HE IS RISEN - John 20:15-28
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Well happy Easter everybody. Happy Easter. I gotta do it one more time. do it one more time. We got some more people who came in here. So I got to do this again. I get to do it once a year. Okay, so I'm going to say he is risen and I want to hear a shout back. He has risen indeed. Okay, here we go. He has risen. He has risen. He has risen. Oh, yes. That was good. Well, today we're going to talk about Easter or Christmas or Easter. Easter. Christmas. I'm just ready. I'm fired up. Today is awesome and exciting. I hope you guys have been enjoying yourself this morning. It has been an awesome, awesome Sunday. But I want to talk to us today about Easter and kind of have maybe a different perspective on Easter. We come in, we hear about the empty tomb, and we hear about Jesus not being in there, but we want to walk kind of through a couple different people and what their perspective was in Easter. And we know that context is everything. And sometimes that our view is not God's view, right? Our view isn't God's view because if you would have thought about Good Friday and Jesus dying on the cross, what would have been seen from below would have felt like all is lost. See, the view from below is all is lost, but God's view, respected from above, is all is one. And that's what we celebrate today. That's what we want to talk about this morning and to focus in on Easter being all is one. He is written. He conquered death on the grave and came out. And when that we share in his resurrection and because of his resurrection, we can have eternal life with God in heaven. And three people I want to talk about this morning. The first of which is going to be Mary Mary. This incredible, incredible lady here in this story. A person who loved Jesus deeply. And so we open up in the story on Easter Sunday and we're seeing this encounter. And Mary has gotten up early. She's gotten up way early. You think, "Oh, what a go-getter!" She's a first stop, go make it happen. But the thing is, Mary is actually breaking the Jewish ritual of grieving and mourning the death of a family member. They are supposed to, as the Jewish culture says, you're supposed to stay home for a week after death and to mourn and then you go out. So Mary here, we read, "Oh, look at Mary getting up early, getting things done." No, she's actually trying to sneak out early before anybody can see her because she was not able to finish as much as she wanted to bury Jesus in the proper way. She loves Jesus deeply and she's sneaking out here trying to finish the burial process that had to pause at sundown when Jesus died.
So I'm gonna go ahead and read our passage this morning is John 20. If you're in the Bible, the pews in front of you, it's page 1087. And so John 20 11 through 14 says this, "Now Mary stood outside the tomb, crying. And as she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus's body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said. "I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. But she did not realize that it was Jesus.
How could Mary miss that this is Jesus? Having spent so much time with him, wouldn't she have recognized Jesus' face standing right there in front of him? Well, we know that this is a lot to process, right? This is a moment of grief for her. And in moments of grief, there's a lot of weight that people are dealing with. When people grieve, they're busy dealing with what's inside of them, right? What's inside the heart. And they don't have the capacity always to deal with what's going on around them. So while grief was a part of their lives in dealing with Jesus's death, it's not going to be the last emotion that they feel in this story regarding Christ. So the scripture continues on. It says in verse 15, "He asked her, being Jesus, 'Why are you crying? Who is it that you're looking for?'" Jesus is kind of messing with Mary here a little bit. Still got a sense of humor. I love that about Jesus. Thinking he was a gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him." And then Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out, "Aramaic, Rabbanai." She knew. She knew in that very moment, the voice of Jesus, that it was him. This wasn't some random gardener dude, hanging out, just doing, trimming some bushes, And cutting some weeds on an early morning like like this was Jesus there and when he says Mary She melts because she knows Jesus that's who it is Have you ever found yourself in a place where you didn't recognize somebody and then you heard their voice? I I've had this situation sometimes where I've been shopping in a grocery store And I've been going down the aisles and all of a sudden I get this feeling somebody's following me. And I'm like, "What's going on?" And I find out later, somebody who knows me and somebody goes, "I know that beard. I've seen that beard somewhere." But I'm out of context. You're like, "They let him out of that church during the week? He doesn't sleep in this back corner room here? Like, they let him out?" Yes, I go and I buy food. I'm a normal person, okay? But you're sitting there and then all of a sudden maybe you hear me say something. something. Maybe I walk into that ice cream aisle and they got my favorite pint there of just the, "Oh, so good," and I said, "Praise the Lord!" And then you go, "I know that guy! I've heard that voice! That's Pastor Chris! I've seen him!" That's what Mary happens here. Mary hears his voice and goes, "This is Jesus! Oh my gosh!" Continue on, verse 18, "Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news. Can you imagine? You just come, I can imagine, like a Kramer entrance on Seinfeld into the house, just pow'n in going, "He's alive!" And they're like, "Mary, pipe down, calm down, calm down." No. And she told them these things that had said to her. And on the evening of the first day of the week when the disciples were together and the doors were all locked for fear Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you," and they had to change their undercloaks. In that moment, the disciples are gathered in fear. They're afraid of death by association. Everybody knew this group of disciples were Jesus' crew, that they had walked with them, they had traveled with them, they had performed miracle wisdom, they had lived with him, they had sat under his teaching, they were they were associated with. And so these disciples, we read this and go like, "Why are they so scared?" Well, they're afraid they're gonna get killed. They just saw their Savior, their Lord, their King get killed before their eyes and they think we're next. But then Jesus shows up and he says, "Write there, 'Peace be with you.'" And after he said this, he showed them his hands and his sides to prove who he was. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. You've found yourself in situation where you were just on an emotional roller coaster. You went from a place to where you felt like all hope was lost, everything was gone, nothing was gonna write and be happening to you, and then all of a sudden, boom, you're overjoyed. This is what the disciples are going, they're on an emotional roller coaster right now these three days. But Jesus shows up them and loves them so much to show up in their lives and to show them His hands and His side, He goes, "I am Jesus.”
It seems that all the disciples are on an emotional rollercoaster except for one. We skip ahead in our story to verse 24 and it says, "Now Thomas, also known as Didymus, one of the 12, "was not with the disciples when Jesus came. "So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord, but he said to them, "unless I see the nail marks in his hands, "put my finger where the nails were, "put my hand into his side, I will not believe. 26 says, "A week later, his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. And though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.' And then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here, see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it on my side. Stop doubting and believe.' And Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God.'" Comprehending who God is and what he does, it's a lot, right? And we all process at different rates, some of us similar to others, but hearing the news that Jesus is alive again would be a lot to process for anyone. It's a lot for Thomas in this moment.
So why does this matter? Why are we reading about this? Why are we telling this to you? Why are we saying things? What does it matter? Because I think the reality is, as we are honest with ourselves, life is a lot harder than we want to admit. Life goes like this. You're born into this world crying. You're bullied on the playground. Your teen heart is broken. You go to college. The bank account shrinks. Bad reports back from your doctor about your health. You blink and your kids are grown up and then you don't have any more cartilage in your knees. And that's life. Right? Isn't that how life goes? And we are all somewhere on a different progress in that but life is really harder than it seems and God here in this moment is shouting to the entire world, there is hope. There's hope. But even what we face, no matter what we go through, no matter what's happening in our lives, no matter where we are with our level of cartilage in our knees, there is still hope in Jesus. And that first Easter, Jesus proclaimed to the world, "I am the resurrection and the life." I am everything that you need. I am everything. I love this quote from N.T. Wright. It says, Jesus' resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. Sometimes we get caught up in this Jesus thing of just going, "Okay, when I die, I'm going to heaven. Cool. All that." But Jesus has got work for us to do here and now. Jesus has got people in our lives that need to hear this message of hope that have never heard this hope. So story ever in their lives. They're just racing through life, counting down the days going, "This is the end." And Jesus here is proclaiming, "This is not the end," that He wants more of us. And in the midst of the hardness of our life, Jesus is here. Turn to the person next to you. I hate to admit it, but they're probably the source of the hardness of your life. You love them to death, right? You love them to death. But they add to that hardness. And God wants us to know that heaven is invading now. That even in the midst of that hardness, Jesus is here and now.
Well, he got me with the cartilage in the knee thing. I wasn't expecting that. Wasn't in the notes. I want to take us back. We're going to take some time now to kind of go encounter by encounter, the ones that we just talked about. So I So I want to go back to Mary Magdalene at the grave and talk about the fact that she overcame grief. Grief is something that we experience in the loss of something or someone that we love. And Mary's love for Jesus runs deep because it's wrapped up in her identity of who she is, what she's gone through. Luke 8, 1 through 3 tells of the story of who Mary Magdalene was in her first encounter with Jesus. And she is the prime example of experiencing the transformative work of Jesus in life. She was possessed by demons, and Jesus comes and heals her, casts those demons out. And from that moment on, her life is totally transformed. She goes from a possessed life to a life of freedom in Jesus, and goes to supporting Jesus' ministry and being a part of it. So the death of Jesus meant the death of the one person in her life who was able to and had the power to transform her. So why did Mary grieve? Well, she grieved because she lost her liberator. His power had freed her from darkness. She also lost her teacher. His truth freed her from deception. She lost her purpose. life had given her a direction. Mary grieved because Jesus' death became that identity crisis for her. And this is, we can probably relate to this and to some extent, right? Take an elderly couple or someone who is going through the end-of-life process and that spouse is caring for that person and that's their identity. Is being a part of that marriage through thick and thin, through better or worse? And in that moment, maybe at that end-life stage, you're taking care of that person. So the rest of life shrinks, right? The outings, the social events, friends, all of that may be on the back burner, and your life and your time and your energy and effort are going for caring for that person. When that person passes away, you're left with an identity crisis of who am I now? My life was totally invested in this person. And I've got to rediscover what my purpose is, what I do with my free time. And it can be a lot, it is a lot. And I think that's what Mary's going through here. She's grieving this identity, that person, Jesus, my whole life was formed around him and what he said for me to do. I supported him, I followed him and now that he's gone, I don't know what to do. Mary's grieving that anchor, that person who healed her and gave her a purpose.
Some of us may be in that same kind of grief right now in a grief of darkness. Maybe it's a grief of deception, Lies, you're dealing with lies that are keeping you from experiencing the freedom that is found in Christ. Maybe you're grieving a lack or lost sense of direction in life. You're not sure where you're supposed to be or where you're supposed to go. Or maybe you're grieving the loss of a loved one or in the process of losing a loved one. And Jesus wants to say to you, "Hey, why are you crying? There is more hope than you know of, and that you can feel in this moment. I can not only give you everything, but I can give you more than you've ever had. In this moment, Jesus helped reframe Mary's grief. That she could have hope that Jesus' victory over death meant that she too could experience that victory. John 20, 17 tells us that Mary was holding onto Him, embracing Jesus in this moment. And he says to her, "You can't, you have to let me go. I still have some work to do here, and then I have to go ascend and be with my Father in Heaven." And so, she still has grief, but Jesus reframes her grief. Mary, I think, wanted that life that she had. She wanted to go back to it. She said, "Jesus, you're back? Let's get back into our regular rhythm, our regular schedule. I was hanging out with you every day. Let's go back to that." And Jesus is saying, "It's going to look different now." But the grief that Mary might experience of Jesus leaving to ascend to be with his Father in heaven is different than the grief of seeing the Savior dead on the cross. Right? One situation instills hope. Seeing Jesus alive and ascending to be with the Father, that instills hope. It's still a grief of him not being with us in the day to day, but it's different. Compared to the grief that she experienced where her Savior is on the cross, dead. They say that the grief of losing a loved one never really goes away, but we just get better at coping with it day to day. And Jesus reframed that grief for Mary so that she could have joy and hope in her future as her life went on. And where her identity could still be in the living God, even if he wasn't physically walking with her day by day. Why is death so frustrating for us? It's because we have no power over it. but we can know the one and have relationship with the one who does. This is a story of victory in Jesus over sin and death. The resurrection means hope is possible. So if you are someone who has lost something or someone in life, Jesus wants to say to you, "Hey, why are you crying? I conquered a hopeless grief, but in me there is hope in what lies ahead.”
I don't know about you, but I don't like being scared. I don't like scary movies. I don't like being scared. My daughter is on this kick to try to scare me whenever she can. Dad's tally is above hers right now. But something I do love, which is kinda like on the verge is roller coasters. Anybody love roller coasters? I love roller coasters. There's just something about 'em. Like, I love, give me a, launch me out of somewhere, give me a loop de loop, throw me upside down, whatever. I love it. It's kind of on that verge of like you're doing stuff that you should never do like just with like Just some safety gear that you just trust like okay, but something I do not like whatsoever is ferris wheels I think they are a torture chamber okay, think about this you're sitting in an open cage with just a bar a Bar and you're going up you're like I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die I'm gonna die and then you look down and the guy who put it together just with no teeth smiles up at you and just Waves and says I'm torturing you right now, and he is loving it. I don't like being scared I don't do not put me in a ferris wheel. I'm sorry. I'm out Give me something with a loop-de-loop, but but don't even think about that But then I think about bungee jumping This is just a weird thing. Do you know they have to replace those cords? I Want to know the guy who's counting who's just like one jump okay, two jumps and then who's the last person who takes that bungee then they come back and say and That was a little sketchy there. We need to replace that bunch I'm like, how does this work who's counting this and who's keeping track of this because there is a point where that bungee is going to break and You don't want to be I want to be the guy in the middle like the guy who like has tested it already but it's still got like 500 jumps to go. Like that is where I want to be if I was to ever do bungee jumping. I don't think I will. I don't have a scare of heights or anything like that.
But when I think about what happened with the disciples, the disciples had to overcome fear. We talked about this earlier when we read. They were scared to death. They were afraid that they were going to be killed by association. We read that story sometimes. I think we get pulled out of context of what's really happening. We think, "Oh, "Oh, disciples, don't you know Jesus risen from the grave? Like, why are you such wusses? Like, why don't you just, like, rise up under the power of Jesus and just go and live your life?" But the reality was they didn't understand. They didn't get it. And Jesus shows up in their lives and removes that fear. He removes that fear. And I think Jesus, he wants to do that for us. He wants to do that in our lives to remove the fear of what we might be facing or what we're going through. We went through a season these last few years of just chaos. Of what we thought would never happen, happened. Right? I remember being on the phone just before the NCAA tournament with my brother-in-law. And it was just before the world shut down. And I was thinking, there's no way they're going to shut down the tournament. There's too much money involved in this pooling and the bets and the brackets and all. There's no way you're gonna do that. And when they shut that down, I knew something was real. There was something big that was happening. And here what happened, something big is happening in the lives of the disciples and Jesus shows up. Even in the midst of them in their fear, it wasn't like they had gotten to a place where they were like, okay, well, I'm not so scared anymore and then Jesus just kind of rolls in.
Jesus shows up in the midst of their fear and their anxiety and everything that they're walking through in that moment and he says what? "Peace be with you." Peace be with you. Alexander McLaren has this quote on peace that says, "Peace comes not from the absence of trouble but from the presence of God." Peace comes from the presence of God. There's a key word in there what Jesus says, right? He says, "Peace be with you." Peace be with you. I think there's two factors in this peace. The first factor is power. When we're afraid, we don't feel adequately defended, right? When we're in a place of vulnerability, even the smallest noise or something, creak, crack, Snap, pop, whatever can give us, put us on edge. But if we knew we were locked in a fortress with an army of thousands surrounding us and guarding us and keeping us safe, and even if we had an army coming at us, we would feel peace because why? Because we were safe. There was a power over whatever we were facing in our lives. The second of this with our peace is proximity. Sometimes we're alone. That's just part of life. Sometimes we're alone. Even sometimes when we're surrounded by people around us, we still feel alone. And God here is saying, "I am with you." You're not alone. I have the power to defend you, to be near you, and to put together this power and proximity on a whole new level that the world has never experienced. that nobody else has understood or gone through. Some of you do not have peace because you don't think that God loves you enough to defend you. And I want to tell you again, that first Easter, he showed up and said, "I love you in a whole new way." Acts 4, 13 says this, "When they saw the courage of Peter and John, and they realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished. And they looked and took note that these men had been with Jesus. Ordinary, blue collar, run of the mill guys were the disciples. These weren't some amazing, educated, higher up, political figure, CEO, Fortune 500. These were your everyday guys. But they had been with Jesus. And that changes everything. See, the resurrection means today that courage is available. We can't get rid of our troubles. It's part of life. But what you can get is the power and presence of Jesus that He gives us.
Our last encounter is that person who had missed out on that original presence of Jesus with the disciples. Talking about Thomas. You know, the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament uses a lot of wordplay to convey some important ideas. One of those is nicknames. They give nicknames for something that happened, either good or bad, in that person's life. And sometimes that person is renamed to signify that moment, whatever they had done. I don't know. Survey here, who has had a nickname in life? Raise your hand. How many of you liked your nickname? A couple hands down. Yeah. Yeah. Well, sometimes nicknames were given. Yeah, I don't know. I never liked my nickname. My first name is Andre. That doesn't really flow into anything. Just nothing ever came of that. My last name's Yowakovsky. Just try. Just try to come up with a nickname. It never happened. So I just always wanted one. It never happened. I still crave for that today. So if you feel free on it, yeah on it. Yeah, but I got it. I got a pass, you know, you can't like start it without me approving it. Just nicknames can be cool and in the Bible. They're pretty cool. Use most of the time those nicknames in the Bible are for something good that person did like Peter Peter walks into the room. His name is Simon and the Bible helps us by saying Simon Peter because originally it was Simon and Jesus doesn't even shake his hand or sailors. She says you have the wrong name. You are now the rock. It's like, Dwayne Johnson is not the original rock. Peter is like the, yeah, the original rock. - It wasn't 'cause he sunk in the water in the storm? - Well, even if it was, it's just he's the original rock. Yeah, he renames him. John has some other, John himself, the writer of this gospel also has a nickname. He calls himself the beloved disciple, the one that Jesus loved the most. I just love whatever competitive spirit he had that as he's writing, he's like, I know the other disciples are writing, and I just want to make sure that the whole world knows that I was Jesus' best friend." So every time that he's mentioned, it's always like, "John, the disciple that Jesus loved the most, Jesus' best friend." So he gives himself a nickname, which is like a faux pas. You cannot give yourself a nickname. The other person in this gospel to have a nickname is Thomas. Maybe some of you know, Doubting Thomas. Now, previously what we know of Thomas is we wouldn't have thought of this nickname. in John's Gospel in a situation where Lazarus had died, Jesus' friend, he talks about how he's got to go back. So it happened, he finds out that Lazarus' friend has died, he's like, "Hey, disciples, we need to go back to the village of Bethany, and I got to deal with this situation." And his disciples remind him, "Hey, Jesus, when you left, they wanted to stone you. If you go back, you might get killed." And we find out in John 11:16 that Thomas said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." So, Thomas originally has got this courage, he's got this faith that he's like, "Hey, I run with Jesus, let's go. If we're gonna die, I'm okay with it."
And we fast forward now to this situation where Jesus has resurrected, and there's some tension going on with Thomas. He had belief in courage to follow Jesus, but now he's in a different place, and that courage has faded, and now there's doubt. And sometimes isn't that the way it goes when you're so invested into something or someone, and then in whatever way you lose it, in order to get reinvested and re-engaged in that thing or that person, doesn't it take sometimes even more energy than the first time around? For whatever reason, you have to invest more, and I think that's what Thomas is dealing with here. He's followed Jesus for years, and now that Jesus is back, he's like, "I don't know. I need a little bit more than I did the first time. I've never seen a resurrected body. I don't know if any of you have. But if I were Thomas, I would be very skeptical. Just hearing about someone who was raised from the dead, I would definitely be in the category of like, I got to see that with my own eyes. I just won't take anyone's word for it. I don't know who they are or where you've been. I want to be able to see and experience with my own eyes, my own, yeah. I gotta do it." So this is very relatable coming from Thomas. So we know the situation where the disciples come to him and say, "Hey, by the way, we know Jesus. Of course you know Jesus, Thomas. By the way, he's back. He's alive again. We all saw him." And Thomas is saying, "What? What are you guys talking about?" Just imagine what Thomas is going through in that moment. I think on top of the doubt that he's feeling of, "Okay, this has never happened before." Well, except it has, Lazarus. So he's just like, "Is that what this is going on?" But maybe he's also feeling hurt, the only one left out of this whole group of disciples who were like, "We were all following Jesus for years, and why was I the only one not to see him?" And just kind of like this emotion that he's dealing with in this moment. So Thomas, mentally and in his heart, just can't get there. He can't get to this point of belief on the disciples' words alone. And he says, "Unless I put my fingers in the hands inside of Jesus, I'm not going to believe." And we know what Jesus does, right? Jesus in life meets us where we're at. We could be struggling, we could be having a great time, but we know that Jesus meets us. He does all the work and he meets us with whatever we're dealing with in life. And so he goes and he meets Thomas where he's at.
So the next time the disciples are together, Jesus shows up and he doesn't rebuke Thomas, but he gives Thomas exactly what he's asking for. He's like, "You wanted to put your hands on my hand and my side. Well, go ahead. "Here's my hands, here's my side." He says, "Stop doubting and believe." And what history tells us of Thomas is a further transformation in his life. Thomas not only believes in that moment, but he goes on to be one of the greatest church planters in church history. He goes over to India, and he starts church after church after church, and he dies a martyr. He dies for his faith in Jesus. And the point that I'm saying here is that God is teaching that we all may have doubts to some degree. We all may have a little bit of Thomas inside of our hearts and in our minds. But when Jesus reveals himself to us, we can go from doubt to belief. Thomas overcame doubt and so can all of us here today. With Jesus' influence, Mary overcomes grief, the disciples overcome fear, and Thomas overcomes doubt. And don't you see the beauty of what John is saying in this chapter, is that it speaks to our deepest needs that we experience in life. We are people who walk with grief. We walk in fear at times. And we can walk through life with nagging doubts going on in our minds and in our hearts. We wrestle with our faith. Maybe it's our friends, our co-workers, even our family members who question our commitment to Christ. Some of you here today may not yet be committed to Christ. And if you're walking in doubt, He wants to say to you this Easter, "Hey, I want to reveal myself and who I am to you. I'm not afraid of your questions." God is saying, "Challenge me." Say, "God, I need to touch you. I need to know that you are real." This is what Thomas did. He got real with God. He said, "Hey, this is what it's going to take for me to believe." And Jesus, knowing his doubt, meets him where he's at. Jesus knows our doubt, and he'll meet you where you're at. But Thomas exemplifies this important part of you have to engage with God. You got to let God know, "God, this is what I'm struggling with. This is the hill that I'm trying to get over, but I can't do it on my own." And once you voice that, let God take care of the rest. Let God meet you where you're at. Thomas said, "I have questions, let me ask them." And God shows us in this moment that He will answer.
Jesus then says to them, in John 20:29, He says, "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." So, in the grief, in the fear, in the doubt, whatever you're at, whatever you're going through in life, the question is, what do you believe? Do you believe in this story of Jesus that you can have anything that you're walking through right now overcome through his resurrection? That's the question for us today. Jesus says that you ask and you will receive search and you will find. There are times I've had doubt in my life and God's shown up, God's a big boy. He can take our biggest doubts and he hands them and takes care of them. It's how amazing he is. So the question for us is what do we believe? Do we believe that Jesus can take care of all of this stuff that we might be going through in life? And the fact that he rose that very first Easter Sunday conquered the greatest thing that nobody up to that point had been able to conquer, death. The most final of final things. Jesus took care of that and took care of that for our lives. So I say it would be safe to say that anything that we might be going through in life is probably a little bit less than death. Jesus is already taking care of that. He can take care of whatever we're going through. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet see.
Our context and our view was one of having to walk in faith, because we didn't get to be like Thomas and to touch Jesus and what He was. But Jesus said we can be just as blessed as those who have seen and believed. And it might be even a place where we are even blessed even more because we have not seen and yet believed. So what do you believe? Do you believe that this Jesus and resurrection stuff is real? Do we believe and hold that in faith? Do we believe that God is still working? something years later after his resurrection that God is still working. And he's working in every single person's life that is in this room. And I want you to walk away with that this morning. So whatever your grief, whatever your fear, whatever those doubts, just give them over to God. What's that saying, "Give it over to God, he'll be up all night anyway"? That's the reality. So the question is, are we willing to give it over to God? And to give our lives over to Him? And then say, "Jesus, you've got it all figured out. I don't. Help me figure this thing called life out.”
Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for this day, for this Sunday, to worship you, to praise you, to give you honor, the glory for the resurrection that you walked, that life, that very first Easter. Jesus, we're so grateful for you. And God, there might be some of us in here right now that need to step out into faith and to say, "Jesus, I need to trust you. I need to walk in this faith with you. I need to say, 'Here's my grief. Here's my fear. Here's my doubt. Here's my film of grief.’” So God, maybe this Easter would be that day that those would make that commitment to you to say yes to Jesus say yes to the one who overcame death yes to the one who overcame grief yes to the one who overcame fear yes to the one who overcame doubt Jesus I pray that that those who want to make that commitment God would quietly in their hearts right now. Just pray this prayer with them. Jesus, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for holding on to these things. I'm sorry for not giving these over to you soon. God, here is my life now. I bow to you as Lord and leader of my life. Forgive me of my sins. Forgive me of my selfishness. Forgive me of my pride. forgive me of these decisions I've made that have been all about me number one. God, I place you rightly as number one in my life. Jesus, help me to live for you from this day forward, to love you God with everything I have and to love those around me in my life. Our eyes still closed and heads bowed. If you prayed that prayer today, I I asked that you would just take your ripoff card at the bottom of your program. You can just mark that box that said yes I chose Jesus drop that in the bucket on the way out For some of us We need to get God back into the right place in our lives To put him on the throne not us Give him hand over all the things that we're struggling through.
God, we continue praying and the power that we know comes from you, knowing that your son, his victory is our victory. So on this day, Easter, we give you all the praise that we get to share in that victory, doing nothing on our own. We didn't do any part. We get to put our trust and faith in you. We get to look forward to the hope that is in you now as we live our life and also to the eternal hope. Just as Jesus ascended, we too know that for those who believe, we get to ascend and be with God in heaven. So that joy that comes found in you, I pray that we would feel that joy to the max today. That we would continue to celebrate outside of church service, to go about our lives, celebrate with you and in you, God. So give us everything we need, fill us up with your joy, your grace, your love, and may our lives be a light and example to those in our lives of what you've done, the transformative work that you've done in our hearts. We give you all the praise and glory this morning. We pray this in your Son’s name. Amen.