Good morning. Take that delay
into account. We are in now John chapter 20,
so turn with me in your Bibles to John 20. And let's read the
first 18 verses together. Now on the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark
and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So
she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one
whom Jesus loved, and said to them, they have taken the Lord
out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.
So Peter went out with the other disciple and they were going
toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the
other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping
to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there. but he did
not go in. Then Simon Peter came following
him and went into the tomb. 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.
Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went
in and he saw and he believed. For as yet they did not understand
the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples
went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside
the tomb. As she wept, she stooped to look
into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where
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? She said,
They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they
have laid him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus
standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. And Jesus
said to her, woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener,
she said to him, sir, if you have carried him away, tell me
where you've laid him and I will take him away. And Jesus said
to her, Mary. She turned and said to him in
Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, do
not cling to me, for I've not yet ascended to the father, but
go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father
and to your father, to my God and to your God. Mary Magdalene
went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord. And that he had said these things
to her. This is the Yohannan account
of the resurrection. This is John's resurrection account. And if you are familiar with
the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you know that there
is not discrepancies, but there are some other things. Higher
critics like to say, well, was it Mary Magdalene? Who was it?
Who else was there? It doesn't matter. John is telling
his story from the point of view of Mary Magdalene. which all
the other synoptics agree was there. We saw last week as we
see the death of Jesus that there were many women there of whom
were named Mary. The point is not to have the
details down to the nth degree. The point is to see the purpose
in which it was written from the history. And so we won't
get into those things. I think that there are times
when troubled text are necessary to parse out in a technical way,
but when it comes to preaching, if we do that too often, we misunderstand
the point of the text, and we misunderstand the point of preaching.
Beloved, God the Holy Spirit, through this, whether any of
us saw a conflict or not, teaches us what we need to know based
from this text. And so what we need to know today is that Jesus
is alive. And everything that John has
recorded concerning Christ, everything that we've already learned about
him and about his work and about his ministry, everything that
John has laid out in the prologue of this letter of this gospel
narrative is taking place. We have seen the glory of God.
We have come to a place where he has fulfilled his very purpose.
He has come. and become the Lamb of God to
take away the sins of the elect of all the world. He has done
the work of redemption. He has said it is finished, and
now He is raised to life. So if I were to give one principle
application for today, it is this. You know your Redeemer
lives because He is raised. He's been, He's rise from the
dead. He's risen from the dead. You know that he lives, and in
knowing that he lives, you know that everything he said he was
going to do, he accomplished. You need to recognize that, beloved.
Because Christ is alive, we have hope. Because Christ died, we
have forgiveness and we are saved. But because Christ has risen
from the grave, we know that that hope that was promised to
us is true. Jesus did not stay dead. Because death could not hold
him. Because he subjected himself to death as a substitute for
sinners. As a substitute for his sheep.
As a substitute for those who would be forgiven by the Father
through his death. So death could not hold him because
he was not guilty. He rose from the dead because
he was God. He laid his life down willfully. And he took it up again willfully. He also gives us this resurrection
promise, and he proves that he can do it. He's already proven
he could raise the dead, but now he's proven that he's defeated
death. Because Lazarus, as we saw in
John 11, died again. But we who are in Christ, though
we die, what does Paul say? Yet we live. Yet we live. And so I'd like to just walk
through this narrative again, and then pause at every moment
that we have opportunity, and just talk about the implications
of what's being said. Now, this is an area of text
that's very wrought with the practice of allegorizing the
text, making it sort of say what it's not gonna say, or trying
to take the text and make it fit a narrative for our culture,
maybe. And we're not going to do that
this morning. I may say a few things about those just to keep
us on track that in the future we might be able to defend this
text and its purity. So first we see that it was the
first day of the week. Now it's interesting to say this
because there are many people historically who come to the
idea of a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday resurrection as
an impossibility. And they've come to that conclusion
based on archaeological narratives and criticism of the Jewish calendar
and the hours upon which it supposedly operates. And most of these people
are highly messianic, but also extremely Judaistic. And they
make the dates and the times more important than the work
of salvation. But I will tell you this today.
Jesus, according to the narrative of the New Testament and the
narrative that we see in the Acts of the Apostles, rose on
Sunday. And Sunday is the first day of
the week. He rose on Sunday. Now, one of
the things that a lot of people want to argue with, well, that's
not quite true, but let me ask the question, why did John have
to say that? Because I believe John, in his
wisdom, see, you need to remember how the scripture was given.
The cults and false prophets, they go into a trance, they wake
up with this vision, they write it down. Or they go into some
unspeakable way of writing and then they look and say, look
what I've written. I have no idea where that came from. God the Holy
Spirit through the mind and the personality of the apostles and
the prophets wrote his words down in their tongue, in their
personality. As John wrote this gospel in
his other letters, as Paul wrote his letters, as Luke and Matthew
and Mark wrote their gospels and Luke wrote majority of the
New Testament in quantity. And as we see James and all the
others write, they wrote of their own mind, but they also at the
same time wrote equally and infallibly the mind of God. Because the
Holy Spirit gave this inspiration. So the Bible is unique. in its
transmission because it is an inspired and divine text. So that when the apostles wrote,
and Paul claims this, and the other apostles claim this, the
word of God and the prophets claim this, as the prophets spoke
and said in their own paraphrased way, within their own personality,
and the apostles taught and spoke and wrote in the same way, it
was also equally as inerrant God speaking. That's what it
means. So we have a combination, a collection
of 66 books here that create the divine scriptures over a
1500 year period. And their congruency just in
a logical sense is baffling. And so when John writes on the
first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early. while
it was still dark, and saw the stone had been rolled away from
the tomb." We are seeing this first fruits. We are seeing this
idea, the first thing that she did after the Sabbath. This is
the first thing that she did when her worship was over. The
thing that was on her mind was, I've got to get to the tomb of
my Lord and prepare His body. so that he can be buried properly.
Because remember, it was hasty. He was wrapped up and laid in
there. Remember Lazarus? When Lazarus came out, he waddled
out in his tightly woven grave clothes. And Jesus says, unbind
him and let him go. Well, Mary Magdalene was going
to the tomb to continue the work of preparation on the body of
Jesus. And the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Now,
this is troubling for some people. For us, and our Anglo mindset,
and our American mindset, and our European history and tradition. Oh, the tomb is rolled away!
Yay, Jesus is alive! But that wasn't the first thing
on their mind. The first thing on her mind was, someone stole
the body of Christ. Of Jesus. Someone stole the body
of Jesus of Nazareth. Someone stole the body of my
Lord. And it was very common. If you look, it's not necessary
that you know this, but if you look at historical records, you
see that it was very clearly plausible. and possible that
someone could have stolen the body of Jesus. But the good news
is that we have the synoptics that teach what? Concerning the
tomb. The stone was put there to prevent
the body from being stolen by the disciples and then guards
were set upon the entrance of the tomb so that no one would
go and do it. So we see the witness of the
angels of the Lord as they speak to Mary and as they speak to
others that Christ is risen. He is not here. That is something we need to
keep top of mind. I know my redeemer lives. You want confidence of
the promises of God. You know, we can have confidence
in the work of Christ. We can have confidence and hope
in the work of God. But there comes time in our lives,
often, where we find ourselves doubting. And doubt and confidence
seem to not go hand in hand, but in reality, they do. Because
as we doubt, our confidence is reassured. That's what assurance
is. Assurance is not a steady anchor.
Assurance is a constant hope. Assurance is knowing that when
we feel the wind blowing the ship two or three hundred meters
off that the anchor is still where it should be. Our confidence
is in the fact that Jesus, though death is scary for us, it should
be the greatest experience of the human existence. I want to
say that again. Death as a believer should be
our goal. It should be our goal. Lord,
take me from this world. It is my desire. But to live
is Christ, but to die is so much more, you see. That is insane
in the common experience of the anthropological or even, you
know, the mindset of a sane person. I can't wait to die. But see,
when we die, we are free from the body of death. We are free
from the presence of sin. We are free of the very thing
that Christ has promised us, ultimately, the power of sin.
And some people confuse it. Some people have this kingdom
mindset that God is going to do something miraculously beautiful
in the culture of humanity. He actually promises the exact
opposite. Christ was raised from the dead
and He spent no time on earth because His kingdom is not of
this world. His subjects are not of human
flesh. His subjects are the sheep of
His pasture that He lets them lie down and peace and green
grass and graze and eat. And they come in and out of Him
the sheep gave and they are not afraid. Those of you who've ever been
near sheep, you can clap your hands and they'll run to the
other side of the field. And someone that they don't know
gets in the field and they run. They're scared, timid animals
and they follow each other to their own death and demise. Beloved,
because Jesus is alive and the stone is rolled away and the
details of how this is laid out shows us that the body was not
stolen, but that was her fear. Now I know we don't fear that
Jesus isn't alive and we don't fear and doubt the fact that
he's somewhere in a grave someplace. But in the way we respond to
tragedy sometimes it's as if he never rose from the dead. As if he never proved himself
to us. You ever had someone you could really depend upon? And
you could always depend upon them. They're always there, they're
always willing to Whatever gift or material things they have,
they've always been there and they've always been able to help.
But it's something when that person lets you down. I'll tell you, for us, that person
let me down when they died. I'm like, wow, now what am I
to do? See how we can have someone that
we can truly trust in, but then they, when they leave this earth,
it's like, now what am I supposed to do? But it shows that our
trust is misplaced. Your trust in me should not be
your trust. I am an under-shepherd of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is alive, I'm gonna die. And when
I die, I get what I'm working for. And when I say working for,
it doesn't mean that I'm earning. It means that just, I'm working
for the Lord. I get Him, He's the prize, He's the crown. And
so will you. So the stone had been taken away,
so she ran. What is her first response? She goes and runs and
tells Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. Who
is that? That's the writer of this gospel, John. So she runs
and tells these two men, someone has taken the Lord out of the
tomb and we do not know where his body has been laid. I mean, the horror in their minds
of thinking that the officials came and took the body and threw
him in that common grave with those other guys. The horror
that someone would have stolen the body of Jesus and desecrated
it. The horror. Here, as we do funerals, my entire
childhood, you know, funerals are beautiful and body preparation
is invisible and burial preparation is invisible. I mean, you show
up, and everybody looks nice and pretty and alive, but asleep,
and then you leave the room, and the casket's closed, and
we put it up on the beautiful array of the mound of the dirt
out there, covered up, you don't even get to see dirt, it's covered
up, and then you leave, and you come back, and it's all put together,
and the flowers are so beautiful and all that kind of stuff. The
first time I did a funeral in California, and they opened that casket up
at the graveside, which was very odd. And then as I'm praying,
they're lowering that dude down on the ground. I mean, it was
the first time for me. It was different. I love it. I want my burial to
be that. I want my family to watch the
dirt go on my head. It's good for them. But here, man, I just, it was
odd the first time I saw that. It sort of unsettled my spirit.
Like, this is not good. This is terrible. And as I began
to think about it and got more used to it, it became more real.
Burial is a finished product. Burial is a way of coping with
death. So if I were to go back to the
funeral site, to the burial site of a loved one, and they had
been dug up, and the person was gone, imagine the trauma. Imagine the trauma. And it's
not as rare as you think, even in today. Even today, it does
happen. Imagine those people who are
dying from the virus at the rate of 200 people a day in New York
who are being buried in Potter's Field because the families only have
a day or two to identify and claim the body or it's buried
in the mass grave of New York State, New York City. They can't
keep them. There's too many. Imagine knowing
that, that you have to go to this large dumping ground for
the rest of your life to continually consider that your family's buried
somewhere amongst thousands of other people. We take death so
seriously and we elongate the mourning process when the scripture
tells us that death is the beginning of the new life. The death of
Jesus was the beginning of the new life for you and me. The
death of Jesus was the beginning of a new hope for us, an era
not of waiting for redemption, but an era of secured redemption,
an era of promised life, an era that Abraham looked for and rejoiced
when he saw it. When Abraham longed for the day
of Christ, he rejoiced when he saw it. Moses, preaching of Christ, rejoiced
when he saw it. Beloved, I think we need to take,
if nothing else, in the resurrection of Jesus, we need to take death
at face value. The wages of sin is death, but
the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, proven
by the resurrection. This is the reality of the saints. But yet we live our lives and
so much of our time for the life we have. when we really should
be considering, and I'll steal away from my grandmother Adams,
we really should be considering what eternal value that which
we do today has. What did Jesus take to him to
the tomb but his body? What did he bring out of that
tomb except glory? What has he promised us? None
of our prized possessions are going to be in eternity. There's
not going to be manufactured goods and technology in eternity.
There's not going to be a need for that. There will be no substance
of ingenuity in eternity. It's not necessary. To what end? It's all speculation. But that was her first response.
They've taken the Lord. They've taken the Lord. So Peter
and John went out with her, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together,
but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
Now, this is one of those places where people start to really
make much of nothing. Peter was older, John was younger,
John outran Peter. Simple as that, okay? If somebody
ever preaches or writes in a commentary about the love of John over the
love of Peter, just, I almost had a Monty Python joke, just
in their general direction, move that way away from that. Just
go on, go on. This is silly. The point is,
John beat Peter there in their trot. The Lord's body is gone. Mary told them. They ran back
with her. John wins. Peter close behind. They're distraught. This isn't
a college boy race. This is an emotional response
to the news they received. Mary is already distraught. She
is weeping as we see. She's moved off to the side of
the garden there as they're peeking in and doing what they can do.
And they're looking and witnessing. What are they doing? They're
looking for the Lord Jesus. They're seeking after Him, but
they're seeking after Him where He is not. Oh, that sounds like most of
the United States. That sounds like most everyone.
They're looking not to where He promised He would be. They're
looking to where they last knew He was. Just like the people
over in John 6 who stayed on the beach all night waiting to
see Jesus get into the boat so He could get to Capernaum because
that's where He was going. And they waited, and they waited,
and they waited, and they waited. And when they get over there,
what do they say? Lord, teacher, how did you get
over here? Or when did you get over here?
And Jesus says, you're not seeking me because of who I am. You're seeking me because of
what I can do for you. You want my power. You want my
gifts. You want the prosperity of my
hands and my creative work. You want to fill your stomachs
again because you're hungry. It's morning. You want some breakfast. Do not labor for the food that
perishes, but labor for the bread that yields to eternal life. So in this sense, Here are three people who love
the Lord Jesus, who spent many years with Him. They are looking
for Him and they are laboring to see His dead body, to try
to find it. To look and make some sense,
to investigate. Isn't that what we do? We investigate.
And we get to the bottom of it. We'll figure out Peter's like,
I mean, I can hear him now. I'll find out who did this. I'll take
care of this. I'll deal with this right now. I ain't gonna
steal Jesus' body on my watch. I mean, you know, of course this
is just fun assumption. But they get there. In verse five, in stooping in
to look, Peter, or excuse me, yeah, Peter reached, excuse me,
John reached the tomb first, and stooping in to look, He saw
the linen cloth lying there, but he did not go in. Now, there's
a lot of different variations of how tombs were set in the
first century. I don't care. I just know it
had an entrance. I know it had a place where Jesus'
body could be laid, and I know that you could see inside there
from the entrance. and you could walk in it. It
doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I imagine
the entrance to the tomb was probably short, so you had to
stoop in and stick your head in to see. Then you could walk
in there and stand up. Stooping in to look, he saw the
linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Now, the difference
here, I want you to think about the difference of the last resurrection
you saw. And I've already mentioned it.
Lazarus, when he rose from the dead, Lazarus came out in his
grave clothes. Lazarus was bound by his fleshliness. Lazarus was still in the posture
of burial. Lazarus, without the power of
Jesus, would have been decomposing continually in that grave. But
Jesus, who is God, commanded him out and brought him to life
immediately. And so Lazarus, because no one
can not obey that which God has determined he will do, came out
of the tomb still in burial clothes. And Jesus says these amazing
prophetic words to me, unbind him and let him go. But here
the body of Jesus is missing. They assume it's been stolen.
John looks in and sees the clothing the way it is. off to the side
and the head wrap folded neatly. Nobody's stolen the body of Jesus.
Nobody steals a body and unwraps it and folds things up. You get
to a hotel room, I don't know if you're like me, I unpack my
suitcase. I hang stuff up. I iron or steam any dress clothes
that I have to have. I do all that the minute I get
there so I don't have to do anything else. And I like to unpack and
put it all away. And when I leave, I pack it all
up, fold it all up, put it back in my suitcase and I take it
all with me. If someone robs me of my body,
that's called kidnapping, you're not going to find my stuff all
packed up. Somebody comes in and ransacks my room to steal
from me and destroy me and hide my body, they're not going to
clean up. If someone digs up a corpse,
they're not going to take off the clothes and fold them neatly
at the crime scene. when there were two Roman guards
hanging outside the doors. No, they would take the body
and they would do what they were going to do with it later. I mean,
imagine the oils, the expensive clothes. I mean, these aren't
ace bandages, guys. These are expensive articles
of clothing that are sitting there with 75 pounds of preparation
oil. And if there's any oil on these
clothes, anything altogether, it doesn't matter. You can extract
that stuff. That stuff is valuable. That's gold in today's economy. That stuff wasn't gone, but the
body of Jesus was gone. So as John looks in, he saw,
and it says there that he knew, but he didn't know everything.
And then Simon Peter came, verse 6, following him, and he went
into the tomb. And he saw the linen lying there,
and the face cloth which had been on Jesus' head, not lying
with the clothes, but folded up in a place by itself. Now
this is what he's witnessed. He's witnessed this, and he's
probably confused. I would love to know what Peter
is thinking, but it doesn't tell us. It doesn't tell us what Peter
is thinking at all. It just tells us what he saw.
It tells us that he saw the same thing in the context of John's
peering. Yet John has a different response
than Peter. It's typical for John, isn't
it? It's typical for Peter to be
different. But these men are not at odds
with one another. They're not opposed to each other. We're
not here to read into this text, and I bring this up because this
is a very common question that I get. Do you think John's love
was greater than Peter's love? Is John trying to show the parallels
or the differentiation between these two men's zeal? No, he's
just telling the story of what they saw. to pit the disciples
against one another is a violation of the very nature of the Lord
Jesus Christ and his witness. So he saw them there. Now I've
heard people through the centuries, yep, Jesus just, the form of
Jesus was still there. The clothes were sort of cemented
and the body of Jesus was missing. Now Jesus passed through the
grave clothes. I mean, he didn't have a knife
like MacGyver in his ear and he'd pull it out and start, you
know, he didn't do, he walks through them, he comes through
them. But there's a significance with dealing with the idea that
the clothes that wrapped his body are neatly there. They could
not hold him. Supernaturally, Jesus was able
to escape that which is inescapable. Death, the burial wraps, the
stone, the guards, all of it. The very nature that he told
Pilate. Pilate says, do you not answer
me? Don't you not know that I have the power to free you or to kill
you? And Jesus says, you don't have
any power except that which is given to you from above. You've
got no power over me. I will do with myself what I
wish to do. I lay down my life and I will
take it up again. It's the same thing he told the Pharisees or
the temple priests in his first few months of ministry. over
in John chapter two when he says, when he tears up the tables and
the money changers, when he runs them off, what did they say?
How dare you do this? By what authority do you come
into the temple of God and do these things? He says, you see
this temple, I will destroy it and on the third day raise it
up again and they mock him. We've been building this temple
for 50 something years and it's not yet complete. And you're
going to redo it in three days. Nearsightedness. Judicial blindness. Jesus told him that he was going
to raise himself up. Jesus shows that he is the temple. Jesus shows that he's the mercy
seat. Jesus shows that everything in the Old Testament, everything
in the Old Testament, let me say it again, everything in the
Old Testament, every law, every letter, every prophecy, every
image, every metaphor, every object of worship, every command
out of the mouth of God and the Exodus on Sinai and all of it
is A picture of Jesus Christ. Only. And when we try to make
the two work together in conjunction in reality, we have yet to see
the fullness of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So these men look into the tomb,
they see that Jesus' body has escaped death. But that is one
of the emphasis that John continues to put in the person of Jesus.
He is the fullness of all that God is and there is nothing left
to see concerning God but Jesus Christ, his person, his word,
his work. But one of the main reasons that
we emphasize the crucifixion and now the details of the resurrection
is to show that Jesus was made alive and still had a body. The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, and we have seen His glory. Glory is the only son
from the Father, full of grace and truth, for from His fullness
we all receive grace upon grace, for the law was given through
Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever
seen God. The one and only God who is at
the Father's side has made God known. We now know God. And the differences in Peter
and John in this situation is not to be pitted against one
another, it's to glorify the Word who is Jesus Christ. The other disciple, verse 8 of
John 20, John, who had reached the tomb first, also went in.
So he goes in. He's peered in already and seen
the clothes. Now he's going in to witness
what Peter saw. And he saw and he believed. Now let's just leave it there
for a second. What has God said Remember when we talked about
how God wrote the scripture? What has God said concerning
John the evangelist, the apostle? He believed. What did he believe? That Christ was alive. That's
what he believed. You need to understand something, beloved.
There is a basic expression of scripture that teaches that God
uses the witness of Jesus literally like this. as the occasion, not
the means, as the occasion of regeneration. Don't you hear
that? Hearing the word of God is not
the means of regeneration, the spirit is the means of regeneration
as he wishes. The hearing of the word of God
is the occasion of that moment. So that the witness of Jesus
in any part exposed to the elect, when God the spirit desires it,
he brings faith to them. And that faith is forever growing. That faith is forever being revealed. That faith, from faith to faith
to faith to faith, we're believing more and more of the witness
of Christ as it is exposed to us when we hear it. The elect
who are born again do not deny the truth and the witness of
Christ. But not all of us, the moment we're born again, understand
and apprehend all the exhaustive details of the perfection of
Christ, and the work of Christ, and the justification of Christ,
and all of these things. We are required and commanded
to grow in grace. And that has nothing to do with
our lifestyle, yet our lifestyle does bear witness of the power
of God. So when the Bible says John went
into the tomb and saw the clothes and believed, what was the difference
between when he first looked in to when he second looked in?
The Spirit of God gave him the witness the second time. And
he saw the clothes and immediately he knew. He knew Jesus was alive. This wasn't a robbery. This wasn't
a farce. This was not some kind of a schism.
This wasn't something that just happened arbitrarily that they're
going to have to deal with for years and wonder where Jesus
is decomposing. This is the reality that Christ
is alive. Jesus is alive. He believed that. Now I want to be very careful
with what I say and don't hear what I'm not saying. Listen specifically
to what is coming out of my mouth. John and Peter were born again
right here. already. The knowledge given to them by
the Spirit of God is at His will because their hope must always
be only in the finished work of Jesus in spite of the fact
their ignorance of how that work is to play out. Who was ignorant? What is the largest group of
ignorant Christians in the Bible? Some people say the Corinthians,
but I say the Romans. The Roman Christians were so
inundated with the paganism of their culture that Paul had to
write Romans so that he could explain the doctrines of justification. The doctrine of redemption, the
doctrine of substitutionary atonement. He had to explain expiation.
He had to explain all of these things. He had to explain the
shadows of these things. He explained it all. They didn't
know it. They didn't understand it. So we must teach these things
to people. That is why saving faith does
not come through an academic adventure. Saving faith comes
through the regeneration of the Spirit of God as He wishes. Paul
tells Timothy that the Old Testament is sufficient to make you saved. Why? Because it points to Jesus
Christ and His finished work. And that's what's saying, that's
what's being, now God is saying this, this is not James Tiffins,
this is God Almighty in the hand of John saying what's about to
come out of my mouth. He believed. Now I know there's
some wise folks out there, well there's a different types of
belief. Yes, there are. John chapter 2, the very last
verse. Many believed in his name that day before they saw the
signs that he did, but Jesus did not entrust himself to them,
for he knew what was in man. No one had to tell him what was
in the heart of man. Now there was a man named Nicodemus. So
then right there in that context, we know the difference in a,
I don't know, a false believing versus a rebirth believing. We
know the difference. And that's why it said that way.
That's why John, by the Spirit of God, wrote it that way. Many
people say they believed, they knew he was Messiah, but their
hope wasn't in him. That's what saving faith is,
not knowing the facts of Jesus, trusting in Christ. Now some
people will argue that with me. I'm sorry, sit down with me,
beloved, and I will show you that this is right, that God
is not a liar. He is not a liar. And there are
many people who know the facts of Jesus who are going to bust
the gates of hell wide open. I'm just using that imagery for
shock effect. Only those who have been born
of God to trust in Christ. That's what saving faith is.
Trust in Christ. Everything that he is everything
that he's done and for whom? Part of believing in the gospel
of grace is to believe that Jesus saved his elect on the cross
part of believing the narrative and the witness Given by the
Spirit is to know that your sins are forgiven because of what
Christ did on the cross It's not an opportunity for forgiveness.
It is forgiveness Saving faith is to believe in the witness
of Scripture. Look at first John in 1 John 5, I went through 1
John with some brothers last week, and I'm gonna tell you
what, 1 John 5, if there is not a stronger, more succinct postcard
on the witness of saving faith and what it looks like, then
1 John 5. It's right there. And what victory is, is Christ
Jesus. Our faith is not our victor.
Jesus is our victor, and our faith is in Jesus Christ. That's
what saving faith is. But here, John would not put
himself in the number of unbelief just like he'd do it and put,
though we see many people had a spirial faith and now they
have what? True saving faith. We see the
differences there in John 12. Many people love the glory that
come from man rather than the glory that comes from God. True
statement. But now Peter believed. What
did he believe? Jesus was alive. So what does
that mean? That Jesus was God. So what does that mean? That
Jesus is Messiah. So what does that mean? My hope is in Christ.
The promise that Christ has given us. It's true. I know. I know. I know. My Redeemer lives. I know. So he believed. Verse 9 explains the depth of
that belief. For as yet they did not understand
the Scripture that he must rise from the dead. They didn't make the correlation.
Beloved, God can show you the truth of the finished work of
Christ. God can show you the truth through this witness and
you not make the correlation with all of Scripture. That is
a lifelong journey, beloved. And like I told a friend yesterday
on the West Coast, setting up some technical stuff for a radio
show that we're going to start this Saturday. If I go a year without dealing
with certain technical things, I'll lose it. It's like language. If you go a year without speaking
a certain language, you sort of lose it. And you have to get
back into it. Beloved, if you're not in the
Word of God, you're just sort of going to lose your memory on these
things. You don't lose your faith, you don't lose your understanding.
Why was most of the letters, what do we see the apostles say
in most of their letters in the New Testament? That I write this
as a way of what? Reminder. John, I mean, Paul did not teach
the gospel for the first time in his letters to these people.
He was with them in person. He taught them the truths. But
when the apostles leave and people are left to themselves, they're
Netflixing and video gaming and picnicking and sports watching
and all this kind of stuff, and they lose sight of scripture.
So it takes the apostle writing a letter to go to oops. We got
to be reminded. So it's a way of reminder. We
have to continue to be. John was not ignorant of the
promise of the resurrection, but how many years? If he's a
young man, he probably learned it when he was in Sunday school.
You see? And at that moment, he believed
that Jesus is Messiah. He believed that he was God.
He knew that he was raised from the dead, but it had not yet
come to understand how that correlated with all of scripture, that he
must rise from the dead. He just forgot. I read 23 books the last 11 days. 8,000 pages. Some of them are on the
table back there. And I've read them at a very
high rate, 600 words a minute or better. It's called skimming.
But enough to fill out a lot of research. Six weeks from now, if you use
the title and the author of one of those books, I will look at
you like you're crazy. Because I've moved on and I've
gotten something else in my head and it just sort of moves out.
How many of you had a Blackberry years ago? All right. If I handed
it to you now, you couldn't work it. You'd be like, oh, what is
this thing? I can still dial a rotary phone
though. That is why I read the Gospel
of John all the time, every day. That is why I read the Yohannan
Epistles every single week. That is why when I'm studying
and living in the Word of God, that I'm reading it intentionally,
I'm dealing with the verses, I'm dealing with the context,
I'm wanting it in my body, because if I went two weeks without reading
John's Gospel, I could not make heads or tails out of what I'm
saying right here. He came to his own, but his own
did not receive him, but all who did receive him, that is,
those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the
children of God, not because of the blood, not because of
their genealogy, not because of their decisions, not because
of the will of man, but because of the will of God. John knew
without a doubt. And the scripture does not give
us the authority to delineate the moment in which the disciples
were converted. It actually rejects that. And
that is an open, charitable conversation. I want you to hear that. It's
fun and interesting to deal with, but it's not something that we
should stand on dogma unto division. And I say that because it is
very easy to do. So these disciples went back
to their homes. Now, I know when you hear this
narrative, you think, well, where's the rest of it? What did they
do? Did John come out and go, praise the Lord, he's alive,
you know? And Peter just sitting there, I don't think so, man.
And Mary's like, oh! I mean, it doesn't matter. That's
not the point. But it also isn't the point that
John looked and believed and said, hey, Peter, let's go. I mean,
the point is they went back home. That's where they went. Mary
stayed behind. And so verse 11, Mary stood weeping
outside the tomb. And this is where it gets real. And as she wept, she stooped
to look into the tomb and she saw two angels. She saw two angels. And here
in John 20 verse 11, as she looked in, verse 12 I mean, and saw
what the other men saw, she didn't see the clothes, she saw the
presence of God's messengers. Now I want to show you something
here. God granted John faith to believe that Christ was alive
by seeing a folded set of clothes. Peter, one of the most zealous
disciples of them all, looked in there, didn't come to that
conclusion. Mary Magdalene looks in and sees
angels, and doesn't come to that conclusion. Think about it for a second.
So Mary sees these angels standing there, And if I look into a room
and I see angels, I'm going to immediately think what? The work
and the presence of God is here. Oh, wow, this is not what I thought
it was. Look at you angels. Standing there in this glorious
array. Tell me what's going on. Where
is the Lord? Where is he? I want to talk to
him. I mean, wouldn't it be obvious if you saw angels? I mean, I
don't think Mary Magdalene had ever seen angels before. She
wasn't in the she wasn't in the fields with the shepherds at
the birth of Christ. I don't think she was in a place
where she was normally seeing angelic beings. So she looks
in there and they speak to her carefully and pastorally. They
say, woman, why are you crying? Why are you weeping? And this
is what she says. They, whoever they are, see they've
been around a long time by the way, have taken away my Lord
and I do not know where they have, and I'm going to paraphrase
to make sense of it, put his body. I don't know where they've
taken his body and laid it. It goes to show you that it is
not about the cognitive awareness and perception of the human mind. It doesn't matter what we see.
It doesn't matter what we understand. It doesn't matter what we can
fathom and pull out of our intelligence or our reasoning or our logic.
Faith is beyond all that because it is a work of God alone. So that Mary Magdalene can see
angels who speak to her and her response is, where's the body
of Jesus? The presence of the work of God
is evident by the appearance of angels. But salvation doesn't come through
signs. It comes by the will of God alone. Having said this, verse 14, she
turns around. I'm just going to leave. I'm just going to leave. I'm
so distraught. Jesus's body has been taken. These angels don't
know why I'm crying. They don't understand. Jesus
is gone. What's going to happen?" And if you look at the synoptics,
what she says here, she has the money to go and put him someplace
and bury him. She's not a poor woman. She turns
and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. On the road to Damascus, we see
that Jesus did not reveal himself. So there was a difference in
the way he looked in some sense. But more importantly, we see
that Jesus reveals himself as he's ready. She did not know it was Jesus,
and Jesus asks her, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Did Jesus need to know? No. Jesus
is in the habit of asking questions. The woman of Sychar, he asked
her a lot of questions. She asked him some questions
and he asked her some questions. Not that he might know the answer
because he is God, but that he might teach them something that
the answer to their questions is never going to be found in
themselves. That there is no evidence on
the outside of the work of God divinely that can ever cause
a man to believe. There is no historical record. There is no
apologetic parallel to showing the signs of the Old Testament
and showing them. You can't go and see and show the prophet
Isaiah to a Jewish person and think that's going to save them. You can teach them from Colossians
and God can save them. Matter of fact, I think you can.
I think you can go to John 4 and God can save them. God can save
them through whatever means that he desires or through whatever
occasion he desires through the means of his own will and power. When I say saved, I'm not talking
about judicially. I'm talking about by granting
faith. Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener,
she said, Sir, If you have carried him away,
tell me where you've laid his body that I may take him and
give him a proper burial." That's what she says in the synoptics,
that I may take him away. Even seeing angels, even hearing
the question, why are you weeping? Even the gardener who is Jesus
standing there speaking to her, she could not see. And I tell you, I have really
awesome moments with this scripture here in John 16. When I read
it at the introduction of our message today, it caught me emotionally
because it is here, it is things like this that cause the life
of Christ to be most powerful in me. Jesus says to her, Mary, That's
all he said. Mary, I will call my sheep by their
name, Jesus says. They shall follow me and I will
put them into green pastures. There's no greater hunger in
the heart of Mary Magdalene than to find the body of Jesus that
she so desperately loved in life. That's all she wanted, just to
know where she could bury him. She wanted to be able to go back
and remember his life at the place of his burial. And Jesus
is there, and she cannot see him. She cannot see that he's
alive through the grave clothes. She cannot see that he's alive
through angelic presence. She cannot see that he's alive
by standing there talking to him, but when he calls her name,
she's made aware of who he is. She turns and says to him, Teacher.
I like how John took Rabboni and defined it for
his non-Aramaic speakers. And so at this moment, when she
says, Teacher, she obviously runs to him and grabs hold of
him. Oh, Teacher! Teacher! Teacher! And her tears become joyful. I thought you had been stolen,
but you're alive! Obvious right. And Jesus, in
a subtle and caring rebuke, teaches something here in this closing
statement. that has boggled brainiacs for
a long, long time. I'm not kidding. If you were
to go and get an exegetical commentary on this next few verses, verses
17, actually just 17, next few phrases, you might find 15 pages. on this one verse of the different iterations of
how to interpret and understand this and what this might mean
and what that might mean and what that might mean. But let
me ask you this, if I were to take this letter and go to a
fifth grade Auditorium and I were to read this out to them and
God in his power and in his glory after the counsel of his will
were to teach those fifth graders the truth of this would I have
to explain it? Let's put it in, put the narrative
in your heart right now. Hear the word of the Lord. And
she was weeping. And as she turned, she saw Jesus
standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus. And Jesus
said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?
Supposing him to be the gardener? She said, Sir, if you've taken
his body away, tell me where you've put him so I can take
him. And Jesus says to her, Mary. And she turned around and said,
Teacher, And she grabs hold of him and squeezes him tight. And
he says, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to
the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, I'm ascending
to the Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God. And
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I've seen the
Lord. And that he had said these things to her. Now what does it mean? How about
what Jesus says it means? I've not left yet. And I'm not staying long. And
then the same thing you said over in the Last Supper dialogue
discourse. I'm going to be with you for
a little while and I'm not. I'm going to be there. I'm not
going to be there. I'm going to the Father. I'm going from
where I come from." What he charged the Jews with when he says, you
can't follow me. You'll never be able to find
me. You'll seek me. And they'll say, what's he going to do, be a prophet
for the Gentiles? He's going to go out to the Samaritans and
be their teacher? Oh, I know what he's going to
do. He's going to kill himself. That's what they thought. No, he's going to be with the
Father. They can't go where he is. How do we get to the Father?
He tells the disciples, how can we see the Father? If you've
seen me, you've seen the Father. Your faith is so weak. Yet you've
been with me, and yet you don't understand. No one can come to
the Father except through me, for I'm the way and the truth
and the life. I don't know what's opposite sides, but... So Mary's grabbed hold of Jesus,
and she's so excited. My Lord is back. He's alive. Here He is, and He says, Let
go of me, Mary. This isn't why I've come. I'm
not staying here, for my work is done. I will be leaving. Go tell the brothers that I'm
going to be leaving. I'm going to your Father and
to my Father, to your God and to my God, for my work is done."
We don't hold on to the physical ministry of Jesus Christ. We
don't hold on to the fact that He's standing with us in the
room. We hold on by faith because we have God the Holy Spirit as
our seal. So Mary, all she wanted was to
find His body. When she saw Him alive, she's
thinking life is good. But this is not life is good.
Life is good when God the Son is where He is and where He is
supposed to be. Ruling, reigning, lording, saving. Peter didn't want Jesus to go
to the cross, but that's what He was supposed to do. They didn't
want him to die, but that's what he was supposed to do. The Jews
didn't want him alive, but that's what he was supposed to do. And
they didn't want him to leave, but that's what he was supposed
to do. His ascension is perfectly important. As we'll see. But as for now, he is to declare
himself to them. He is to show himself to them.
He showed himself to Mary. He called her by name. She believed. She saw. He showed himself to
John by the Spirit, by seeing the evidence of the clothes.
He believed. Peter, not quite yet. But now
she goes back and tells the disciples and they begin to meet. They begin to meet in the upper
room. And we'll see over the next few
weeks what happens there. We'll see that now that Christ
has finished His work, God the Holy Spirit will be actively
at work like He's never been before. And we'll talk a little bit next
week about the work of the Holy Spirit. And I will dispel a lot
of myths and I will try to dispel a lot of foolishness or silliness
concerning His person and His work. And then after that we
will see the belief of Thomas. And then it's going to get real
fast toward the end. And then we're going to go to
1 John. Beloved, we know that our Redeemer
lives. We know that our Redeemer is alive, and because He is alive,
His promises are true. Trust in Him. Let's pray. Father, Your Word
is magnificent. Your Word is glorious before
it speaks of Your person. It reveals your glory in the
face of Christ. And Father, through it, you cause
us to believe. And Father, we who have believed,
you cause us to be reminded of where our hope lies. And Father,
you cause us to rejoice. You cause us to understand, to
be able to teach. Your Word is true and you do
all of this through it. You've exalted your word above
your name. For it is your word that testifies of your work,
of your son. Who is the perfection of all
that you are. Your holiness, your majesty.
And when we see all these things, we see you. And when we see you,
we see your glory. Father, swallow us up in the
beauty of knowing that our Lord and Savior has called us by name. Just like he called Mary, he
called me. He called each one of us who
are in the body. And father, there are many of
your sheep, many of your children whom you have loved for known
before the foundation of the world, who you have created and
are alive this day and will be alive in the future. And they
are waiting to hear their name. So father, give us the desire
and the urgency to go out and to teach this gospel. The gospel
of grace that is free and sovereign, the gospel of truth and power
to the elect of God, to your children. Father, let us go out
and teach it to all the nations that we might see your sheep
come home so that through the hearing of the word, Lord, as
you desire, they will hear you call their name. And they will
believe. And they will be set free. Help
us not to live for ourselves so much that we might love you
as we love one another. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.