SURPRISED BY GOD MORE THAN A MAN SERIES

Transcription

1 Last night I was watching a little video on the Internet with my son and my wife. I don t know if you have ever seen those videos where soldiers come home and surprise their kids, or they surprise their spouse or not, but it is just so touching when you watch those videos. Last night I was just really moved watching the different expressions of the kids as daddy shows up to surprise them. And the different reactions of the wives and the parents who see their son who had been off to war and now he has come home. There are surprised expressions of joy when they see their loved ones. Maybe that happened to some of you when you were a soldier and you can remember coming back to the United States and surprising your loved ones. How great it is to see those different reactions. Some of the reactions in the videos showed the kids just clinging to their dads and not wanting to let them go. Other reactions were shock, hands over their faces and their jaws dropping, while other reactions were laughing or crying. Some reactions were like a second take because they couldn t quite believe who it was before them. We love surprises, don t we? We especially love surprises when we see someone that we have missed. Someone that has been away from us and we haven t seen them for a while and then they pay us a surprise visit. There is just something good about surprises. We love surprises when we get a new car, or a job promotion, or even a surprise birthday party. We just like surprises. We are going to come to a passage in John Chapter 20 where there is a greater surprise than any other surprise ever in the history of mankind. And it is because Jesus Christ has died, He has been buried and now He has risen from the dead. Now some of the disciples thought that His body had been stolen. But Jesus is going to show up in today s passage and He is going to say surprise. And they are going to be surprised by God, because Jesus is God in the flesh. And what makes this surprise transcend any other surprise known to mankind is this - Jesus was dead and now He has risen from the grave. When people come back from war to surprise others they weren t dead and coming back alive. So this is what makes Jesus surprise all the more fantastic. Now you will remember last week we spent time on Easter Sunday talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And in I Corinthians Chapter 15 the Apostle Paul lays out different appearances that Jesus made when He showed up to the different disciples. On one occasion Jesus showed up to five hundred disciples at once. Now some have tried to say that the five hundred disciples were just hallucinating and this wasn t a real appearance. And as we talked about last week that would have had to have been some pretty heavy duty hallucination going on, I mean five hundred people at once hallucinating? Page 1 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

2 C. H. Dodd, the great New Testament scholar wrote that Paul said this: Go ask those five hundred people. They are witnesses. They are still here if you don t believe that Jesus didn t rise from the grave. That is what C. H. Dodd said that Paul was saying in that moment. Jesus not only rose from the dead but He showed back up to vindicate His resurrection. And we are coming to a passage today where Jesus is going to show back up. And this is important because His disciples at this point think that His body has been stolen, or maybe it has been misplaced. They just don t know what has happened. So if you will, please turn in your Bibles to John Chapter 20. We have spent the last several weeks going through Jesus death, burial and resurrection and now we are at His post resurrection appearances. For 40 days after Jesus rose from the dead He had appearances that He made. Now understand this, when He started His public ministry He was tested with fasting in the wilderness for 40 days before He entered into His ministry. At the end of His ministry before He ascends back to His Father He went through 40 days of appearing before His disciples. Again this vindicates His resurrection. And what we are going to do is, as I shared before, we are going to finish the gospel of John shortly because I am heading off to Israel and I want us to be able to get this book of John wrapped up nicely. I am excited about this trip to Israel where I will be able to be at some of the different locations and sites we have talked about during this study of John. And I want you to track with me via Facebook as I am planning to put up different video posts every day at some of these different sites that we have been learning about on our tour through the gospel of John. So hopefully you will get an archeological, historical and Biblical education as I am there in these different locations. We are planning to go on a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, and go to the site where Jesus fed the 5,000. So I want to share it with you via video on this trip. That is what is so great about the Bible because it records real people, real locations and real historical events. And we have been showing that archeologically even in our study of the book of John. I shared with you that they have found Caiaphas bone box and he was the Jewish high prient that Jesus stood before. It is astonishing to think that they have found the bones of the person that helped organize the plot to kill Jesus. We have first century crucifixion victims remains that archeologists have unearthed to attest to the fact that crucifixion was a known reality in the Greco/Roman world. These things validate and affirm our faith. Also we have an inscription that has been discovered that names Pilate. And we know that Jesus stood before Pilate. Ancient Nazareth has been unearthed and dug up. This is exciting stuff for those who are skeptical about the Bible because it is attached to real history. So now we come to John Chapter 20 where the disciples are going to be surprised by God, surprised by Jesus. You will remember that Jesus rose from the dead and then Page 2 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

3 Mary Magdalene came to the tomb while it was still dark. She saw that Jesus wasn t in the tomb so she ran and told Peter and John that Jesus body was gone. Then Peter and John ran to the tomb and looked inside and saw that Jesus body wasn t there. So now we come to verse 10 of John Chapter 20. Then the disciples went back to their homes. This is speaking of Peter and John who went back to their homes after looking inside the tomb and seeing it was empty. Verse 11, But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. Remember the kinds of tombs we talked about. They had ground tombs and they had cave tombs. And a ground tomb is typically what we see people buried in today, but a cave tomb is something you could walk into. And this would have been a cave tomb because we know that Peter and John went inside the tomb. Verse 12, And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. Now this is a bit of a head scratcher here because first of all the common reaction to seeing angels in the Scripture is what? It is one of fear. And when you think of fear we remember the Bible tells us to fear God. Now there are two types of fear, there is a screaming fear and there is an awesome fear. And this is the latter, this is awesome fear. So here we see that there are two angels in the tomb and Mary is seemingly nonchalant and I am thinking, What is this all about here? Well, perhaps Mary was just so disillusioned with the pain of losing Jesus that she didn t really understand at this moment who was before her. Or it could be that John is simply recording part of the story and we don t get the screaming fear, we are just getting the conversation that happened. Again, we don t always have every single word recorded here - right? We have bits and pieces of what happened and we only get what the author wanted us to get. And this doesn t mean that this is every single word that was exchanged in the conversation here. For instance, in the different sermons that Jesus would give sometimes you might get a summary of the sermon. It doesn t mean that they catalogued the entire sermon from beginning to end. It means that sometimes we are getting summary statements of what transpired. Just as if we observed an event and then after we left we would go and share what we saw and heard. So that could be the case here. Verse 14, Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 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 have laid Him, and I will take Him Page 3 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

4 away. Mary makes the mistake of seeing Jesus and thinking He is the gardener instead of the risen Christ. So how is it that Mary doesn t recognize Jesus? Well, there are probably a couple of reasons why that happened. Number one, it could be that her eyes were so filled with tears and they were blurred from much weeping so when she saw Jesus it wasn t with clear vision. Also if you have ever been crying a lot and are full of emotion you know that you don t want anyone to see you overwhelmed, so you might just look and then quickly look away again. Maybe she was recalling the horrific scene of Christ on the cross and it would have been so deeply imprinted that she may have been remembering that in this particular moment. Yet upon further inspection Mary would quickly see that it was Jesus and how do we know that? Look in verse 16, Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and said to him in Aramaic, Rabboni! (which means Teacher.) Remember the verse that says, My sheep know my voice. And here Jesus says, Mary, and at that moment she recognizes Him. Now this is not uncommon for Jesus post resurrection body. It is not that He has a brand new body that is disconnected to His old body. It is His old body, but it is glorified. And so even on the Emmaus Road two disciples didn t recognize Him at first. And Mary didn t recognize Jesus body at first either. But upon further inspection she did. So let s think about the fact that someday we will have glorified bodies when we die. Our souls go to be with God, but we will await the future resurrection for these glorified bodies. I think our new body will resemble our old body but it will be a glorified body. It will be the same body but it will be glorified in the sense that we will never die. Now some of you have all kinds of questions with that. Some of you may be questioning if our bodies are going to decay, and God is going to have to create a glorified body for us but how is that possible? Well, how were we created from the beginning? We were created out of the dust of the earth. If God can fabricate the body that way then He can re-fabricate it again. So Jesus body is glorified here, and He shows up to Mary who doesn t recognize Him at first, but then she recognizes His voice once He says, Mary. Verse 17, Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Jesus has referred to His disciples as disciples, He has referred to them as His friends, and this is the first place He refers to them as His brothers. What could make that happen? Well, as a result of His death on the cross, they are not brought into His spiritual family and they are His brothers. And Mary wants to cling to Him, and this is interesting because in a moment you are going to see Thomas who is going to see the resurrected Christ and Jesus is going to Page 4 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

5 invite Thomas to touch Him. Yet here He tells Mary not to cling to Him. What is happening in this moment? He says, I have not yet ascended to the Father. Jesus rose bodily but He hasn t ascended bodily. I said a few weeks ago that I believe He spiritually (His soul) went into the presence of the Lord, because He told the thief on the cross today you will be with me in Paradise. But His body has not ascended into the presence of the Father. So here we are in this particular situation now where Jesus tells Mary not to cling to Him. In other words, Mary, don t hold on to the old understanding of me. You can t keep me here. Things are going to change. I am going to leave you here to be a witness for me. I must go to the Father and you can t hold on to me. I know you don t want me to go, I know you are crushed. I know you are in pain and agony, but I must go to the Father. You need to go tell the disciples what you have seen. Verse 18, Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord -- that He had said these things to her. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. You know Jesus is so cool, I just like the way He does things. You remember that Peter and John discovered Jesus linens in the empty tomb. And I shared last week that He would have been wrapped in these 75 pounds of spices and linens and He would have just rose up through the linens and they were left behind. Apparently Jesus doesn t need a door to be opened in this glorified body, He can just appear in their midst. And He says, Peace be with you. And one of the things that fascinates me about Jesus is He always knows just the right thing to say to us in our pain, doesn t He? I mean here are the disciples and I want you to think about them in this room. Their Savior has died in a massacre of a death. He died a bloody death on the cross. It says in verse 19 that the disciples were now in a room behind closed and locked doors for fear of the Jews. Now why were they fearing the Jews? Remember the disciples scattered when Jesus was taken. But now they are thinking that since they had been followers of Jesus and He had been crucified so what was going to happen to them? And so they are hiding out behind locked doors. So if we could just go in that room and see their expressions, what would we see? Would we see their swollen eyes? Would we see tears still falling down their faces? Would we hear the sound of sobbing? Would we see the fear in their eyes that something was going to happen to them? Would we see them embracing each other, huddled together in that room crying out to God in prayer? Would we be able to just smell their depression? There would be no music, no food and no festivity. All that they would Page 5 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

6 have had going on in their minds at this time was that Jesus was dead and they are crushed. They are torn up. Have you ever been in a funeral setting where people are torn up? I remember talking with a gentlemen one time who had recently lost his wife. And it was horrible talking to him. He was in gut wrenching agony. He was at his home and he said to me, Here you are as my pastor listening to my grief. It is just so quiet in here. My home is so quiet without her. It is so silent here in this house. And I remember feeling crushed for him. I thought how silent my home would feel without my bride, without my children. And I think the disciples were missing Jesus stories. They were missing the meals they had shared with Jesus. They missed asking questions of Jesus. And they were asking themselves why hadn t they followed Him more closely? And why hadn t they told Him they loved Him more? And why hadn t they surrendered more? They were probably asking themselves all the why questions. Can you hear those questions, folks, if we were in that room right now? And then Jesus appears! He doesn t come through the door, He just appears. And what does He say to them? Peace be with you. Jesus knows just the right words to say to us in our pain. What is it that you want when you are in pain? What is it that you want when you are hurting? What is it that you want when someone that you loved has been stripped away from you? What is it that you want when you wonder if God is even there? What is it that you want when you wonder if God even cares? What is it that you want when you wonder if God even sees you in your desperation? You want peace, don t you? You want a sense of the Hebrew word salome. You want to know that God loves you. And Jesus shows up to His disciples and says, Peace be with you. Verse 20, When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Now I love this. He shows them His hands and His side. Jesus comes into this pain filled mess of disciples and then Surprise! Surprise! This was a surprise visit when He shows up in this moment and He wants them to check out His hands and His side. He had been nailed to a cross and He shows them the prints in His hands. He had told them over and over and over again that He was going to rise from the dead and now it has happened. And in that moment can you just imagine the disciples response? Someday we are going to see the nail prints in Jesus hands as well. We are going to see His side that was pierced. Why did Jesus have a glorified body and not leave those scars behind? It was because those scars will always serve as a visual reminder that our Redeemer lives. They will always serve as a visual reminder that our sins have been paid for. They will serve as a visual reminder throughout eternity that it is finished. And Page 6 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

7 when we see our great Savior walking on the great streets of heaven we will see a visual reminder of what He has done for us. If we are able to see the sun no matter where we are in this world then I think in heaven we will be able to see the Son of God no matter where we are. And I just think it is really cool to think about the fact that we will see Him and always remember He redeemed us and He forgave us. Have your sins been forgiven this morning? Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Do you have that hope that when you die you will be with Jesus Christ someday? Do you have that peace that surpasses all understanding? Do you know that joy in your heart, the joy of one who no longer is a prisoner of guilt, no longer a prisoner of habits, a prisoner of addiction, because Jesus Christ has freed you? Jesus said, So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. So Jesus showed the disciples His hands and His side to give proof that He truly rose from the dead. Let s think about the emotional shift in this room now. Their eyes that were red from weeping now have lights of joy in them. Weeping has turned into singing. Can you hear the songs bursting out in that room? They will be hungry now and wanting to have a feast because Jesus is here. They will want to celebrate. We need to understand that this was powerful. All of a sudden their depression has turned to joy and their hopelessness has turned to hope when they see Jesus. They are no longer hugging each other in pain because now they are celebrating. You know that is what happens to us in our pain. Everything changes when Jesus shows up. Are you hurting this morning? Have you lost someone that you love? Are you without a job this morning? Are you struggling with a disease? Is your marriage on the rocks this morning? Are you constantly fighting with your spouse? Do you have a rebellious child that will not listen to you? Are you feeling hopeless today? It all changes, perspective wise, when Jesus shows up. Think about that room here and get a picture of how everything changed when Jesus appeared. The same peace that Jesus gave to His disciples He tells us, I will be with you always, even to the end of the world. Jesus Christ offers us peace. And when we realize that He is with us it can help us navigate life s most difficult happenings. In verse 21 Jesus says it again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. Now that is important because Jesus is appearing to them and He is giving them some reasons. He is giving them proof that He has truly risen from the dead, and He is giving them the reason why He has appeared, which was to tell them He is going to send them out. And I am going to come back to that thought in a few minutes. Verse 22, And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. Now you talk about commentaries that can go wild on a Page 7 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

8 phrase - this is an example of that right here. If you go back and listen to my message called, There s More, I shared with you in detail the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. You can go listen to that, but I have thought more about this, and there is no really air tight answer here. What is happening here? Jesus has promised in John Chapter 14 that He is going to send His Holy Spirit. We see that the Holy Spirit shows up in Acts Chapter 2 at Pentecost. But then you have this statement in Verse 22, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. So what do we do with this? Now scholars kind of come up with some different ways for us to understand it, but you are going to have to do your own homework. So you need to be a good student of Scripture. Now some will say that this was sort of a mini Pentecost for the disciples, that basically they are receiving the Holy Spirit here. Others would say that in that moment maybe they were indwelled with the Holy Spirit, and then at Pentecost they become empowered with the Holy Spirit. Others would say that they were already indwelled with the Holy Spirit and what is taking place here is just sort of a picture, or a foreshadowing of their receiving the Holy Spirit. It was more of a prophetic word more than a realized word of what is going to happen when the Holy Spirit is going to show up at Pentecost. So I am not going to answer that for you. Be a good Berean and study it. My opinion matters very little compared to what the Bible really, really is saying. But here is what I do know. I know in Acts Chapter 2 that something really, really radically changes. So when it says right here that Jesus told them to receive the Holy Spirit, if it wasn t something more prophetic meaning more to come, that might make sense from the standpoint of you don t see anything radical changing in them until Pentecost. They are still in an upper room waiting and praying for the Spirit to show up. So I am a little uncertain today of what to do with this verse because I read these different views. All I know is when Acts Chapter 2 happens the Spirit empowers the church and the church gets busy. And we need the Holy Spirit as a church in order to work powerfully through us. And then we see this phrase right here, If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. And that is a head scratching verse also. What is going on here? Is Jesus saying that they can go and forgive people s sins? The Roman Catholic Church has created a confessional that you see in the priesthood, and it where you can go and do a confession, and this is the verse that they will use to base that on. They will listen to people s confessions, and then supposedly they will forgive them. But what is happening here? Contextually we have to realize that Jesus already said that He is going to send them. Right? He said in verse 21, Even so I am sending you. So what is He doing here to them? It is to testify about this Christ who died and Page 8 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

9 rose from the dead, and telling them to share the gospel. So what Jesus is telling them is they will be able to tell people when they believe in His death, burial and resurrection, that their sins will be forgiven. And if they don t believe in Him then their sins aren t forgiven. And we can do the same thing, can t we? I can tell you today that if you place your faith in Jesus Christ your sins are forgiven. If you do not trust Christ then I can tell you that your sins are not forgiven, and that if what is happening here in this passage. Verse 24, Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe. What a joy kill. Have you ever had fantastic news that you couldn t wait to tell someone and they are just like, Unless the same thing happens to me, then I won t believe it. I am not going to rejoice unless I get that same kind of thing for me. You almost sense a tinge of jealously here. Thomas can t celebrate with them. And it is a sad day when people can t celebrate in other people s victories. There are people like that. They get angry. Why didn t I get that? And they don t know how to cheer people on, they don t know how to celebrate people. They spend their whole life being jealous of other people. They spend their whole life being angry because they don t have what other people have. And they are no fun to be around because they don t know how to be a cheerleader and they don t know how to encourage people. So here s Thomas who doesn t even believe it happened. And if he did kind of believe it he is thinking it isn t fair because he wasn t there to see it himself. It is like in the movie, The Chronicles of Narnia, where Lucy goes through the great wardrobe into the world of Narnia. And then when she comes back into her regular place she tells Peter and her siblings, Guess what - this wardrobe is pretty cool. You can go into another world by going through it. But they don t believe her. They think Lucy has lost her mind. They didn t believe until they saw it themselves. And that is how Thomas was in this situation. Thomas wants to see for himself. He wants his own experience. And he cannot celebrate until he does. Verse 26, Eight days later, His disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, (so they are still fearful) Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. It is like Jesus is having fun in His glorified body going into a room with locked doors. And I think that would be pretty cool. In another way I thought it would have been cool if Jesus stood outside the locked doors and knocked. And they would have been weeping and afraid and He could have said, Hey, it s Jesus. Let me in. And they Page 9 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

10 would have not been sure if they should open the door or not because they wouldn t have been able to believe it was really Him. Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. That is the third time Jesus says that. And interestingly enough, to this day the Jewish culture still say, Peace be upon you. Also Roman Catholicism has adopted this. If you go to their church they will have a moment where they will look at the person next to them and say, Peace be upon you. As I have told you before I was so unbelievably unchurched growing up that I didn t have a sense of how church worked. And my friend took me to a Catholic church one day I think because of a wedding. I remember everyone standing up and they were saying, Peace be upon you, and I thought they were saying, Pleased to meet you. So I was responding to them by saying Pleased to meet you. And maybe some of you seeing things at church today, like hand raising, don t know what that is about. Don t feel bad about that. I used to feel like things were weird too. But it is just the universal sign of surrender to raise your hands, so people may be saying in their hearts, God I give you my life. I surrender to you. We don t have to understand everything, we just need to come in and start where we are at. When you are looking for a church, find a church that will teach you the Bible. You could have come to church today and I could have shared five stories and tacked on a few verses, but what you really deserve is to learn about what the Bible says. And that is what we try to do at Life Fellowship. If you are a guest, we are glad you are here and we want to tell you that we are committed to teaching you, not about my life, but about what the Bible has to say. And that means sometimes there will be language that you don t understand, but we will try to explain it. And at the end of the day you should want to know what Jesus has to say. When you leave here today we hope you have learned what the Bible has to say and that is what you should want in a church. So Jesus says, Peace be with you. And Thomas needs some peace. He had been stressed out. You know I love that about Jesus because Jesus was willing to give Thomas something he didn t even deserve. Thomas failed to believe, but Jesus is so good that He came to give Thomas what he was looking for. Then He said to Thomas, Put your finger here, and see my hands, and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Now we don t read that Thomas reached out his hands. I think actually just seeing was enough evidence for him. Do you ever have that with your relationship, of who God is? Maybe you are not a believer and you are just trying the whole church thing out. Do you ever have doubts? Then maybe you can identify with Thomas. I am so grateful that the Bible includes people like Thomas. I am so grateful that the Bible includes failures. Why is it that we Page 10 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

11 find joy in knowing there are other failures in this world. It is because I think we can identify with them. We feel like maybe we fit, because the Bible has a bunch of misfits that are loved by God. Thomas was a doubter. He struggled believing in the resurrection. And maybe you are sitting here today and you don t believe the resurrection. You may think it is ludicrous. Well, let me just say something. If God can create this entire world, if God can create human life, can t He raise up the life that He created? If God can create the oceans and the seas, can God not part the seas that He created? If God can create a lion to roar, can God not calm the lions in the lion s den so they don t attack Daniel? See if you believe in God the miracles aren t the problem, if you are struggling believing in miracles you are really struggling believing in God. From our perspective there are miracles; from God s perspective there isn t any such thing as a miracle. A miracle is just God being God. Verse 28, Thomas answered Him, My Lord and my God! In Greek it literally means, The Lord of me and the God of me. Thomas goes from doubting and gives this great confession of Jesus, basically saying He is more than a man. And we know that Jesus always existed as God and became a human through the virgin birth. Again if God created the whole reproductive processes, would it be a big deal for Him to have a man not be a part of the process. Is that a hard thing for God to do if He created men and women? No! The problem is we struggle with God. Miracles aren t the problem if we believe in God. Verse 29, Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Probably in this moment Thomas is feeling a little rebuked. And maybe that is you and you would say, I ll believe in God if He sticks His head out of the heavens. If He will show up and visit me, then I will believe. Verse 30, Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. So what is John doing in this moment? He brings us to this message and is telling us it is not necessary for us to have our own resurrection appearance of Jesus. John said that Jesus did many other things as well, but he couldn t bother sharing all the other things Jesus did because this is enough. And I would ask you this morning - is this enough? Is it enough to believe that Jesus died on a cross for your sins, three days later arose from the grave, and there were post resurrection appearances? Did you know that historically speaking we have no greater evidence for any other ancient literature than we do the Bible? Some people will doubt the Bible and believe Homer s Iliad and the Odyssey. And we have way less Page 11 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

12 manuscripts of the Iliad and the Odyssey but we have documents that go back to very close to the time of when the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ happened. Let me pull this all together now as I wrap up. Why did John include today s section of Scripture? It was because Jesus vindicated His resurrection through His bodily appearances in order to make the church mission ready. Jesus vindicated His bodily resurrection in order to make the church mission ready. The disciples had fled from Jesus before He died. The disciples were behind locked doors with fear after His death. There was a church that was about to start and something would need to change. In fact what explains the rise of Christianity, folks, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. These disciples could hardly follow Jesus in His living ministry, but when they saw the resurrected Christ the church explodes once the Holy Spirit shows up. That is how we explain the number one world religion in all the world because these disciples saw something and they were gripped in their hearts. Jesus knew for this church to start it would need a powerful jump start. And to powerfully jump start the church, Jesus shows up and tells them they will receive the Holy Spirit. And in Acts Chapter 2 the Holy Spirit is poured out at Pentecost and three thousand were added to the church in one day. And the church exploded from the very center where Jesus had been crucified. No one ever found the body of Jesus even though many thought it had been stolen because that was just a hoax. They never found the body of Jesus because He rose from the dead. And from the very place where they tried to kill Christianity it spread to the world. So what can I say then? Jesus appeared to authenticate His resurrection. In Acts Chapter 1 and verse 3 it says, He presented Himself alive to them after His suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. So Jesus appeared to authenticate His resurrection. He also appeared to make His disciples mission ready. There was a succession plan: Moses to Joshua, Elijah to Elisha and Jesus to His disciples. Jesus showed up to put the succession plan in place to get the disciples mission ready. So the appearances of Jesus combined with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit were the ingredients needed for the church to explode. So how then does a church grow? Here is the church growth principle. When you really believe in Jesus and you are saturated with the Spirit of God you will tell others and that is how it grows. What so often happens is churches don t grow and individuals don t see God doing amazing things around them because they really don t believe deep down. They hang out at church things but they really don t believe deep down. They are closet Universalists believing that God is good and everyone is going to get saved in the end and everything will be okay. Page 12 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

13 These disciples had to believe with a deep conviction and after Jesus appeared to them after His resurrection and they received the Holy Spirit they were on fire. The Apostle Paul literally was arrested by God on the Damascus Road when he saw the resurrected Christ. And God would use Paul to write much of the New Testament. Can I ask you all a question? Do you really believe in Jesus today? Or is church just this thing that you do? Mom and dad raised you in a church and you can t break the routine so you just continue to do it. But really is it just dead flat out orthodoxy to you? Does your heart burn with a strange warmness for Christ? Do you have a sense of the otherness of God in your life? When people observe your life do they sense something has touched you? If you find that you are living a boring Christian life, then count on this, your life is absent of an empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And you have been gutted of rawhide belief. When you are hard core believers in Jesus Christ, saturated by God, unusual things happen around you. People get saved, people believe in God through the way you live your life. People get an appetite for the Almighty. These are the things that happen by the man or the woman or the child of God who has been touched by God. Maybe you are thinking I am getting a little excited up here. Yes, I am. I am! But if Jesus really rose from the dead, then it deserves more elation than anything else in our lives. Finally, Jesus appeared for our sakes. And if you are out here today and you don t know Jesus Christ, He can change you. You could have come here today and been kind of leery, been kind of skeptical, wondering who all these weirdos are, and then something strange could have happened. Jesus describes the Holy Spirit like a wind that just comes and goes. Maybe you have been sitting here and you haven t felt any breeze whatsoever. But now you could be sitting in your seat and you are feeling wind blow in your soul. Maybe that has happened to you today. And that would have been a surprise by God, a surprise visit through the Holy Spirit. And Jesus is offering Himself to you through His death on the cross offering you peace. You just need to believe that He died on the cross, that He rose from the dead and your sins can be forgiven. Let s pray. Father, thank you for your Scriptures. I just get so excited about your word. I feel so thrilled with the Bible as it speaks to us. It speaks to our doubts, it speaks to our pain, it speaks to our hurts and it speaks to our confusion. Lord, I just pray for anyone here today that doesn t know you. Help them to sense you right now in their heart. Help them to understand that their sins can be forgiven. Lord, maybe there is someone here today that can really relate to Thomas. If that is you would you just by faith stare at the marks of Jesus hands and His side. In the Page 13 of 14 pages 5/1/2011

14 quietness of your heart if you want to be saved this morning the Bible says, Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. To do that you just need to pray something like this: Dear Jesus, forgive me for my sins. Thank you for dying on the cross and rising from the dead. I don t understand it all but something inside of me is telling me the truth so I believe in you right now and I surrender my life to you. And I invite you to begin a journey with me and show me how to live my life for your glory. In Jesus name. Amen. The preceding transcript was completed using raw audio recordings. As much as possible, it includes the actual words of the message with minor grammatical changes and editorial clarifications to provide context. Hebrew and Greek words are spelled using Google Translator and the actual spelling may be different in some cases. Page 14 of 14 pages 5/1/2011