The Gospel of John - Miracle Inside a Miracle, John 20:1-18

The fact that Jesus died and rose gives us hope to live both here and now eternally as God's children. If you are God's child, what does that mean for you today?

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Um and guys, how amazing that we get to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Like so cool. Alright, so I'm reading from John chapter 20, verses 1 through 18. On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark. She saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said to them, They've taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him. At that, Peter and the other disciples went out, heading for the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and got to the tomb first. Stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying there, yet he did not go in. Then, following him, summoned Peter came also. He entered the tomb and saw the linen claws lying there. The wrapping that had been on his head was not lying with the linen cloths, but was folded up in a separate place by itself. The other disciple who had reached the tomb first, then entered the tomb, saw and believed, for they still did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went home again. But Mary stood outside facing the tomb, crying. As she was crying, she stooped to look into the tomb. She saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet, where Jesus' body had been lying. They said to her, Woman, why are you crying? Because they've taken away my Lord, she told them, and I don't know where they've put him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not know it was Jesus. Woman, Jesus said to her, Why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? Supposing he was a gardener, she replied, Sir, if you've removed him, tell me where you've put him, and I will take him away. Jesus said, Mary. Turning around, she saw, she said to him in Hebrew, Rabbonai, which means teacher. Don't cling to me, Jesus told her, for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and she told them what he had said to her. Let's pray. Father God, we are just so thankful for your power and your presence, Father. We are so thankful that we get to know you personally and invest in the life that you've given us. Um I just pray that this would be a time where we could learn and grow from who you are, um, from your power, from your presence, Father. I pray for wisdom as Harley speaks, and that um yeah, that we would just know and feel your presence in this time. So thanks. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Thanks, Sarah. It's really cool. Uh little side story. Sarah um has been a part of our lives and our life group since she was a freshman in college. Um when we first came up to Austin to uh help start a church. I messaged some people in Houston. Ah, I got that the wrong way. We messaged some people in Houston and um that we knew that were in youth ministry and said, Hey, do you have any students coming up to UT? We want to meet, you know, different people who are up here being students. And uh we got Sarah's name, and so we reached out to her. She came to our house and she's been sticking around ever since. And it's been really cool to watch her just grow and flourish and be a part of our community um during that time. So it's cool. I mean, that's what life is meant to be like. We're meant to do life with each other and roll through the seasons together, and um it's cool that we get to experience that. And just a really short little plug, I really want to encourage you guys that Life Point, uh Life Point, that was the name of the church here, life groups play a really important part of our life as a church. There we go, I'll get that outright. So, yeah. Well, welcome again. Um, just want to encourage you guys and thank you for being here as we get ready to go into looking at this text this morning. Did everybody get a listening guide when you came in? The little piece of paper. We've got an elementary specific one and an adult specific one. If you didn't, you can raise your hand. We have some people who can help with that. We've got one down here, one over here. We'll just get these out to you guys. We really want you guys to have these just to have something to follow along, write down. You know, if you write something down, you're much, much, much more likely to actually retain it afterwards, even if you never look at the piece of paper again. So um want to encourage you guys to uh to follow along as we go. Well, yeah, I don't want you guys to pinch yourselves this morning. It is not Easter Sunday, I repeat, it's not Easter Sunday, but you could be forgiven for thinking that, right? Because here we are in July, no, not July, August, talking about, I know what month it is, uh, talking about the resurrection. And as we look at the resurrection, the resurrection obviously comes right after a very intense account of Jesus' brutal death, his torturous death. And my hope is that as we come to this particular passage is that we would come with questions. I hope you're not just sitting there and you're like, oh yeah, Jesus' death, Jesus' resurrection. I hope you're coming with questions, maybe questions that sound like this. Why did Jesus have to die? Why did Jesus have to be raised to life again? Did the resurrection actually happen? Maybe a question like this what does this mean for me? If Jesus did die, and if he did raise to life again, what has that got to do with somebody living in Austin, Texas in 2018? You know, questions are good, at least most of the time questions are good. Uh if you have a child that is continually repeating the same question, that's not good. But uh most of the time questions are good. And uh I don't agree a lot with things that Stephen Hawking says or believes, but one of the things that he has said is this, and I like this quote. He says, I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these how and why questions. Occasionally I find an answer. And I can appreciate that approach to life, and I'm hoping that as you come to this text this morning, that you will be coming with questions, and if I can help steer you a little bit in that process, what I would like to guide you to is this that we should ask these questions. Why was there an empty tomb and what does it mean for me? Why is there an empty tomb and what does it mean for me? And essentially what we're going to hopefully see is that that is a question that lives inside of a question. In that the one question will hopefully lead to the other. It's kind of like, and stick with me with this, it's kind of like a beauty inside of a beauty. And I know that that may not make a lot of sense, but think of it like this. If you are looking across to a garden or somebody's flower arrangement in their house, and you look across to it and you see a beautiful flower. I don't know if you've ever had this experience, you're like, wow, that's really beautiful. But as you come closer to it and you look at that flower in more detail, what you see is the beauty inside the beauty. You start to see how the colours transition and change, and how the little veins all fit together and bring nourishment out to the flower, and how the little pieces of pollen are held just in the right way and the light hits them. You guys know what I'm talking about? You see the beauty inside the beauty, and my hope is that as we ask this question inside of a question today, is that you're gonna see that there is not just one truth, but there's more truth to be discovered in this story and in this passage and this account that we have of Jesus' resurrection. So coming back to the questions, if you come to this passage this morning with questions, I just want to acknowledge you're not alone. Like, if you're there and you're like asking questions about this passage, I've spent time wrestling with this particular part of the scripture. You see, for me personally, the questioning comes when I read this account in John, and then I go across and I read an account in Luke, or I read the account in Matthew or in Mark, because as I read those different accounts, they tell the story of the resurrection differently. And I'm like, okay, what's going on? What's happening here? Why do we have these different accounts? And as I've spent time looking at those and praying about those and looking at them more, what I've actually come to see is that it's this beautiful tapestry that weaves together and makes this story altogether of the beautiful account of the resurrection. And they actually don't contradict each other, but they come together to make this beautiful story together. But I have had questions at times about the resurrection. And I'm not the only one. You go all throughout Christian history and you've got people who are asking questions about the resurrection. And actually, if you go to when this incident took place and look at the individuals involved, they have questions. Specifically, if we look here in this account, what we're going to see is that three of Jesus' closest companions have questions and confusion about what's going on. So let's go to John chapter 1 and let's read again what it says there as it sets up the account. It says this, verse 1, John chapter 20, encourage you to read along. On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark. She saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb, so she ran to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him. What we have here is three individuals who are very involved in Jesus' life. We have Peter, we have Mary, and we have the other disciple who we believe is John, okay, the author of this book. John, the brother of James, the sons of Zebedee, okay? So that's who this is. So we have these three individuals, and as they rush down to the empty tomb, it's kind of an interesting account because it tells us that John outruns Peter. I don't know why that's in there, but it's there. John outruns Peter, he arrives, then Peter comes, and Peter, in typical fashion, goes bursting into the tomb. John's outside just looking in, and then Mary comes along later on. And as we look at these three characters, these three very close companions of Jesus, what I want you to see is that all three of them come to this situation with their own questions and their own confusion. Now let's get a little more detailed about that. John is here, and he is uh, like I said, one of the sons of Zebedee. His brother is James, and they've got this nickname of being the sons of thunder. What this means is that these two guys are firecrackers. Like these are passionate, zealous people. And what they're zealous about, most likely, is the nation of Israel and the Jewish people. And they don't like the thought that the Romans are currently occupying and ruling the land of Israel, and that they're occupying Jerusalem. And so when they think Messiah, what they think in their minds is this guy who's gonna come and redeem and liberate the people of Israel and bring about this political rule and reign where the Romans are kicked out. And so James is uh sorry, not James, John is there, and as he's come into Jerusalem with Jesus, he may be thinking, okay, is now the time? Is this the time that Jesus is gonna raise to power? And instead of that, what happens? Jesus dies. And so as John heads to this tomb, in his mind, in his heart has to be confusion. He's like, hey, I thought this was the Messiah, you know, I thought that this was gonna happen in this way. He's got all sorts of confusion and all sorts of questions going on in his mind and heart. Now, Peter probably has a very similar outlook, but add on top of that, guilt. You see, Peter, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, has just denied Jesus right at this crucial moment three times. And he's like, no, I'm not gonna deny you, and then he does it. And so Peter is coming to this empty tomb, not just with these things that John is feeling, but he's probably feeling guilty, upset, and he's wanting to reconcile. Then we look at Mary. Mary's there, and she's this lady who has uh been traveling around with this group of ladies caring for the disciples and Jesus. And in this community and in this time with Jesus, she's experienced healing and wholeness like she's never experienced before. And now this person who's kind of brought all of this together is gone. And so she's probably feeling abandoned, she's feeling sadness, she's feeling alone. So all of these disciples come to this empty tomb with their own perspective, just as we today come to this empty tomb with our own perspective. All of you walk in here with your own perspective of life and what's going on for you. And as they do that, these friends of Jesus are asking these same two essential questions. Why is this tomb empty? And what does it mean for me? Now, with those questions, there's really, like we said, two questions in there. Let's tackle the first part first. The first question is, why is there an empty tomb? Why is there an empty tomb? Well, we can look at this from several perspectives. I want to just kind of put it out there that a couple of perspectives aren't really worthwhile our time. So some people have looked historically at this and said, well, there never really was a Jesus, and there never really was an empty tomb. Like that's their genuine belief about this. That Jesus is more of a mythological figure, this guy who didn't really live but he had some good thoughts and notions, and it's kind of been changed over time. And these aren't facts, these aren't real accounts, and this isn't a real story. Now, if you struggle to believe that Jesus was real or that there was an empty tomb, what I would put to you is that you can go and study historical documents written at this time by secular non-Christian historians that talk, multiple of them, that talk about this man named Jesus who lived, who had a bunch of followers, who was killed in Jerusalem at the hand of Pilate, and whose disciples claim that he raised to life again. So I want to say, if that's where you sit, if that's what you want to believe, that Jesus never really existed, I want to ask you to table that. I just want to say that for us to believe that would take a lot of faith. And that that actually is historic historically arrogant for us to believe that. The second thing that some people believe is that Jesus never really died. And again, I would say to you that that would take a fair bit of faith to believe that, because again, the historical documents tell us that he definitely died, written by non-Christians. They say, hey, there was this Jewish man who died at the hand of Pilate. So both of those things, let's just kind of table those and say, okay, those aren't probably too reasonable for us to believe, and that leaves us with a couple of positions that we can believe, or that we could believe. The first is this, and this one I don't ascribe to either, is that Jesus' grave was robbed. That there was an empty tomb because somebody came along and drugged Jesus' body out of this tomb. Now, this isn't a new thought, this isn't a new concept or idea. If you go to Matthew 28, you can actually find where this idea originated. What it tells us there is that the Jewish leaders had asked Pilate, the Roman leader, to set up a guard around the tomb. And this guard was set up around the tomb, and then early, while it was still dark in the morning, this angel comes down and miraculously moves this stone, this giant stone, out of the way. And when the guards, these seasoned war um from war guards, see this happen, what happens? They fall over and faint. Like on the ground. They're unconscious. And when they come back to consciousness, they rush back to the Jewish leaders and explain what happened. And the Jewish leaders pay them off, they bribe them and say, Here's what you have to tell everybody. That Jesus' disciples, while you were sleeping, came and removed very quietly, apparently, this giant stone out of the way, and they took Jesus' body. And so I would say to you this morning, I don't hold that belief. And another reason that I don't hold that belief is not just because of what I read in Matthew 28, but also because these disciples that made the claim that Jesus came back to life went on to live lives where they said, Hey, this really happened, and I would stake my life on it. All of these disciples, if you track their lives, they get imprisoned and many of them killed because they put their whole lives on the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. Now, if this was a hoax that they, the disciples, had made up, maybe one of two of them would be like, Yeah, I'm crazy enough that I would die for this. But I wouldn't say all of them, and all the other eyewitnesses who also experience suffering and hardship. And so what that leaves us with is the one position that I take, which is that Jesus rose from the dead, that he miraculously rose from the dead. Now you may be sitting there like, uh, miracles, yeah. I don't know if I can really believe in those. Well, if you struggle to believe in miracles, you're living in one right now. Like the fact that you woke up this morning and you took in a breath of air without even thinking about it that had the right balance of elements is a miracle. Like that's a miracle. The fact that our planet is rotating around the sun at just the right pace, at just the right angle, and if it was just off by a little bit, it would freeze up, and if it was just off and inward at just a little bit, it would burn up. That is a miracle. Miracles happen all the time, and we take them for granted. And for us to believe that there is a God and that he sent his son to die, but he also rose to life again. I don't believe that's too much of a stretch. And I believe that it's true. The Bible makes it clear. I mean, that's the reason we can believe it too. The Bible says over and over and over again that there would be a Messiah, that he would come, that he would die, that he would be raised to life again. And as you go through the New Testament, it talks about it over and over and over again. How important and central this is to the whole message of this whole book. So looking back at the story of John, we're going to come back and look at each of these characters we've already talked about, but looking back at the story of John, what we see in John is that he has this moment where it all of a sudden clicks. Look at it with me, verse 8. It says this the other disciple, that's John, who had reached the tomb first, then entered the tomb, saw and believed. For they still did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went home it again. So what happens here? John walks into this tomb, he sees the evidence, the Holy Spirit, I would argue, was working in his heart to illuminate what's going on, and he's like, Yes, I get it now. Jesus isn't this political leader, he's actually the savior of the world. He's saving us from our sins. Like all of a sudden it clicked, and John understood who Jesus was. God's Holy Spirit gave him wisdom to understand. And just because John understood why Jesus was resurrected doesn't mean that we understand. Looking back at the text, it says there in verse 9, it's very interesting. It says, for they still did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Not that he could or he should or he would, he must. Like the emphasis there is important for us to see. Why must Jesus be raised from the dead? Why is there such emphatic language here? Well, I want you to think about it like this. The Jewish people, right, had had up to this point, since the time of Moses, the sacrificial system. You guys know what I'm talking about? Where they would like bring animals and they would sacrifice these animals to atone for, to get forgiveness for their sins. That was how they worship God, to get right with God, and it would only work for a temporary period of time. And we don't have any account of any of these sacrificial animals all of a sudden coming back to life, right? Do you ever read of that in the Bibles? In the Bibles. In the Bible? No, you don't, right? You don't read about that because it never happened. So why did Jesus, when he sacrificed for our sins, why did he have to come back to life? Well, to answer that, let's think about this. What's the ultimate outcome of sin? It's death. Right? Adam and Eve are in the garden, and God says, Don't sin, don't disobey. If you do, it will lead to death. Romans 6 says what? The wages of sin. If you want to put it another way, the payment for sin is death. Sin in its ultimate form is death. And so for Jesus to atone for, to cover all of the sins of humanity for all of time, he had to defeat not just sin, but death, because death was the ultimate outcome of sin. Does that make sense this morning? Jesus' resurrection proved that he had conquered sin. Not that he just covered most sins or a lot of sins or cleansed us from a lot of unrighteousness, but all unrighteousness. When he raised to life again, that was the proof that sin was done, that sin was defeated. Speaking of sin, Peter is here in this tomb grappling with his sin. I believe he's there and he's looking at this empty grave and he's like, okay, is Jesus really alive? And the irony of that moment and that thought is Peter is here in the very place that proves that his sins are forgiven, probably wrestling with his sin. The irony is that he doesn't understand yet, and he will, thankfully, in the next chapter we're going to get to read about that, but he doesn't understand that he's standing in the very place that proves that he is actually able to be right with God again, even though he sinned and denied Jesus those three times. You see, Peter is acutely aware that the number one effect of sin is that it divides us. That it separates us from God. One of the ways that the Bible talks about this is it talks about alienation. Alienation, Colossians 1, verse 21, is written to people who believe in Jesus, and it says, Once you were alienated, as before, as in before you were Christians, you were alienated and hostile in your minds because of your evil actions. What's an alien? An alien is someone or something that does not belong. It's something that's foreign. If I said to you, I have an alien object in my leg, that wouldn't be a good thing, right? It would be like, okay, let's go to the hospital. Let's take care of that. That's not good. Most sci-fi movies would lead you to believe that if we have aliens come to Earth, it's not a good thing. Although I guess some of them actually try and pretend that it is a good thing. But anyway, the point is aliens coming is not a good idea or a good thought. Sting and the police, they have their song. You know, I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in New York. Have you guys ever thought about what that means? You see, I understand this song. I'm a legal alien. I'm an Australian living in Texas. I get the thought. The thought is, I don't fit in, I don't belong. I don't fit in, I don't belong. And that's what that song's about. I'm an Englishman in New York. I'm an Australian in Texas. Although I feel very welcome and very warm, and I love you guys. You know, I was thinking, it's kind of funny. If if you guys, if somebody asks you at the lunchroom tomorrow what you did this weekend, you should tell them you went to church, you talked about Jesus' resurrection and aliens, and see just where that where that leads you. That would be a fun conversation to kind of get into. The thought is this sin alienates, or if you prefer this word, separates us from God. It separates. Sin does have a drastic effect in that it pulls us from God. Now, I want to speak specifically to those of you who are not Christians this morning. I don't know who you are in this room, but I know that not every person in this room is like, yeah, Jesus, awesome. Like I know we're not all on that same place or that same page. And so if you are here and you're exploring faith, or if one of your friends drug you along here, I just want to say thank you for being here. Like that's a good thing that you're here. But to you specifically, I would say that this whole conversation about being alienated from God doesn't make a lot of sense oftentimes to people who are not Christians, if that's you. And the reason being is that for some of you, this thought of God needs to be the starting point first. Like for me to stand up here and say, hey, your sin is separating you or alienating you from God, like that sounds kind of drastic because you're like, hold on, wait the hold the phone for a minute, like, God? Because the what you've been taught or what you've been led to believe is that there actually isn't even a God. So the thought that you are at odds with him doesn't make sense. And so gently and kindly, I just want to say to you, please, just even explore the possibility that there is a God. And not just that there is a God, but secondly, that you're at odds with him. Just be open to exploring that thought. I think oftentimes we start starting jumping, jump into talking with people and we're like, hey, your sin is an offense to God. And they're like, hold up, hold the phone, I don't even what God? And so if that's you this morning, be open to the thought that there is a God. And secondly, that you're at odds with him, that you are alienated and separated from him. Now, just as I've talked to those of you who are not Christians, I want to speak to those of you who are Christians. And I speak to myself when I say this, but we typically don't understand our former enmity with God. The reason I say that is this. It's evidenced by our lack of gratefulness and our lack of surrender. As I look at Christians, and I include myself in this, as I look at Christians, what I see in us is generally a lack of gratitude and a lack of surrender in our lives. And what that points to is the fact that we don't understand the truth that we were formerly aliens to God, that we were formerly separated by our sin, that we were his enemies. We don't understand that, we don't grasp that. The cross and the empty tomb just don't make a lot of sense when we don't understand our current, if we're not Christians, or former, if we are Christian, status. Our alienation from God. And this is where the miracle inside of the miracle is so beautiful. You see, the resurrection isn't just about a dead Messiah coming back to life, although that is in there and that is awesome. You see, there is something more beautiful and deeper inside of that. The deeper miracle is this is that through Jesus' victory, we can miraculously move from being aliens to being God's children. And I want you to see that this is actually a scandalous thought. The fact that you and I can be God's children is incredible. You see, in my thinking, in my thinking, this is just my brain how it works, is if I'm an enemy of someone, if I'm at odds, if I'm alienated from somebody, on the best of days, in the best of situations and cases, what would happen is I would move from that place and position to being okay with them. To being, you know, maybe an acquaintance, being on term at terms with that person. But the gospel, the message of the cross, the message of the empty tomb is that we go from being aliens to being in this most intimate of places of being God's children, being his sons and daughters, being heirs with him. And this is an incredible miracle that is inside the miracle of the empty tomb. We see this as we look at Mary's life and Mary's story. Go back to the scripture with me. It says in verse 11 that Mary's standing there, she's outside the tomb, she's crying, and as she looks inside, she sees two angels, which doesn't seem to faze her too much. She starts talking with them. And they give her this gentle reproof. They say, Woman, why are you crying? That's not a question. That's like a, hey, you don't need to be crying. And then she turns and it says there in verse 13, they said to her, Woman, why are you crying? Because they've taken away my Lord, she told them. And I don't know where they've put that put him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not know it was Jesus. We could get into the ins and outs of why she didn't recognize Jesus, but the point is this, they go on and have this conversation. Woman, Jesus said to her, Why are you crying? Who is it you're looking for? Supposing he was the gardener, she replied, Sir, if you've removed him, tell me where you've put him, and I will take him away. Jesus said, Mary. Turning around, she said to him in Hebrew, Ruboni, which means teacher. Don't cling to me, Jesus told her, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. This is just a beautiful passage. Here is Jesus engaging with this down and out woman who, you know, if you were to try and make a case and say, hey, we can prove that Jesus is alive, you would not use a woman, especially a woman of the reputation of Mary. And yet, this is the first person that has an interaction with Jesus. And as they're here, there's this beautiful interaction. He just says Mary, and all of a sudden she gets it. This is Jesus. And as they go on, the most beautiful of the whole thing is this particular part, I believe. Jesus says these words, I'm going to my father and your father. What he's speaking to is this transfer, this change that's happened through the tomb, through the death and resurrection of Jesus. You see, through Jesus' defeat of sin and death, he has secured our adoption. 1 John 3, which Alex referenced earlier, says this. Look at how great a love the Father has given us, that we should be called God's children and we are. Exclamation mark. Don't lose the emphasis. Like this is important. And herein lies the problem. I think that oftentimes, and I'm speaking again to Christians, oftentimes we just don't understand the depth of this message. The depth of the fact that we were alienated from God and at the same time that we were adopted into his family. It's like we look at it and we're like, oh yeah, at one time I was a little bit offensive to God, and yeah, it's cool, I'm God's child. No, it's not cool. It's incredible. Like the fact that we were aliens and now we are in this place where we are his loved sons and daughters is incredible. And my hope is that this message this morning would push out the bounds in both directions. That we would see, yes, I was at enmity with God, and that was pretty bad. Really bad. But God, in his mercy, has come and he has redeemed me through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Let's not make too little of our alienation and let's not make too little of our adoption. And let's realize that we can only experience this incredible transformation through Jesus. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, says J.I. Packer, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayer and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. So what do you think this morning? What do you think of the fact that God can be, and if you are a Christian, is your father? Is that the thought that controls your waking moments of your life? Is that the thing you think about as you're going to sleep at night? When you're in the middle of something that is totally stressing you out, do you remember that you are God's child if you are a believer in Jesus? This morning I want you to do some self-evaluation. I want you to ask some questions, and we're just going to back up a little bit and start with this question. Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Can you believe that this morning? Where do you sit with that? What do you think of this empty tomb? You see, the empty tomb leaves us in an interesting place. You can't just look at an empty tomb and be like, Hi five Jesus, awesome, you rose from the dead, that's great. You're a great teacher. No, Jesus is not some like cool guy who was a great teacher and might have risen from the dead. If he rose from the dead, he is king of kings and lord of lords and demands the whole of our lives. Complete surrender. And so it kind of leaves us in this conundrum. We can't just look at the empty tomb and be like, yeah, awesome, that's cool. We have to look at it and give complete surrender. And really, that's what I'm asking for today. I know that some of you here have not made that choice or that decision to say, God, my life is completely yours. And you can make that decision today. You can move from being an alien, like we've talked about, separated enemies of God, to being his child today. All that it takes is a reaching out and saying, God, I need you. I need Jesus. If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And so I've been praying this week specifically that somebody or somebody's this morning would hear this for the first time and that it would click, and you're like, Yes, I need Jesus. In our time to respond here in a few moments, I'd encourage you just pray that prayer. Whisper it now. God hears, he knows, and you can be transferred eternally from being an enemy to being a child. And it's the greatest thing ever. The second question that we should look at is this miracle that's inside of a miracle. It's this beauty, deeper beauty that's within the flower. And it really hinges around this thought of do we believe that through Jesus we can be God's children? And really, I guess what we're asking is this question to it. What is stopping you? What is stopping me from embracing my identity as God's children? You see, I believe that some of us here today have said, yes, I'm a Jesus follower, but that has gone shrunk down to not mean a lot at all. And my hope and my prayer for you this morning is that you all of a sudden would understand, wow, this adoption was incredible. What's stopping you from embracing your identity as God's child today, whether you're a Christian or not? Is it unbelief? Is it fear? Is it doubt? Is it being overwhelmed by your situation? Is it being overwhelmed by your sinfulness? Is it confusion? Is it distractedness? Come to God today. Any of us can come to God because and only because of Jesus. Romans 6, I read to you earlier, is that kind of horrible but awesome verse of it where it says in verse 23, for the wages of sin is death. You know what the back end of that verse is? It says this, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. There's a free gift that's offered to anyone. You guys have heard John 3, we've talked about it all through this series. For God so loved the world, he gave his only son that whoever, and when it says whoever, it means whoever believes in him will not perish but can have eternal life. All throughout the Bible, we see an invitation to move from being an enemy of God to being not just even a friend of God, but being in his family. The third question for us to evaluate this morning is this if you are God's child, what does that mean for you today? You see, oftentimes we look at this thought of I'm God's child, and we think about it in a future tense. Now, by the way, if you're not God's child, the future is bleak. You go ahead and read Matthew 25 and you'll see how bleak it is, where Jesus comes and returns, and it's this symbolic story where he's talking about the sheep and the goats. It's rough. But if you are God's child, what it does mean for the future is that yes, you will be in God's presence, and you will have eternal life, and you will live in a new heaven and a new earth, and all of those things are awesome. You'll get a new body, all of that's great. It's great to think about those things. But I would put to you today that it's more profitable for us to think about the present. What are the present realities for us if we are God's children? And to think about that, what I put to you is that we should think about it like this. God is, picture this, God is a perfect father. I know for some of you that's hard to picture. I mean, just statistically, I know that a lot of you had terrible or even completely absent fathers. And some people, because of that, say, well, you can't really tell people to think of God as father because they have this skewed image of what a father is. But I would say to you this morning, and I try to say this gently, if you had a terrible father, you're in a great place to picture what a perfect father should be. So wherever you are this morning, I want to encourage you to think about what is the present reality of the fact, not the idea, the fact that God is your father. If you are a Christian, God is your father and a perfect father. And I don't have time to go into all the depths of this. Like we could preach a whole sermon now on the father heart of God and how he loves us as his children. But I will say a few quick things. The first thing I would say is this we are loved. If God is our perfect father, we are loved. And nothing, hear me, nothing can separate us from that love. A good father never stops loving his children. If you are a father or a mother, if you're a parent, you know that your children, even if they are complete goofballs, even if they do the silliest things, you are going to keep loving them and pursuing them. And if you are in Christ, if you are a Christian, that is God's heart and attitude and posture towards you. He is a father who loves you and will never stop loving you. So much that could be said, but I'll go on. It also means if God is our father and a perfect father, that we are provided for. A good father, even an earthly father, never lets his children go without. And God, our perfect heavenly Father, never lets us go without. And I know that as I say that, some of you are in dark situations where you are like, I don't feel like God's providing for me right now. And if that's the place that you're in, all that I can say is that we can take to the bank that God is good. Romans 8 tells us that all things work together for the good of those that love God and are called according to his purpose. And all that I can say to you is that there have been moments in my life where I felt that God wasn't very present, but as I look back on those moments, I see him. And he was there providing and caring for me in the midst of those. God is a perfect father who never lets his children go without. If God is our father, we are also secure. A good father watches over and guards his children. I mean, you get this as parents. If you're a parent, you understand that you watch your children, you guard your children, you you want to be involved. And God isn't like us, he's even better, much better. He's a perfect father. We are secure in him. And there are so many more things that I could go into this morning. Talking about this idea that God is our father. You get the point. What I'm trying to say to you is this is that if God sent Jesus, his son, to die on this cross, to be raised to life again, to show us that he had proved proved to us that he had not just conquered sin but also death, what that did, what all of that movement secured was this adoption into God's family. And what do you make of that? If that is the most important thing for us to think about, what does it mean for you today? Today I'm grateful. As I've been looking at this passage and thinking about these thoughts, my heart has been overwhelmed with just thinking about wow, God is good. I was an alien, I was an enemy, and I am now loved. It reminds me of this miracle that lives inside of this miracle, that the empty tomb means that I'm God's child. It's not just an empty tomb, it's so much more. And my hope and prayer is that we would, as a church, grow in both understanding what it means to be God's children and living in the perfect security of that truth. So wherever you are this morning, whatever frame of mind and frame of heart you walked in here this morning, hear this. There is a God who loves you, and he wants to be your father, then you can be his child through Jesus. And if you're not a Christian, make that transfer, make that change today by crying out to him. That's all you bring, your surrender. And if you are a Christian, make much of that thought. Much of that thought that you are his child. Let me pray for us. God thank you that an empty tomb is such an incredibly beautiful and victorious thing. Because what it does is it shows us, it pictures for us, and it reminds us of the miracle of not just your raising to life again, but the miracle of our adoption. God, thank you that you have chosen to express your love to us in this way. Thank you that you didn't just make us okay with you, that you didn't just move us from being enemies to being acquaintances, but you called us into your family. Thank you that we are now your children. Thank you that we are your heirs. And God, I pray that just we wouldn't just think about that in terms of the future and what that means. God, I pray that we would think about that in terms of the present. God, may the empty tomb and the thought that we are adopted through the power of that empower us to live this week. God, would you give us strength and power to be the men and the women that you have called us to be this week because we are your children? Help us to make much of this thought. Help us to grow in understanding what it means that we are your children. May that be the thought, may that be the impulse that stirs in our heart as we wake up in the morning, as we go throughout our days, we go to bed at night, Lord. May we remember our identity. That in Jesus we can and we are your children. Thank you. Amen.