.

You're slow at picking things up.

These guys were very slow and picking, picking things up.

The Lord God who created us is so patient with us.

He's got an incredible amount of patience and compassion.

He knows how ignorant we can be sometimes and how slow and how

slowly we we receive information and and embrace the truth and

pattern our lives behind it. He knows that, and I think we

have to have the same kind of compassion toward other people

too, who may not get it the way that we get it.

But they didn't understand and yet the scriptures had confirmed

it. Now we can look at a number of

scriptures. Actually we will.

Now let's just take a look a few scriptures that are referring to

the suffering of the servant of God and his resurrection from

the dead. Psalm 16 verse 10 says you will

Psalms 16:10

not abandon me to the to the realm of the dead, nor will you

let your faithful ones see decay a glimpse of it.

Josiah chapter 6 says, come, let us return to the Lord.

He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us.

He is injured us, but He will bind up our wounds.

After two days He will revive us.

On the third day He will restore us that we may live in his

presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord.

Let us press on to acknowledge Him As surely as the sun rises,

he will appear. Just glimpses pictures of Good

Friday and Easter Sunday. Also Isaiah 53.

Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to

suffer. This is this is like 600 years

before the the Jesus comes to the earth and suffers and dies.

And though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he

will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will

of the Lord will prosper in his hand after he had suffered.

He will see the light of life and be satisfied.

And when Jesus also likens his death and his resurrection to

the experience of Jonah, who was swallowed.

He spent three days in the belly of a fish and then he's coughed

out onto dry land. Jesus, Jesus showing us these

images, these pictures, these prophecies that all this was to

happen. But beyond that, Jesus had told

his disciples very specifically, I'm going to be murdered, and

after three days I'm going to rise from the dead.

He told that to his disciples, these very disciples, multiple

times, and they did get it. They still didn't get it.

How long does it take us to get it?

Sometimes it takes, it takes us a long while.

Do you know why Jesus had to rise?

Do you know and do you know how that makes a difference in the

way that we live our lives? Do you know how that that can

help us to live in a very uncertain world, very unkind at

times world It can help us. I want to talk about four

reasons why the resurrection had to happen. 4 reasons why God

felt it was necessary to raise his son from the dead.

If you're taking notes, here's the first one.

Jesus rose from the dead to show us the greatness of Jesus.

God raised him from the dead to show us the greatness of Jesus.

If Jesus had never been raised from the dead, we never would

have heard from him, never would have heard of him, never would

have heard the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

Nazareth. Why?

Because the the the resurrection is what woke us all up to how

special he was, to how incredibly great he is not just

a teacher. He wasn't just that.

He was a great teacher, but he wasn't just a teacher.

He made outrageous claims about himself, claims that no good man

in his right mind would ever make to be God in the flesh.

And then he predicts his death and his resurrection, and he

pulls it off. Like, how great do you have to

be to do that? Think about it, his name has

been a curse word for the last 2000 years.

How awesome do you have to be for your name to be a curse word

2000 years after you've died? It's incredible if you think

about it. We don't curse other use, use

the name of other great teachers like OHP, Confucius, you know,

Buddha, you know, we we don't, we don't do that kind of thing.

It's Jesus and his name alone. Why?

Because his name is powerful, and there's no other name that's

greater than his name. And that's why that name will be

lifted up. It will be declared on the lips

of faithful followers who are close to him, and it will be

declared by irreligious people who are far from it.

Either way, it is going to be lifted up.

He is great and the resurrection shows us that.

So what do we do with Jesus? What do we do with Him?

We can't sit on the fence. We can reject Him and choose to

do that, but He invites us to declare the truth, to bow the

knee and say You are Lord, you are Lord, you are my Lord, and I

want to follow you. The the more we acknowledge the

greatness of Jesus, our lives begin to reflect His greatness.

Second reason why God raised him from the dead, and that is to

show us the significance of his death.

We would never call Good Friday good if it wasn't for the

resurrection of Jesus Christ. He would have just been another

person, another criminal who was crucified on a cross, and many

people were crucified on a cross.

But it was because of his resurrection that now we realize

that everything he said about his death was true.

That He came into this world to take on the suffering, the pain

and the sins of humanity and bring them down to the grave so

that all who put their hope in Him, all who acknowledge and

trust Him, their sins would be forgiven.

This is such a sweet, sweet thing.

What the resurrection did was it.

It showed us that God accepted the sacrifice of the cross.

Romans chapter 4 verse 25 says he was delivered over to death

Romans 4:25

for your for our sins and was raised to life for our

justification. He died to erase our sins, and

the resurrection confirms it. That's what the And So what does

this mean? It gives us incredible

confidence. It's not just that Jesus died

for your sins. It said he was raised from the

dead to confirm that your sins are forgiven.

We do not have to live with our regrets.

We do not have to haul our our our sins around with us.

We can know that every single one of them has been erased from

our lives. That is an incredible gift.

All of us have blown it. All of us have sinned.

All of us have offended God. We're all in the same boat, and

we can know that none of that is going to be held against us.

There's not one sin that's going to be counted against us because

of the resurrection. Yes, the death of Jesus, but the

resurrection confirms that fact. And that's why we can be

incredibly confident in the way that we live.

We don't have to live trying to gain God's acceptance or his

approval or anybody else's approval.

We can live out of the approval that we already have through the

death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That makes it absolute truckload of difference in the way that we

live #3 Third reason why what the resurrection shows is that

shows us that there is always hope.

There is always hope no matter what we are going through, no

matter how we dark the circumstances, no matter how bad

our Good Friday looks. We know that there is hope

because of the story of Jesus. This is like this is a picture

of what life is for each one of us.

You know, Jesus said in earlier on in in John's Gospel chapter

16, he said in this world talking to his disciples.

So he's talking to us in this world.

You will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the

world. I have overcome it.

All of the garbage, all of the heaviness, everything that we're

suffering, everything in this world that is not right is going

to be set right. Eventually, how to talking put

it, everything sad will become untrue.

Jesus is making all things new through his death and his

resurrection, bringing new life. There is always hope.

If God raised a dead Jesus from the grave, he can raise you in

any dead place that you find yourself today, whether it might

be some financial hardship, maybe it's a relationship that

has gone South and it's broken in some way.

Maybe there's an insurmountable challenge.

Maybe if you're looking into your future and your career and

you're thinking, man, this is going nowhere.

Maybe you're lonely, maybe you're depressed, anxious, maybe

debilitating illness. Whatever it might be, the

resurrection of Jesus Christ speaks in to that situation.

And there is hope. There is always hope.

Uh, SM Lockridge? Black preacher.

Very powerful preacher. You know what SMH stands for?

Shadrach Meshach. You ever his parents called him

Shadrach Meshach Lockridge. It's pretty cool name and it was

dog might have been a Bendigo or something, I'm not sure, but

it's quite a powerful name, but a powerful preacher.

And he preached one of the most potent sermons ever.

And it was titled It's Friday, but Sunday's coming.

It might feel like it's Friday today, but Sunday is coming.

The whole picture of the Holy Week is there being It's for our

encouragement, friends. When we put our trust in the

living God and the risen Savior, He rescues us out of everything.

It doesn't make suddenly life become easy.

That's never the promise of Scripture.

But God does in His power promise to come close to us and

to walk through us and actually lift us up in His everlasting

arms and to get us through absolutely anything.

It's kind of like if you're, if you're, if you're watching a

video replay of a game and you know your team won, but you're

watching this replay and they're getting, they're getting toasted

by by halftime, they're just getting pummeled.

And yet you don't have to be anxious because you know that in

the end, your team's going to win.

And this is what the scriptures are given to us for.

We know how it's going to end. For all those who put their

trust in God, there is always hope.

And so no matter how far you are down, no matter how much the

enemy is seeming seemingly beating you, you know how it's

gonna end. There is always hope.

Pope John Paul the 2nd put it this way, he said.

Do not abandon yourself to despair.

We are the Easter people and Hallelujah is our song.

I don't often quote Popes, but that's a good one, guys.

That is a real good one. We are Easter people.

We are Easter people. We're people who know about the

resurrection and the fact that there is always hope.

And that means that when we're living, even when we are down,

even when in those dark, low places that we get to and all of

us get to those places, every single one of us, at some point,

we can still have joy. We can still meet people with a

smile. You can make somebody's day

simply with a smile. Cost us nothing and we have a

reason to smile. There is no biblical reason for

discouragement, every reason given to have joy that we could

just a simple act of kindness. Even though my life looks like a

train wreck, I can still do something kind.

I can still serve someone. I can still be generous.

I can still be a Christian because I know, but there's

always hope, and God is even gonna use what I'm doing in

order to bring hope into somebody's life.

There is always hope. Last thing, fourth reason why

the resurrection and that is to show us that there's a life

after death, at least Strobel who wrote the book that Emma

referred to earlier on. So if you're new, if this is

your first time here today, actually, if you're just new, if

maybe it's been a couple of times, you can grab one of those

books. It's an awesome book.

He's a he's a he was a journalist for the Chicago

tribute. He was an atheist at one point

in his life and he came to Christ, but he wrote a book last

year, 2025 called Scene the Supernatural.

And he documents a number of near death experiences.

I don't know if you're into near death experiences.

I'm not really into that stuff. I think, you know, kind of a

little strange, but there's this one story that just really

struck me. There was a woman, a single

mother, who was dying from severe bleeding and she was

rushed into the OR at Memorial Hospital in London and should

lose, losing an awful lot of blood.

She was unconscious, but she described this event afterward

and said I was conscious for the whole thing.

But as they're working on her and she feel the blood kind of

draining from her body, she suddenly heard this pop and

there was no pain. And she found herself somehow

outside of her body looking in on the the hospital staff who

were working on to trying to resuscitate her.

And she's kind of floating up and kind of passes through the

ceiling fan in the ceiling and watching this all happen.

And she describes a bit of what happens there, but she enters

back into her body and she's resuscitated.

Resuscitated and she's describing when she so she, she

got better. She, she, she, she did get

better. She recovered, but she's

describing to the hospital staff what she experienced.

And she remembered that there was this little red tag on top

of the blade of the fan, ceiling fan that no one else would have

been able to see. And she was urged, like, go

check it out. I'm just confident it is.

And one of the nurses took this tall ladder, went up and saw

this red tag on top of the ceiling fan.

No one else would have seen just exactly how she described it.

So you think of these things, you think, whoa, there's

something going on there, there. There is more to life than just

what we see. It's not just a material world.

There is more to it, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ

tells us he rose from the dead and he's alive today.

You know, I recently turned 55 about six years ago.

And you know, you get to this age and it's like you're trying

to slow stuff down, right? Trying to slow, slow your life

down. I'm slowing down physically, but

you're trying to slow life down. It's going so fast, but time

does not wait for me, it keeps on rolling.

For all you Boston fans, alright, keeps on rolling.

We can't stop it and we do not have to worry about stopping it

because what's coming is a glorious reality.

There is life beyond the grave. This is not all that we have.

Eternity goes on forever, my friends.

We just physically, we're just experienced a little piece of

each one of us after we die is going to stand before our maker.

There is a day of accountability for all humanity.

There's accounting of accountability for every

employee on this planet. Why would we be surprised?

It would be a day of of reckoning, a day of

accountability when we stand before the throne of the living

God and give an account for our life, every single one of us.

Now that might make you shake in your boots, but if you have, if

you have received the forgiveness that Jesus purchased

for you on the cross simply by saying forgive me for my sins

and meaning it, you have nothing to fear on that day.

That's the good news that this church is is is not about

preaching hell, fire and brimstone.

There is good news in that there's hope for every single

one of us through Jesus Christ. None of us are gonna make it to

heaven on our own merit. There ain't anybody good enough

to get to heaven, but there is one who was, and his name is

Jesus Christ, and through our faith in Him we get free

entrance. It's free like what on earth is

free? Salvation is free.

It's a free gift that comes to faith in Jesus Christ John or in

John John's gospel. Jesus says this Chapter 11.

He says I am the resurrection and the life.

The one who believes in me will live even though they die, and

whoever lives by believing in me will never die.

Jesus is talking about a life, a quality of life that we call

eternal life. Eternal life is not just, you

know, everlasting life. It's the quality of life in

relationship with God. We can experience that last

week, I guess maybe it's two weeks now.

I spent some time with some pastors in the States and and I

heard again this story that came from the pastor who's associate

pastor had had been called by a woman who had terminal cancer.

And so she's dying in the hospital and she had a question.

I have a question I wanted to ask you, pastor.

And the pastor was dreading this visit, just kind of thinking,

oh, man, you know what, you know, as pastors, you get

questions. You think, oh, man, how am I

gonna answer that, right, that that happens?

But even if it's just a very, very sad situation, he goes

there kind of dragging his feet. Honest testimony and and she's

all giddy. She's happy as can be and she

says she says this when I get to heaven.

Here's my question. When I get to heaven, do you

want me to send a message to anyone there?

Like, I'm going there and I'm so excited about it.

Do you do you have a message you want me to to bring to somebody

there? And this pastor, he could hardly

pray for her because he realized he was in the presence of

someone who was in the presence of Jesus, who had faith, was

full of the Holy Spirit, and he was broken by we are Easter

people. We are people that are living

our lives based on the resurrection.

And there is a life to come. And you know what the good news

is, is that that eternal life is not just waiting for us after

death. It is a life that we can enjoy

right now, Jesus said Chapter 17 of John's Gospel.

He said this is eternal life, that you know me, the only true

God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

In other words, knowing God personally, knowing God

intimately, is what eternal life is all about.

And we get to do it even right now.

So don't settle for material existence.

Enjoy that now Jesus is alive and we can know Him personally,

intimately, and He invites each one of us to open up our lives

to Him simply. Today might be the very first

time that you do that. You didn't know that you could.

Jesus invites you to. Maybe it's gonna be something

that you have done before. Maybe you have shut God out.

Maybe there was a time that you were open to Jesus but just kind

of closed off to Him over the years Jesus said open up your

life to me. Again, Jesus speaking to us in

Revelation chapter 3 verse 20, it says here I am.

Revelation 3:20

I stand at the door and knock. Whoever hears my voice and opens

the door, I will come in and meet with him and then with me.

Jesus is knocking on the door of each one of our lives.

Open up that door and I will come in and we will enjoy

fellowship together. You know, Forest View, this

church, you know, if you're a visitor here, we're just a group

of ordinary individuals who have been somehow touched by Jesus.

Can't get enough of them. You know, there's a church.

We're not after people's money. We're not, we're not trying to

make a name for ourself. We're just the church is here to

help people experience God, to to draw near to him, abide in

him, learn to love other people a little better than we did

yesterday and to pass it on. That's what we're about.

We are Easter people proclaiming the greatness of Jesus,

proclaiming the significance of his death, proclaiming that

there is always hope, and proclaiming that there is life

after death and we can experience that life even now.

So if that interests you, I just encourage you, hey, stick

around, stick around for a while.

If that's something that you want to affirm your faith in

Jesus Christ or maybe perhaps today reaffirm.

I want to encourage you to pray this prayer with me.

And I invite everybody to stand. Let's stand just for a moment.

You know, Billy Graham led millions of people to Christ

through this salvation prayer before his death.

And I prayed a very similar prayer myself when I gave my

life to Christ. And I'd love to lead you in that

prayer. And it's a prayer that all of us

could pray. If you believe it, if you're a

believer, if you're wanting to become a follower of Jesus, join

me in praying. And 1 of this, just say this out

loud. Dear Heavenly Father, just join

me. I know that I'm a Sinner and I

ask for your forgiveness. I believe you died for my sins

and rose from the dead. The time I repent, I turn from

my sins. I invite you to come into my

heart and life. I want to trust and follow you

as my Lord and Savior in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen.