We Didn't Know Who You Was
Tom Shrader examines the resurrection account in John 20, emphasizing that the physical resurrection of Christ is the cornerstone of Christian faith. He presents historical evidence for the resurrection, addresses common alternative theories, and shows how Mary Magdalene's encounter with the risen Jesus demonstrates that salvation comes through faith in Christ's resurrection, not through good works.
“If there's no Resurrection, then the Christian faith is nothing more than just another religion.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life
Recorded: 2008
Duration: 44 min
Themes: resurrection, faith, salvation, doubt, evidence, hope, belief, truth, questioning faith, doubting resurrection, new believer, skeptic, seeking truth, struggling with doubt, defending faith, evangelizing others
Scripture: John 20:1-18, Romans 10:9, Luke 8:1-2, 1 Corinthians 2:14
Theological Themes: resurrection, bodily resurrection, soteriology, salvation by faith, christology, deity of christ, apologetics, historical evidence
Full Transcript
Session 10 of what will be 12 weeks of a study overview in the Gospel of John. Today, we're going to spend some time looking at the Resurrection. This is obviously the second time I've taught this this week. I will tell you, yesterday the response was overwhelmingly apathetic. It may have been me - I think I'm not hitting on all cylinders here lately - but part of it is just a lot of factual stuff, and part of it is stuff that's very familiar to you.
If it's familiar to you, let me just say, the reason we go through it again and again is because it's really important. This is the key right here. Let's say you're here this morning, and you're antagonistic toward the Christian faith. If you want to take this whole thing down, we're going to tell you, and this is how confident we are that you can't do it, we're going to tell you where we're vulnerable. There's not many people that would say, "You get me here, and it all crumbles," but we'll tell you that. You get us here, and this all falls apart. We're talking about the Resurrection.
The Foundation of Our Faith
If there's no Resurrection, then the Christian faith is nothing more than just another religion. What separates a biblical Christianity from everything else is the fact that Christ rose from the dead. This means two important things: that He is who He said He was, and you are who He says you are. The path to the Father is through the Son. All of that is based on this.
I mean that. This isn't hyperbole. I'm not trying to sell you something. If, in fact, you can destroy the Resurrection, you've destroyed the Christian faith.
Now, let me give it to you the other side. If you are somebody who says, "Yeah, I'm a Christian, but I don't really buy that Resurrection," I don't know how you deal with Romans chapter 10, verse 9, where Paul says, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." It seems to me that what that's saying is that the physical, bodily resurrection of Christ is essential to me being a Christian. We can't say it enough: what separates us as Christians is not what we do, but what we believe. It's a really important distinction, and we'll talk more about it.
The Characters in Our Story
If you have Bibles, open them to John chapter 20, verse 1. I'm going to do something a little bit different today. I'm just going to read the first 18 verses, then come back and work our way through, again, a familiar story. As you head into this, you're going to see Jesus in this story. You're going to meet and see a couple of angels, but the three main characters that you're going to encounter will be Mary Magdalene, Peter, and then a guy that's described in verse 2 as "the disciple whom Jesus loved," and that will be John.
Let's work our way through it.
The Empty Tomb
"Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. She ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, 'They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.' So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. And the two were running together, and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first. And stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb, and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the face cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself."
"So then the other disciple who had first come to the tomb also entered, and he saw and believed." This is really key here. It's the third time - I've got in my Bible the word "saw," I've got that little word circled. It's in verse 5, it's in verse 6. Here in verse 8, there's a different connotation to it. "Saw and believed."
This gets into a whole bunch of stuff, but then the next verse seems to almost undo that: "For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead." So the disciples went away again to their own homes.
Mary's Encounter
"But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. And they said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' She said to them, 'Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.' When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?'"
Interesting, to me, both the angels and Jesus pose exactly the same question to her: "Why are you weeping?" And then Jesus asked this question: "Whom are you seeking?"
We're going to kind of build a whole message around this. If we wanted to do something, and let's say we were in a setting maybe a little bit different than this, where we weren't just working our way through a passage, but if I was trying to make a point, if I was invited somewhere to speak, I might spend some time with that question right there. That's a great question, by the way, for you to ask yourself: who are you seeking? That's fundamental in our whole life here. When we talk about sin, when we talk about anything else, most often what we're talking about is we begin to seek something or someone other than Jesus. "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 away." And Jesus said to her, "Mary." And she turned and said to Him in Hebrew, "Rabboni," which means teacher. Jesus said to her, "Stop clinging to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren."
Let me stop again. It's the first time Jesus calls these guys brothers. At this point, it's been a different type of relationship. It's the first time He uses that idea of brethren. So when we get into Paul's writing, we see that all the time. Brethren, brother, we see it all the time. First time here that Jesus makes that distinction.
And said to Him, "Go to them, to my brethren, and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God." Mary Magdalene came and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and that He had said these things to her.
Understanding the Story
So what I want to do is just make sure we kind of get the sense of what this story is all about. I want us to go beyond just the story and try to apply it into our lives. I do want to take a little bit of time and just give you some facts as it relates to the resurrection, simply because I know how it is.
Maybe ten years ago, some friends of my folks were down visiting right about this time of the year. Actually, we were heading right into Easter week. And we were at a restaurant, so I'm with these two friends of my folks. When I was a little boy, I mean like one or two, these people came into our lives. So we're at this restaurant and we're talking about when I was two and what kind of kid I was.
At the next table, there's these two guys. And the one guy says to the other guy, "What are you going to do this weekend?" And the other guy says, "I'm going to go to church." And this guy says, "You're going to go to church?" And he had on badges. They were engineers, like a Honeywell or something. So the engineer type. "And you're going to go to church?" And you can hear him sheepishly, "Going to go to church."
And these people are trying to talk to me about changing my diaper and stuff. And I'm going, whatever. And I'm trying to listen to this. And he said, "Yeah." And he said, "Why would you go to church?" And he said, "Well, it's Easter." So he said, "Easter? So what's so special about that?" And he said, "Well, Jesus rose from the dead." And this guy said, "No, that's not what happened." And he said, "Well, what happened?" And I'll tell you in a minute what he said, because it's one of my favorite counter to the resurrection arguments. I love it. I wanted to stand up. I wanted to say, "Just excuse me for a second." But this is kind of patronizing anyway. Let me go over here and have this real quick. But I didn't.
The Significance of the Day
It's early in the morning. Early means somewhere between 3 and 6, probably, in that calendar. First day, there's a shift now that takes place in essentially the calendar. From this day forward now, the church marks that first day. In essence for us, that Sunday is that day of celebration.
And what do we celebrate, by the way? Well, essentially when we get together, what we're celebrating is the resurrection of Christ. That really is what this is about. That's why at our church, I'm a big fan of it. I'm uncomfortable talking about it in some instances because it sounds critical of other churches. And I don't mean to be at all. But at our church, we take communion every Sunday. And I think that's really important. That's what Jesus, listen, when you get together, do this in remembrance of me. Right? Remember what? Well, it takes me right back to the cross. It takes me to the resurrection.
Past, Present, and Future
Resurrection and He says do this and proclaim this so we look back to the cross. So when I look at communion or the resurrection of the empty tomb, I have a past, present, and future component in my life. I look back to that point of salvation. So for me, it was March 6th of 1980.
I looked to the present to today. I was driving up here today. I mean, I don't know. I'm never going to be completely honest with you. You know that. I'll give you this one that's not going to be - you don't want to know. I'm going to give you enough to sense. But I was driving today. It's kind of a - this is just a heaviness. Just I don't know. I didn't know it. I came in explain just there.
Yeah, and so there's the present because I'm going, you know what? I just I'm not up for this. I got some meetings today and I don't feel like doing it and I got one happy. Go there. But there's a present, so I'm saying God just kind of get me through the day. And I really - I said when I left work yesterday said I cannot wait to die. I am so ready to die and I just really want to die now. I wish I was more spiritual. I wish I was saying I want to get out of here to be with Jesus. I don't. I just want to get out of here. You know, I just want to get out of here.
So there's the present component where He said I'll sustain you. I'll get you through this day. And then there's a future component. So I know to be absent from the body to be present with the Lord. I have not - I'm going to get - I'm getting ready to go read some Randy Alcorn stuff again, because I - I don't know what you but I read and I seem to retain things for about like a second. Except useless stuff like when my calendar said March 8th. They went, "Oh, yeah, March 8th 1971 first Ali Frazier fight." Now I can remember that, but I can't remember one scripture that I've studied.
Well, I know there's the future stuff. I just want to be reminded of heaven again. And not - not I don't want to become so heavenly minded I'm no earthly good. But I do want to become heavenly minded so I am of some earthly value.
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene, let me tell you something. When you read through, you have to have an effect - I do anyway - have a huge affection for this check. We get a little bit of background on her and I'll just read to you from Luke 8 chapter 1, or chapter 8 verse 1 and 2: "Afterwards Jesus began going around from one city and village to the other, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God, and the twelve were with Him, and..."
Also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sickness: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom—think about this now—seven demons had gone out.
Now for some of us that's freaky and we're into this really dark supernatural, but you and I are at war. We're at war against an enemy who wants to destroy you. Satan, though I doubt any of you have ever encountered him to be honest with you, because he's a finite limited creature and I don't think you're a big enough fish to fry for him with seven billion people on the planet, but he has demons. You have a flesh. There's a whole darkness here and Mary Magdalene had seven demons in her, and these demons were cast out.
Now, I don't know what her expression of that demon-possessed life was. I've heard about her being a prostitute or something, but it really doesn't necessarily say that. But she was a woman who was living a life absolutely contrary to all the things of God, and what happens is Jesus comes along, casts out the demons, brings her into His kingdom. What would you do?
Mary Magdalene: A Picture of Redeemed Love
Here's what's amazing—she becomes this incredible picture when you see Jesus now at this moment. He's been buried. Who's the one that heads to the tomb? Mary Magdalene. Why? I'll tell you why: because she knew how awful she was, and now when she's saved, she's redeemed. The natural response to that is adoration, praise, and obedience.
That's a natural response to that. Not obedience out of duty's sake, but obedience driven by love. If you think you're just a little bitty sinner, then you only need a little bitty Savior. If you just kind of messed around a little bit, you got a little bit of sin in your life, and boys will be boys, and so you went out and shot some bottles off of a fence post and got drunk a few times and lied a little bit, you don't need a whole lot of Savior.
But if you got seven demons in you and those seven demons come out, you need a whole bunch of Savior. Now let me crush what you're thinking: The seven demons being cast out took no more grace than it takes to save you. You're the equivalent of her. For you to look down on her is arrogance on your part. We are all equally lost before God.
In some instances, He said "go get Him, tiger," and in others He's just allowed you little glimpses of how awful you are, but not allowed some of us to see it. Well boy, when you see it, you respond. That's what she does. She's the first one and she's going, and she's blown away because the stone is gone.
Peter and John: Leadership Despite Failure
Her response is to go and get Peter and John. Now what's fascinating to me—although I may make too much of this, I don't know—is that three days before this, Peter has said "I don't know Him. I don't know Him. I don't know Him." I don't know if that was common knowledge at this point, but if it was, it's pretty interesting that even in spite of that, he's still viewed as somewhat of a leader or someone special among these guys.
Now with him is John. So here are the Apostles—there's the twelve of them. Jesus deals with the twelve, but He has an inner circle, an executive committee really that He deals with, which is Peter, James, and John. So there's these moments where He takes these three away, but then there's yet another moment where there's John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.
That picture, that idea—if we go back and look at the Lord's Supper, there's Jesus and He's in that whole story near familiar, but there's an apostle who's leaning against His bosom. That's John. Now here's what's so valuable about that: That's the guy that's writing this. You're getting a firsthand account of these events. It's not so-and-so said to so-and-so about such-and-such. John is saying "I was there."
She goes and she gets these guys and they race to the tomb. It's interesting to me and I just laugh because it's typical guy—John cannot resist in verse 4 saying "I got there first." It doesn't seem that important, but "I beat him," and he emphasizes it again in verse 8: "So the other disciple, the one who got there first"—me, the younger one, the faster one, the swifter of the two. It's such vintage stupid guy stuff.
The Respect Between John and Peter
They go and they look in. John peeks in verse 5. Doesn't go in. Amazing. Now to the respect that John has for Peter—again, my assumption is John would have known of this denial. There's something really powerful there. I'll tell you what: if I blew it with the equivalent that Peter blew it, I would never get a chance to ever teach again. I would never get a second chance. They'd blow me right out of the water.
But it's amazing to me and I love this—I don't know what it says, makes me cry, I don't know what it says about John, but it says something special. But here's this guy Peter that screwed it up, and out of respect, "I'm going to wait for him." I love that.
Peter goes in. He looks around and he notices the wrappings. He sees that the head cloth is rolled up in a separate place and the wrappings are just there.
The Evidence of the Empty Tomb
Now I'm going to have to stop and fill in with some of what the other gospel writers talk about, because what they say is not that the wrappings were torn apart. Remember when Lazarus came forth? What they would take these guys and they would wrap them in literally tons of linen wrapping with all sorts of spices, almost mummifying them.
So what they see when they look in is not that somebody unwrapped it. You know how you unwrap a present? I'm just awful at that. You know, one is to just tear it, the other's to try to just kind of nicely take it apart. Well, it's not like somebody unwrapped the body.
You get the picture here: It's as though here's the body wrapped, and then it's just gone. The wrappings are still there, so the body just evaporated, except for the little piece that was covering His face—that's rolled up and put in the corner.
Now I want to stop here and talk a little bit on a factual basis. Like three years ago, I thought you know, I should read stuff. I don't read. I thought, why—I had to—
The Problem with Doubt
I used to try to be hip and current, so I took Newsweek and Time. Newsweek may be the worst single publication I've ever read in my life. It is just awful from cover to cover. I mean, the only reason you would read that is to understand something other than what you'd instinctively know to be true. It is just terrible.
I don't know how many years ago, but I was having breakfast with Dr. Grudem, and he said, "Do you read World?" And I said, "No." And he said, "You should read World. I'm going to send you a subscription." So he did, and since then, I've re-upped it. World is a pretty good magazine to read.
They're starting a new series with Marvin Olansky, who if you don't know who he is, you need to just read up on him a little bit. This interview this week is with Bill Moyers. Bill Moyers is an ordained minister, been to seminary. So this may be a compelling argument for me not going.
The Crucifixion Question
They're talking about the resurrection, the crucifixion and the resurrection. Here's Moyers on the crucifixion, because Olansky is trying to get him to talk about the resurrection and the crucifixion. Moyers utters this sentence: "I have strong suspicions that Jesus was crucified, but there's no empirical evidence about it." We aren't even to the resurrection yet. We're talking about the crucifixion.
Now, men and women, if you don't want to believe, you don't have to believe. And if you're faced with a whole bunch of facts and you still don't want to believe, that's okay. But don't for a second—because Bill Moyers is way smarter than I am, I got that figured out—but for whatever reason, God hasn't opened his eyes to see this truth. He's struggling with the crucifixion.
Let me tell you, there's tons of evidence for the crucifixion. You've got secular historians, Jewish and Roman, that would say that happened. And I want to suggest to you, there's all sorts of evidence for the resurrection. I'm going to spend five or ten minutes, valuable time on it, just to highlight some things about it that's really important.
Precautions at the Tomb
Here's some precautions that were in place. When Jesus was buried, they put Him in a tomb. The tomb was rocked out, almost a cave. You'd stoop to get in. Inside would be these flat little areas where you would lay a body. Then you would roll a stone in front of the tomb.
It wasn't like a pebble. In this case, it would be something that weighed 1,000, 2,000 pounds. In Jesus' case, because they were scared to death, didn't know exactly what was going to happen, it may be that the Romans understood the prophecies of the resurrection better than the Christians did.
At this point, two important things happened from the governing authorities. They sealed the tomb with the seal of Rome. Here's what this is saying: you break this seal, you die. The second thing was they then posted a Roman guard.
The Roman Guard
This Roman guard consisted of 16 guys. Again, this is important. These were not Gomer Pile guys. These were SEALs. They were the Green Beret, the Rangers. These 16 guys were responsible for guarding this tomb.
The way they would do it is four guys would be on guard in any one shift. These were fighting machines. The other 12 would be typically in a semicircle in front of what they were guarding. In this case, the tomb.
Here's what makes this so compelling. They knew that if somebody got into that tomb and they didn't get them, they were dead.
Easter Morning Evidence
Now on this Easter morning, we've got some things that we've got to talk about. The stone is gone. The soldiers are gone. The soldiers have deserted. Why? Well, they know if they get caught, they'll be killed. But they know if they stay there, they'll be killed. Why? The tomb is empty.
The stone, the 2,000 pound stone, is not like it's moved away so they wedge their way in or wedge their way out. It's gone. It's in another place. It's separate away. The seal's broken. The tomb is empty.
One scholar writes this: "If all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable according to the canons of historic research to conclude that the sepulchre, the tomb, of Joseph of Arimathea in which Jesus was buried was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of evidence has yet been discovered in literary sources or archaeological sources that would disprove this."
What the Empty Tomb Means
The tomb is empty. Now that doesn't prove the resurrection, by the way. All that says is the tomb is empty. But it's empty. The stone is gone. The soldiers are AWOL.
The grave clothes and the descriptions of the grave clothes. If somebody is going to steal the body, it's unlikely that they're just going to unwrap it or leave the clothes there first, right? Just steal the body. And if you were going to leave it, you couldn't possibly leave it in the position or the condition in which it was found.
Beyond all of this, this is why I come back to the resurrection. The tomb is empty, but you now have 500 witnesses who on one specific occasion saw the risen Christ. You have the disciples themselves who have seen the risen Christ. You have physical eyewitnesses.
The Challenge to Alternative Explanations
Here's what I love, because I love giving the other side. Here are the explanations of what really happened on that day. Because rarely do you get "the tomb wasn't empty." Because there's a problem, right? The tomb's not empty. What's the problem you face? Well, take me to it and show me.
So here are the explanations on the other side. I'm not hyping these. These are just the best they got.
One, when they went on that Easter morning, they went to the wrong tomb. It was a geographical problem. They thought it was there, but it was really over here. They just went to the wrong tomb. Now that falls apart as you begin to see all the other things that happen around it.
Then the idea is, well, these 500 people were hallucinating. They didn't really see them. I can see that as compelling, too. The problem is there's no real recommendation that we can find from any sort of experts that would talk about this taking place on any other time.
The Body Was Stolen Theory
Probably the two that gain the most punch here are that the body was stolen. Now the problem with this conspiracy theory is you've got to ask: who stole it? The Jews certainly didn't steal it. They have no motivation to steal this body. The last thing they want is a resurrected Christ.
The Romans want no part of this. The Christians are all hiding. I guess you could make the argument that some rogue guy, just like they tried to steal Lincoln's body when they buried him in Springfield, some rogue guy was going to steal it. But even at that point, as this religion began to spin, if you wanted money or you wanted to kill it, all you had to do was present the body again.
The Swoon Theory
My favorite theory, and it's the one the guy in the restaurant was giving, is the swoon theory. The swoon theory goes like this: Yes, they scourged Him. Remember we talked about scourging, literally beating. Many guys died from the beating, the scourging. Yes, they scourged Him. Yes, they crowned Him with thorns. Yes, He carried the cross. Yes, they nailed Him to the cross. Yes, He lost huge amounts of blood.
Now we know from accounts that when they then stabbed Him in the side, so up into the side and up into the heart, likely, and pierced the sack of the heart, water and blood came out separate. The official guy who presides all over these, kind of one that signs a death warrant, then signs and says, yes, He's dead. Yeah, all that took place.
But when they put Him in a tomb and wrapped Him up, put a stone in front of Him, what really happened was this: He wasn't dead. He was in a coma state. But what happened on that Easter morning is in those three days, without any outside assistance, He revived Himself, shook off the clothes, and moved the 2,000 pound stone.
I'll tell you what, if He did that, I'm willing to follow Him as a savior. That is the dumbest thing. Isn't that amazing? That to me is amazing. I find that compelling. I'll follow that God if a guy did that.
The Reality of the Resurrection
The reality is this: the tomb was empty because Jesus had risen from the dead. There is a book that was published in 1983. I remember it because I was reading it on a plane on my way to India. It was Chuck Colson writing a book called Loving God.
In the middle of Loving God, and I don't remember what chapter - in my mind sticks Chapter 8, I have no idea why that would stick in my mind - there's a chapter called Watergate and the Resurrection. Now, I don't think I have to do it in this room, but today, I'm going to have to explain Watergate because there'll be younger people there and they just don't know it, but many of you know it. You understand Watergate.
Here's Colson. Colson's saying, when John Dean testified and told the committee - Sam Irvin and Fred Thompson and these guys - told the committee that he had met with a president, told him there was a cancer, once he said that, Colson said, within a week, we all had attorneys covering our own tail. We were the most powerful guys in the country and we're not going to lose our life.
He said I think that alone from human nature is a compelling argument these 11 guys all go and die for a lie. Men and women, the tomb was empty not because Jesus resuscitated Himself or not because somebody stole the body, but because Jesus rose from the dead.
The Significance of the Resurrection
That's huge. If that's true, and it is, then I better listen to everything He has to say because He is who He said He was. He's God come in the flesh who died on the cross, and even that doesn't give us all we need to know. But for what reason? What purpose? To save us from our sin.
So on the cross He cries out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" My friend Larry Wright wrote a poem called "The Great Exchange" where he describes that moment where we exchange our guilt and sin for Christ's righteousness. Then He says "It is finished" and what He means is I've come to save my people from their sin. I've accomplished that.
He says on Friday, "It is finished." On that first Easter resurrection morning, that resurrection is God's amen to Jesus' "It is finished." It's amazing, and that says listen, He died for sin. He's who He said He was. That's why people for centuries have walked into certain death, have foregone all sorts of earthly comforts, because they understand the reality of that very moment, of that very truth.
Mary at the Tomb
Well the story continues here a bit with Mary. The disciples leave. Mary's just there and she's hanging around. I don't worry too much into it, but there's a human component to it. I don't know if she left and came back or she stayed. I don't know. I make a bit of assumption that she stayed.
She's weeping. I love that, the humanity, the heaviness of that. She sees two angels and they say to her "Woman, why are you weeping?" and they said "They've taken away the Lord where they laid Him." When she said this, they turn around and walked away.
There's something pretty interesting in that, isn't it? What is it? She does not at all seem to be disturbed by this conversation with angels. Assuming she's been hanging around, just humanly you go, "How did these two guys get in the tomb and they're dressed in white?" She doesn't at all seem distracted by that, and she turns and...
She walks away and now she runs into Jesus. He said, "Why are you weeping?" and then He says, "Whom are you seeking?" She thought He was the gardener. So I thought I ought to go watch the guys that are cutting our grass and see if any of them look anything like Jesus. I mean, this is great. Again, how do you miss this? If you're taking away the body, and then Jesus said to her—by the way, I'm going to explain to you how you miss this right now—then she said, "Mary," and He turned and He said, "Rabboni."
The Holy Spirit Opens Our Eyes
So here's what I've heard. I've heard, "Oh, when she heard that name, when she heard His voice, she knew it was Jesus." Well, she just had a dialogue with Him. Here's what happened in this moment: in that moment, the Holy Spirit came and opened her eyes and her ears. That's what happened. It's First Corinthians 2:14—the natural man doesn't understand spiritual things.
You can put a natural man in there. They can be talking to angels. They can be talking to Jesus. They're untouched by the angels, and they think Jesus is a gardener. And all of a sudden, somehow in a moment, He went from gardener to Savior. Kaboom! He didn't change—she did. And she just didn't get smarter all of a sudden.
What happened is the Holy Spirit opened her eyes to see this truth. It's the same thing that happened to you or me at a point of conversion. It's not that you got so smart. It's that all of a sudden, under His own sovereign grace, God infuses you with the ability to hear and open your eyes and understand. And things that made no sense all of a sudden made sense, and now there's a whole reversal of the way you think.
Whom Are You Seeking?
That question, "Whom do you seek?" is really important because we're all seeking somebody. We can kind of spin off of what Jesus said: "Nobody can serve two masters," or Bob Dylan said it a little bit different: "Everybody's going to serve somebody." But everybody's seeking somebody. Everybody at every moment in every instance has somebody that's driving or motivating their life. So whom are you seeking?
And then even after this moment, she clings to Him. Doesn't that seem like a natural response? I don't know. I would think if I was there at that moment, I'd be going, "Hey, man, we lost you for three days. I don't want to lose you again. I'm hanging with you." And He's saying, "You know what? I don't think so." In essence, He's saying, "I still got work to do, and so do you. So I'm going to go do my work, and you go do yours. And then there's a day when we'll be together forever." That's what He's saying. And she runs and tells the disciples.
Then we'll pick up the balance of that story next week. I want to drive this point home, and I'm not beating up on Bill Moyers because he may be a fine guy, but he's just absolutely lost as a goose when it comes to this.
Pure Religion vs. Works
Here's the final part of this. I want to grind this home. Here's how the interview ends. Moyers: "Somebody recently asked me the moment when I first became a Christian. I told them I never did become a Christian." Now hang with me. "I can't turn the other cheek. I can't sell all my possessions and give them away. I can't love my enemy. I'm not a Christian because I do not do what Jesus asks. But I care deeply about that figure"—meaning Jesus. "He has instructed my faith. He looms large in my life, but I can't do what He asked me to do. So I can't legitimately claim to be a Christian."
Here you go. Here's what Moyers is saying. Moyers is saying, "I'm just not very religious." What we got to grind this now—you got to get this. This is the essence of the Christian faith. Christ is not asking you to go and turn the other cheek. He's not asking you to sell all your possessions. He's not asking you to love your enemy. He's not asking you to do all these things so that when you do them, you become His.
He's not asking you to do that. He's asking you to come to Him in repentance and faith and be saved by grace, not by works. That's pure religion. That is pure religion. And our natural instinct is to do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
What Makes You a Christian
Now, am I supposed to have a transformed life? Yes. But I just want you to see this: when you're down at the rescue mission and you're feeding hungry people, you got secular humanists standing next to you and Buddhists standing next to you and Muslims standing next to you. It is not the action that makes you a Christian. It's the belief. What separates us as Christians is what we believe, not how we behave.
What we believe radically changes how we behave, but what it changes is not the actions as much as our heart. This is so big—grab it. I've said this to you a lot in the last three months: get it in there. There's nothing you can do—nothing, nothing you can do—that can make God love you more than He loves you at this moment. And nothing you can do to make Him love you less. That's gigantic.
This is not about earning His love. He already loves you. "For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son," and He died on the cross. And God extends grace to you, and that grace opens your eyes. You're not saved by works. The faith is the evidence of the salvation that took place in your heart. Now there's some theology in that, got it? But that's the practical working of that.
When God Gets Bigger
And when we begin to unpack that, here's what happens: God gets bigger and bigger and bigger, I get smaller and smaller and smaller. And that's A.W. Tozer: "My theology doesn't ascend high enough." I don't let God be God.
Most of the time, with most of the people that I deal with, they have a low view of God. They don't have a view of the sovereignty of God. They don't understand that God reigns over every aspect of our life. That even when He doesn't respond to us the way that we would like Him to respond and the way that we think He should respond, that doesn't mean He doesn't love us or doesn't care for us. And you can't get Him to love you any more.
See, that theology doesn't ascend high enough or descend low enough. You don't see how sinful you are. Really. And I think I'm going to—much to the chagrin of the people at East Valley Bible Church—
I think I'm going to grind on this a little bit on Sunday. I think we have this kind of whacked view of sin and then this kind of short-sighted view of what it does to us.
When I say sin, I think of sins of commission—things we do. I don't even touch the sins of omission. They're huge. But even in commission, I think I like the big ones. I haven't killed anybody. I haven't lied. That's how we tend to think.
Jesus Reworked Our Understanding of Sin
But Jesus reworked all of that in the Sermon on the Mount. He took the Ten Commandments to a new depth. So as a guy, here's like a big one. You've heard it said you shouldn't commit adultery. And so they're going, yeah, no problem there, because I'm not sleeping around or anything, I'm faithful. And Jesus said, if you've ever looked at a woman and lusted after her in your heart. And He did that with all of them.
You've said I shouldn't commit murder, but if you've said raka, if you've called your brother knucklehead.
Personal Struggle with Temptation
So I'm going along, and I was at Highland's church the other night, and I just, I don't know what happened, but I kind of flipped out in the middle and just started talking about it, because I was explaining going to the Phoenix Open. And I was saying, listen, I don't go to the Phoenix Open. I don't like the hassles and some other stuff, but for a large part of it—and I'm not saying, by the way, don't go to the Phoenix Open, go to it, go—but for a large part of it, for me, is the last few years I was out there, I couldn't handle, here's the way I said it the other night, I'm allergic to silicon.
And I just couldn't handle it. It's kind of like that, that always nice weather, the girls wear less clothes, stuff's hanging out all over. And so people are going, oh, that's gross, you don't like that. And I said, just the opposite. I love that. I love looking at that. I love it. That's not good. That's not good.
And I wish I was as strong in every area, but I just know, for me going to the Phoenix Open, nothing good is going to happen out there. Anything I need to see will be on television. Stuff I don't need to see won't be. Now, is there anything wrong with going to the Phoenix Open? No, but you're just stronger than I am.
The Dark Places of the Heart
I'm talking to somebody a couple of weeks ago about a person. It's a very famous person who none of you know personally, but all of you know this person. And so I'm sharing some ideas about this person. And the person on the other end is really getting excited about how cool this person is. Boy, this is really cool. That's great insight, that's great.
And then I fired back and I said, yeah, he's an incredible guy. He left his wife to hook up with one of the gals from his company. I was up almost the whole night wondering what made me say that. What dark place in my heart did that come from? Why did I have to interject that in the conversation? We're never going to encounter this guy.
What was going on in my heart? Was it because that person began to show some favoritism or some positive response to that person? So I thought it was my duty to take him down or not so I'd be okay? I don't know. But whatever the answer to that question is, that is a dark, dark, dark place in my heart.
And I'm comfortable sharing that with you because I guarantee you, you've got a dark spot there too, somewhere. And my point is for us to understand the depths of sin. I think we are way too casual in our approach to sin. It's just this casual, yeah, I don't do that and I don't do that.
We almost need to hear the Sermon on the Mount in our own eyes again and again and again. Anyway, it's like we pause at this moment and go to be continued and we'll pick it up there next week.
Closing Prayer
Father, work in our heart, please. Open our eyes to see these truths. Redirect our thinking. God, we are awful, sinful people. Even as Your kids, we're both righteous and sinners. It's amazing. And that's why there's this tension in all of our life in so many areas.
God, here's what we know. You're a huge God. Bigger than any problem we have. You overcame the tomb. You're a God who loves us and cares for us even more than we care for ourselves. I just pray that You would use these words to encourage us.
God, we want to be just like Mary and cling to Jesus, but we can't stay there. There are things that need to be done as we carry this message to the world. God, give us the courage to do that. We ask it of You in Jesus' name, amen.