Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: will we trust and obey Jesus in the real decisions of everyday life? Christ forms us through truth received, repentance practiced, and obedience lived out.
Main Points
Grace and Justification
john chapter 20 is really the story of the first easter when uh mary magdalene initially and the other mary's and the women who loved jesus came and they found the stone was rolled away and they have an encounter with jesus and as we read mary's given the commission to go and tell the brethren and then the disciples run to the tomb and they find the evidence that his body is not there and they themselves have an encounter with the risen lord as we read they were in an upper room they were they were kind of still trying to process what had happened to the world that they were kind of expecting christ to come and redeem and yet it's a total change of plans in their mind and there were 10 disciples at this point because judas had betrayed christ and thomas was not there for whatever reason and i really want to pick up the story to begin with in what happened to thomas because it says that he was not there initially and then about a week later he comes and says i don't believe it i actually do not believe that this happened which is a reminder no one was expecting christ to rise we all celebrate easter morning and think about the sunrise and many of you went to the cross and said it's easter we're so excited that christ rose well that's not an easter tradition the tradition is skepticism and doubt and thomas gives us a picture of that tradition because he says to the disciples i haven't seen him unless i do not only see him but feel him and see the wounds and the physical marks of his crucifixion i won't believe and that's where the story picks up jesus meets him in his skepticism and i hope that jesus will meet some of you in your skepticism this morning he says to thomas in verse 27 reach your finger here look at my hands reach your hand here and he put it in his side he said don't be unbelieving but believing which is the message for us this morning for those of us who already believe don't be unbelieving believe once again more faith more belief in what we saying today that christ has overcome the grave has been robbed by our god and he has set forth a path for us to follow in the resurrection life believe it but then he also says something very interesting i think for the purposes of the morning it maybe is appropriate for us to consider what jesus goes on to say to thomas in verse 29 he says because you've seen me you believed which is how we typically think logical coming to belief works seeing is believing which is true in a sense but jesus takes it a step further and says but blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed so i like this passage of scripture the promise of blessing for those of us who don't get to see in the context of the first easter that would be us that would be all of the believers of the last 2000 years who have allowed the truth of the resurrection to endure to this day it says there's a blessing for us today even though we will not have an encounter with the physical lord i don't think we're supposed to because he says that we are blessed for not seen it's okay that we don't have an encounter he said to mary don't cling to me i haven't ascended the plan is for us to not have a physical encounter with christ this morning so the question of the hour is what is the blessing for those of us who want to believe and receive this promise as the gospel of john the writer will go on to say i'm writing this account to you i'm passing this account to you my physical witness of christ so that in believing in christ jesus and the son of god that believing you may have life in his name so for many of us we're just cashing in that promise this morning we're just here celebrating the fact that god opened your eyes to the reality of christ as the visible image of the invisible god and that he has power exceedingly great power to overcome death itself how much more can he overcome and this morning we come and we sing these praises with tears in our eyes if you're like me i'm crying and i'm looking out at the hands lifted to the heavens and we're just cashing in the promise that says we've got life in his name this is the life that we crave what we did this morning when i look around and i hear the language of farsi and spanish and arabic and i hear the hymns and the worship songs that we sing i'm thinking this is life this is this has got to be a preview to what awaits us in the fullness of life to come and we cash it in and then there's other of you are thinking okay tell me about the life in his name i'm like thomas i'd like to see this thing i came here to kind of witness what this would be well we're going to try to find an answer for all of us and i think this is a crucial time not only for the church and believing in god but just for the world how do you find life in this world this might be the most important easter message i've had the privilege to preach in my five years of preaching easter messages because it doesn't take a lot of explaining to give you the context of the world right now we live in a time that can best be described in the metaphor of light and dark and it seems as though darkness is expanding doesn't it division confusion tension neighbor against neighbor sister against brother mother against child father against son welcome to 2021. how do we have life in the name of christ to answer this question i actually want to look at kind of the prequel to the cross so if you have a bible we're in john the gospel of john we're going to stay there but to get to john chapter 20 you have to go through john chapter 12. that's how numbers work and in john chapter 12 jesus gives a very similar teaching about having a blessed faith in god without actually seen in john chapter 12 this is the beginning of the holy week and the week that we kicked off last sunday with palm sunday jesus has ridden into the city of jerusalem and israel palm sunday they want to anoint him king and they're there to celebrate the feast of the passover which is now we know a symbol of what was to come in the resurrection of christ he fulfilling the passover lamb this land that they remember is how they got out of slavery in egypt they took this spotless lamb and they killed it and put the blood over the threshold and they're there to celebrate that feast and in their celebration it says in verse 20 now there were certain greeks among those who came to worship at the feast now greeks are in biblical times people who would be considered outside the family of god and again i look to this pastor's description i can't help but think of this morning because we got some greeks in the audience this morning don't we've got some people who are here to check it out to examine and if you don't believe me how many of you here were last week and you just look around we didn't have this many people here there are more people here this week than there were last week so welcome to you those who are coming to check this out and this is a really interesting moment because this is kind of what we tend to think of as a really cool momentous moment or a moment where momentum is happening jesus has come into the city they've praised him as future king and now non-believers want to check him out they want to worship they want to see him and some of the disciples come to jesus and what happens it says philip and andrew they come and they tell jesus that greeks want to see him and jesus gives them a story about a seed he says the hour has come in verse 23 that the son of man should be glorified this is pointing him to this moment that he came to earth to accomplish where he would go to the cross he would die to take away the sin of the world and then he would overcome death in resurrection the day that we celebrate today he says most assuredly unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains alone but if it dies it produces much grain so slow down with me for a second and think about what jesus has just done to kind of break down what we would typically do if we're trying to start a movement or business or grow a church you've got people who want to come you've got people who want to join in and jesus is like just tell them that a grain of wheat has to die and then it will uh bear fruit he doesn't be like wow tell them where we are here's the flyer tell them to come to the easter service put a door hanger on their door and then they can come in and here's a reminder of the methodology of jesus right now whenever jesus has crowds which he has all the times by the way throughout the gospels as you read the life of jesus he performed miracles he taught with wisdom that people had never heard before and people were drawn to him for healing and teaching and he they wanted to see him and typically when jesus had a crowd this size not to burst your bubble but he was always trying to get the crowd smaller in fact in matthew 13 we see jesus with a huge crowd it's giant they're pushing him against the uh the sea he can't even he can't even uh engage with them on land because it's so big and he gives them a parable a series of parables and he says anyone who has ears to hear let him hear doesn't explain it he's like good luck understanding and deciphering what i meant if you really want to know me you'll figure it out see you later can you imagine if we did that on easter morning it's like oh this crowd is awesome this is like church growth methodology we want you to come back next week and i was like listen if you have ears to hear let you hear everyone else they'll probably never see you again see ya that's the end of the sermon jesus does the same thing they want to see him and some of you want to see christ you've come here with your own version of some disciples that you knew a neighbor or a friend or a co-worker and you're like yeah you go to church where'd you go you came and you checked it out and now you're here and jesus wants to give you something that doesn't allow you to actually see him so we get back to the question how do you see him without seeing him this is a principle that you'll find throughout scripture mostly summed up in a phrase you may have heard we walk not by sight but by faith there's something that we're supposed to have in our souls that's not part of the physical image of seeking god there's another passage of scripture that will describe this that i really like for the context of kind of a mixed audience like we have this morning we're here to worship and we're here to examine right and when that happens we have to remember what actually matters about these gatherings what matters is it does it matter how easy it was to park does it matter how great the music was does it matter what you think of this message throughout church history there's always a reminder that most things don't matter there's just a couple that do and if you get these three things that we actually will find in jesus teaching about resurrection you will have life in his name here's the teaching that comes to us in first corinthians 13 about how we see it says this first corinthians 13 verse 12 now in other words on this side of eternity when we live in our temporal bodies with a temporal timeline to our lives and all of us awaiting death now we see dimly through a mirror uh imagine the picture if we're trying to make out an image of something first corinthians 13 says it's like we all have mirrors and there's not a lot of light and we can barely see it that's a picture of how well we can know god and when this is written it's written to a church that is arguing about a bunch of church stuff so if you're an outsider to church right now and you're thinking i don't typically like to go to church because the politics or the arguing or man those guys are just as weird as everyone else you're right that's correct it's been that way since the very beginning and church is never going to be heaven on earth our very best hope as a church is we would find the primary functions that we can actually tap into to know god and here's they are now we see in a mere dimly lit but then meaning when we enter into eternity which all of us will do whether you like it or not the bible says they're we're all appointed an hour as jesus says this is my hour to be glorified well the bible says we've all been appointed once to die and then comes judgment what did you do with your temporal life that will indicate what will happen to your eternal life will you be going towards god or away from god it says when we get to then eternal we're going to know him just like he knows us imagine the promise the god of the universe who created you and knew you in your mother's womb knows the number of hairs on your head knows the depths of your thoughts and the bottom of your heart we're going to know that god just like he knows us but not now right now we have a few things that god will give us to navigate this life because we can't see everything what are these three things it says this but now on this side of eternity now abide these three things faith hope and love these three and the greatest of these is love these are the three things that will never fade away from your pursuit for life in the name of christ these are the things that if you find faith in christ hope in christ and life in christ you have life in his name and these three things by the way are given to you by god like hunger to your soul the psalmist says like the deer pants for water my soul longs for god and it longs for him in ways that will tap into your faith and your hope and your love and the reason i say this is such an important easter message this year is because faith hope and love are the medicine that this dying world will be revived by but where do they come from where do you get faith is as you as you survey the world that we live in and we've laid out the context of the darkness expanding and you come here to examine christ examine your own world what do you put your faith in government medicine academia school what gives you hope that tomorrow could be better than yesterday and where is the fountain of love that all of us crave but none of us seem to have within ourselves because it doesn't take long to worship his name and then to get so annoyed when you're leaving the parking lot the parking i've heard is horrible today so i apologize and leaving's going to be hard where do you get love to be gracious and kind and long-suffering even minutes after you celebrate a resurrection the foundation of these three things is the death and the resurrection of jesus christ and we find that in the way that jesus says you'll be blessed when you don't see me but you'll see me with faith hope and love and here's how we see it in the metaphor that god gives us through his creation and jesus says you want to understand how glory works check this out verse 23 the hour has come that the son of man should be glorified that the son of man will finally be high and lifted up and made as famous as is worthy to the creator of the universe and how does it come so we start fir we start first with faith how does it come moses most assuredly i say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains alone so this is just botany 101 if i have seeds in my hand and i hold them i can have these seeds in my hand by next year this time and they're just sitting here they're just alone in my hand but when you bury them when they as jesus say die buried in the ground something will happen to produce life and more life in those seeds and this is a statement that will be made not just about botany but about the design that god has made for us to understand salvation in his name because it then goes on to say just like the seed he who loves his life will lose it the seed remains alone unless it's buried you love your life you love all of the things that create your identity for the life that you have now it will be lost you cannot hold it you can't stay in high school forever you can't stay young forever you can't stay gifted and talented as an athlete forever the harder you hold the more you lose but he says if you hate your life or if you give your life away in other teachings he says it is then that you will find it and this is a statement of faith that must be understood in spiritual terms because don't we wish that this wasn't the path of salvation that we didn't have to give our life away you could just come into church and i'd be like see on christmas good job good enjoy the next six months of your life i will give you a pastor's pass that you came to church i hope your job and your career and your identity in this world get built up the way that you want them to and hopefully on christmas you'll get another religious past that's not how salvation works salvation works like nature and here's what you have to put faith in this morning two things one faith in the reality that god has displayed this process through his son conquering the grave and this is a faith that is full of historical context and full of god saying for the logical engineer minds among us who want to see the proof in their skepticism here it is study the history how in the world did this jewish carpenter set into motion a revolution to this world that still is here 2000 years later and we're praising his name how has so much prophecy been fulfilled in this man but that is not the only statement of faith that you must make you also have to make a very real faith move in your life and it is this glory comes after death precedes honor you don't get it along the way jesus says my hour has glory has come so now it's time for me to die jesus will turn glory on its head because it's different than how we think about it was different in his day too because the people wanted jesus glory to be very transactional to his miracles or his teaching or even the coming king that they wanted him to be and it says earlier in the gospel of john chapter 6 that they tried to make him king by force by placing a crown on his head and it says that jesus withdrew himself into the mountains because that is not the glory that is offered by the design of god for our souls and we think glory comes through crowns glory must come for from hard work educate yourself and enrich yourself and prove yourself and climb the ladder to glory and jesus says put your faith in this glory comes after death there's all sorts of ways that you can experience this in your life apart from a preacher calling you to a life filled in the spirit of christ i was actually doing a wedding yesterday and i was with the groom about five minutes before it was just he and i are waiting for our cue to walk to the altar where he would wait for his bride to be to walk down the aisle a beautiful moment in the wedding uh and in that five minutes his nerves kind of started talking right he's like oh boy and my nerves started listening i was like yeah i keep talking it's great for both of us and uh he said you know it kind of dawned on me that um last night was the last night i'd ever get to have my bed to myself and he's like that's a good thing i mean i'm excited about it but what was happening is he realized that everything he knew about his life before marriage was about to die he will no longer be single he'll no longer be a bachelor he'll no longer have the house to himself the bed to himself the plans to himself because when you enter into anything that requires you to love anything it also requires you to die and so i thought of that and i'm like man thank you because i'm preparing an easter sermon and you just nailed it you are now dying and he's like what i'm like fine so here's what he repeated after me i said do you promise to forsake all others and keep yourself to your wife and to her only we hear it we say it we think about it we've exchanged the vows to each other for those of us who are married but forsake all others in other words do you promise to die to every other person you possibly could have married i do that's how marriage works and that's how you get the glory of the wedding and then the marriage and that's how anything that requires you to experience love will work i'm also not only a husband so i've experienced dying to myself in that regard i'm also a father and fathers mothers among us you know that having children is glorious but it requires you to die all the time i can't tell you the last time that i was selfishly sleeping in without someone jumping on my face i have died to a 10 o'clock wake up it's not possible and i've died to all sorts of things so that i can be a father who represents the design of fatherhood to love till the end unconditionally and to love with no greater love than to die and so you're thinking of these things in your own life because if anything from this last year 2020 taught you and me and the church and people that live in countries across the world in all sorts of ways that death is inevitable in more ways than just a physical death there are things that you are forced to let go of and what jesus says is that is when you let go of things for my sake that is actually when you will begin to find them and for those of you who don't actually consider yourself religious or consider yourself a church-going person or this is something that you do because you're religious because you only do it twice a year and you think that's enough there is a spiritual truth that should set you free this morning in the gospel good news message that faith in believing in christ the path of glory is the cross and then the resurrection is that you do not have to prove yourself to earn the love of god all you have to do is be willing to follow christ to death and we get that example in one of the disciples who came to christ later his name was paul he wrote a letter to one of the churches as he was just ministering to them and preaching the good news to them in their form which was letter and he gives the story of his own life that to know christ was worth giving anything over to experience life in his name means everything else could die and he would have greater life than anything this world could ever give you and he wrote to them in philippians chapter 3 verse 7 he says the things that were gained to me these have counted a loss for christ anything i've gained i'll lose and what were these things he says i count all these things a loss for the excellence of the knowledge of christ jesus my lord for whom i have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish when i read the metaphor of a seed you it's safe to keep it in the area of botany 101 isn't it but paul will go on to say that so it is with our lives our bodies are like seeds that must go into the ground to experience glory and your life is a seed of what you will be with the plans of god in this life and the life to come and for those of you who know that you know the day of salvation opened up to a new joy and a new hope because god has made you something greater than what you expected and this is what paul says i suffered the loss and i count them all as trash to gain christ and to be found in him not having my own righteousness i don't present my religious good works to god i don't present my church attendance and my easter celebration to god i don't present my understanding of theology to god or the ways that i preach or do missions or do worship songs or tell my neighbors all of these things come with glory but to get to the glory what paul says is i consider everything worthy to lose for the excellent knowledge of christ why not having my own righteousness which is from the law but which is through faith in christ the righteousness which is from god by faith that i may know him and the power of his resurrection and that is what we come to experience this morning not simply the proof of the resurrection not simply
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.