We Didn't Know Who You Was
Tom Shrader walks through John 20's eyewitness account of Jesus' resurrection, focusing on Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John's different responses to the empty tomb. He emphasizes that spiritual understanding comes only through God's work - the Holy Spirit must open our eyes to truly see Jesus and our ears to hear His voice, transforming us from spiritual blindness to recognition of who Christ truly is.
“Natural man cannot understand spiritual things - it's not that they aren't explained well, they cannot understand spiritual things.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life (2003)
Recorded: 2003
Duration: 43 min
Themes: resurrection, faith, blindness, recognition, transformation, understanding, witnessing, hope, doubting faith, seeking understanding, new believer, struggling with unbelief, spiritual seeker, witnessing resurrection, confused believer, young adult
Scripture: John 20:1-18, Luke 8:1-3, Luke 5:1-11, John 13:21-26, Isaiah 6, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Romans 9, Romans 12, Matthew 28:19-20
Theological Themes: resurrection, holy spirit, spiritual blindness, divine revelation, christology, eyewitness testimony, spiritual understanding, sanctification
Full Transcript
We are in the 10th week of a 12-week series taking a satellite view and a very quick look at the Gospel of John. I hope part of what we've done is piqued your interest to delve in and study this book on your own in a little more in-depth fashion.
John is writing, and by now you've got that pretty well figured out. We're in the 20th chapter. John's writing, and you have figured out why. He says, "Many other signs, therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which aren't written in this book, but these have been written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you would have eternal life." That's why John's writing, so that every lesson points us in this direction of really a Gospel message, coming back again and again to what does it mean to know Jesus Christ? Who is Jesus?
Today we look at the incident that is the absolute cornerstone of the Christian faith. We look at the resurrection of Jesus. If you're here today and you're neutral or antagonistic, and you would love to see this whole Christian thing come tumbling down, all you have to do is disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you can do that, this thing falls apart.
The Foundation That Cannot Be Shaken
What I've observed lately is that very few attacks from people come at the resurrection. I just found myself thinking about it. I have people who want to argue about virgin birth, and argue about what happened on the cross, and argue about this, and the whole new wave of different things—Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and all these other things. I'll have all of these different things. But I have very few people who really attack the resurrection.
I'll tell you why. Because if you come openly, honestly, with intellectual integrity, you have no conclusion that you can draw except that Jesus rose from the dead. I really believe that. The evidence is overwhelming. If you want to, you can go on the church website and go through the last couple of Easter messages, and at Easter we've taken some time just to really go more in depth into some of the background, and some of the safety precautions. So if you go on the church website, evbc.org, you'll find more there.
An Eyewitness Account
I want to look at this account that John gives us. It's an important account we're going to see today, because John is an eyewitness. John chapter 20. We're going to do something a little different. I want to read the first 18 verses, and then we'll come back and we'll talk about them.
"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. And so 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've laid Him.' Peter, therefore, went forth, and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb. And the two were running, and the other disciple ran 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. Simon Peter, therefore, also came, following him, and entered the tomb, and he beheld the linen wrappings 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."
"Verse 8. So the other disciple, who had come first to the tomb, entered then also, and saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. So the disciple went away again to their own homes. But Mary was standing outside the tomb, weeping. And so as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb, and she beheld two angels in white, sitting one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. Verse 13. And they said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' And she said to them, 'Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.' And when she had said this, she turned around and beheld Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. And 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 away.' Jesus said to her, 'Mary.' 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 the Father, but go to the brethren and say to them, I ascend to My Father, and your Father, and My God, and your God.' And then finally, verse 18. Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord,' and that He had said these things to her."
Breaking Down the Story
So, there's the background. That's the story. I want to break it apart. I want you to see the account. There's three key players here: Mary Magdalene, Peter, and this guy, this disciple that Jesus loved.
Look at verse 1. "Now, on the first day of the week"—it's significant. It's Sunday in the week, in the calendar here. And this really marks the shift to worship on Sunday. From this point on, the early church, and obviously all the way through and up until and including our day, begins to meet and gather on Sunday, the Lord's Day, driven by the resurrection. It's the first day, the first day of the week.
Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb. It's early. They had different ways of measuring time. Early is somewhat of a subjective term, so I'll give you just the broad categories here. It's somewhere between 3 and 6 o'clock in the morning. She is coming to the tomb. She arrives and she discovers something. What she discovers is that the stone has been rolled away.
Understanding Mary Magdalene
I want you to understand a little bit about Mary Magdalene. If you turn to the left, to the Gospel of Luke, in the 8th chapter, we are introduced to Mary Magdalene. And I just want you to understand a little bit about who she is.
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning while it was still dark. We know this already, but sometimes it's important just to remember a little bit of background. This gives us a snapshot, an introduction.
Luke 8 tells us: "And it came about soon afterwards that Jesus began going from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him, and also some of the women, who had been healed of evil spirits and sickness. Mary, who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out."
This is a woman who is a woman of ill repute by any standard or measure. She is a prostitute. She's loose. There's an encounter that Jesus has with her, and seven demons come out of this woman.
Jesus' Heart for Sinful People
I am always struck, when I read through these Gospels, that Jesus has such a heart for sinful people. I would assume that would be good news to you. When Jesus, as I read through the Gospel, any time I see a conflict, the conflict is what we looked at last week. It's with the religious leaders, the Pharisees, the scribes. What's He call them? The hypocrites.
But when He comes along this woman, He takes the time, seems to go out of His way. Why? My sense is that this woman probably understood who she really was and what her life was all about. When you come to grips with who you are in your sin, it's at that moment you begin to do business with God. And God begins to do business with you. In fact, He's already started that process. That's why you begin to see your sin and see yourself that way.
So the first person we meet is this Mary Magdalene. It's dark. It's early. She is there three days after the burial, a Jewish custom. She sees this stone gone. She's alarmed by this, doesn't seem to want to face this alone. So off she goes.
Peter's Encounter with Jesus
Verse 2 says she ran and came to Simon Peter. Now, we know an awful lot about Peter. You're in Luke's Gospel, chapter 8. Turn to chapter 5, and we see an interesting fishing account with this old Peter guy.
"It came about while the multitudes were pressing Him and listening to the Word of God, Jesus was standing at the lake. And He saw these two boats lying on the edge. But the fishermen had gotten out of them. They were washing their nets." They're done for the day. "He got into one of the boats. It was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little way in the land. He began to teach, and the multitudes were listening as He was teaching from the boat."
"And when He finished speaking, He said to Simon, put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch. Simon said, Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing." It doesn't say it here, but I sense Peter saying, you do the preaching, we'll do the fishing. We know what we're doing. You do that.
I don't know much about fishing at all. I think I've been fishing a time or two in my entire life. But there are some things that relate to this story. The fish were caught not in the deep water, but in the shallower water. They weren't caught in the middle of the day. They were caught early in the morning. They didn't let the nets down. They dragged the nets.
Jesus said, I'm going to give you a little unconventional fishing style. Remember the one time, it's a different time, where they're fishing, and they're saying, we haven't caught anything. And He said, that's because you're fishing on the left side of the boat. Go to the right side of the boat. All the fish are on the right side of the boat. And now they catch fish.
The Overwhelming Catch
That's what happens here. They catch fish, so many that the nets are breaking. They signal to the partners, out they come. They fill those boats to the point that they're beginning to sink.
Verse 8: "But when Simon saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet. He said, depart from me, for I'm a sinful man."
You've got people all over this planet, especially in this country, who are out trying to find themselves, discover who they really are, get in touch with their feelings, trying to make some sense of life, and why does it work the way it does. Listen, if you want to understand who you really are, this is a little bit counter-cultural. It's unconventional.
Understanding Who God Is
If you want to understand who you really are, here's what you need to do. Understand who God is. Because once you understand who God is, you have perspective. And once you have perspective, you're going to see things as they really, truly, honestly are.
All of a sudden, they're getting these fish, and here's Peter, and I'm going to guess for a while, he's moving fish around, and all of a sudden in the middle of this, he stops, he's going, this doesn't make any sense. And he says, depart from me, I'm a sinful man. What happened? He senses at this moment that he's in the presence of something special.
One of the frustrating parts of this lesson, and really these discussions with the disciples is, when do they know? When were they believers? When were they converted? We don't get a sense because we don't see Peter later on as converted, but he senses there's something special there.
Seeing God Reveals Our Sinfulness
When you get a perspective of God, you get a perspective of yourself. If I were to say to you, give me a passage, the classical passage that would demonstrate this truth, that when I see God, I see my sinfulness, where would you tell me to go? Where would you have me turn? Romans would be that. I'm talking now about this comparison that he sees here. Isaiah 6.
Isaiah sees God. What's he say? Woe to me, for I am undone. Every encounter that they see with this living God says, woe to me. So when you see these guys on TV and they're saying, I saw God, and I say to them, hey, God... That's not what the Scripture does. When they see God for who He is, they see themselves for who they really are.
That's essential for conversion. If you are a Christian today, there had to be that point where you come to grips with the fact that you are utterly sinful. It doesn't mean you're as bad as you
could possibly be. Hitler didn't kill his mom. It doesn't mean you're as bad as you could possibly be. It means that you are depraved. That you're a sinful person. And spiritually, you're bankrupt.
You're not good and getting better. There's not a little good in you, this spirit in you that needs to be unlocked. All that's in you is sin. That's what the Scripture teaches. And that's a good thing. When you come to grips with that, now you begin to deal with God on His terms.
The Witnesses to the Empty Tomb
Well, back to John. It's Peter that we see here. She runs to Peter. Even after Peter's denial, apparently there's still a relationship of some magnitude there. And she runs to him and also to the other disciple whom Jesus loved.
John does not identify this other disciple by name, but you certainly could. Who is it? It's John himself. There's a special relationship that's here. He's identified as the disciple that Jesus loved. It's like everybody understood that.
It's like in our family, my youngest brother John is my mom's favorite. It's just clear. And she's made that clear. She says it. He accepts it. It's true. And it barely bothers me anymore. But that's true.
You've got the 12 apostles. And then you've got the special group. Who are they? Peter, James, and John. And then apparently out of this, there's a group here that has a special relationship. You've got this guy, John, the disciple that Jesus loved. And apparently they all understood that he had this unique relationship with Jesus.
John's Special Relationship with Jesus
Look at the Lord's Supper. You're in John's Gospel. Turn to chapter 13. Look at verse 21. Jesus said all this. He's preparing now for the Lord's Supper, preparing for the time of betrayal.
Jesus said this. He began to be troubled in His spirit. And He said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me." The disciples looked at each other at loss to know which of them He was speaking. We've seen it if we paint this together from the other Gospels.
He says, "One of you will betray Me." And the other Gospels said, "It's not I, is it? It's not I, is it? It's not I, is it?" The disciples are looking at each other. They're confused by this.
Verse 23: "There was reclining on Jesus' breasts one of His disciples whom Jesus loved." So there they are, seated around this in this position, this place of honor. John is reclining, leaning. He's at Christ's right hand. His presence.
Simon and I find this funny. "Therefore, gestured to Him and said to Him, tell us who it is of whom He speaks." You can almost see this. Everybody's looking around. And here's Peter again. He's a little oblivious to it. And you can see him going, "Ask Him who it is." And so he does.
"He leans back on Jesus' breasts and he said, 'Lord, who is it?'" And then He tells Him, "It's the one to whom I shall dip this morsel of bread and give it to Him," and it's Judas.
Three Key Witnesses
So there's your background on these three people. It gives you some slight insight into these panel of experts that are going to become our witnesses here today as we look at this issue of the resurrection.
Here you go now. Back to John chapter 20. Three people: Mary, Peter, John, all have a special relationship with Christ. All offer us firsthand eyewitness accounts of that very day.
The Race to the Tomb
Verse 3: "Peter therefore went forth and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb. And the two were running together. The other disciple ran faster than Peter." I don't know. It's interesting. John mentions here that he beat Peter to the tomb.
Look at verse 8: "So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb." I don't know if he's just sticking it in Peter's ear a little bit. I don't know if it's a little bit of pride.
I find a lot of guys, I don't tend to be one, but I find a lot of guys very competitive. And they like to go back and forth. And they like it when the knife is out and their barbs are going and the way they're going. I don't know if it's that or if he's just helping us understand that. I don't know. I like to think he's sticking it to them. Peter went forth. The other guy beat him to the tomb. He's running faster than Peter.
What They Found at the Tomb
Look at verse 4. He comes to the tomb first. "He stoops in and looking, he saw the linen wrappings there, but he didn't go in." This is very important. Peter, John coming to the tomb. Let me remind you. The tomb would be carved out of solid rock. The entrance would typically be about four feet high so that you would have to stoop to get in. Then once you got in, you could generally speaking stand up. It's typically about six feet high, eight or nine feet wide, and all this that goes with it. You have three or four bodies typically buried in one of these.
So, John comes first. Get this scene. He stoops in, and the Scripture says he looked and he saw. Now the word that's translated there, "saw," is more the idea of a glance. It's that you just look at it and you see it, but you're not really taking an inventory. "Glance" is a great word.
I was driving, and then I can't remember now where I was the other day. Driving down the road, I always go down, and bam! Here's this building. It had to be 10,000, 15,000 square feet. And I'm thinking, well, they didn't put that up yesterday. And I drive down the street every day, and I certainly am looking around. I obviously saw that, but I didn't really see it. You know what I'm saying? I saw it was there. It just didn't register. I didn't take it into account.
John is looking. He certainly knows what he sees, but it's a very quick glance here. He wasn't gathering a lot of information. He saw the linen wrappings there. He didn't go in.
Peter's Response
Now Peter comes, and he goes right in. I mean, it's kind of vintage Peter. And when he came in, he beheld the wrappings lying there. "A face cloth or a bit on the head was lying separate." One of the translations will say, "saw the wrappings still in the folds."
This is very important. What it means is, those linens just kind of came together like whatever was in there evaporated away. The linens were still
intact. There's all sorts of theories about what happened to Jesus. One of them is that somebody stole the body. Well, if you stole the body, it doesn't seem to me that you'd leave the wrappings there. If you're stealing the body, you want to get in and out. You're going to take the wrappings with you.
Or if you did, remember how they had Him wrapped? They're wrapping Him all around, and then they're just kind of encasing that in oils and balm. If they're doing that, doesn't it seem to unwrap it that there would be wrappings and linens all over the place? The text says that the linens just collapsed. Separate was the cover that had been on His head, the cloth that had been on His head. It was rolled up and set in a different place. Why? I don't know. There's a lot of I don't knows in this. I don't know. But you certainly don't get a sense here that there were some grave robbers or the disciples were there.
There's no indication that the disciples were part of this. They're stunned by this whole thing. They still don't get it in the midst of this. There it sits. In orderly fashion. That's what Peter sees.
John's Moment of Understanding
So it came, the other disciple who had come first, verse 8, came into the tomb, and he saw and he believed. Now the word that's translated "saw" there is different than the word that we looked at up in verse 5. It's not a glance. In the Greek, it's a different word. It means literally, to see with understanding.
So you're teaching somebody. Let's say it's math. And you're saying to them, you're working these problems, and you're saying, "Do you see this?" And they say yes. "Do you get it?" "No. I see it. I don't get it." And then every once in a while, I never did math. I wasn't good in any... I did a commencement address at a high school the other night, and the graduating class had four students in it. And I said, "Oh, I'd have loved to have been in this because I finally could have been in the top five."
And so I'm not much of a student. I just didn't do very well. And math I never got. My geometry grade was in direct proportion to Jim Grummer who sat to my left. And whatever he got, I got about 15% of that. So we needed him to get a 90 or above. Well, I never had this moment, but I have talked to people who have in math where all of a sudden they say, "I got it! I see it!" That's what this moment is right here for John. You see it? Verse 8, "I saw it, and I believed it." John seems to be here the first that gets it.
Now what does that mean? Does that mean he understands this whole picture? No. Verse 9 says they still haven't figured out how all the Scripture comes together on all this stuff. He's still trying to make this thing come together. Is he a Christian at this point? It seems like at this moment he's got it. Is he a believer? I don't know. I don't need to know that. I don't need to figure that out. There seems to be this transition in their life.
Now, they are in a different situation than you and I are. They're sitting down progressively seeing this story unfold before their very eyes. You are reading it in one sitting, sitting here looking at it. That's a very different thing. Whether John gets it right there, I guess that Peter doesn't, but apparently John does. Is he converted? Well, I know he is eventually. Is he converted there? I don't know. I'm not really sure.
They walk away. Verse 10, they go back to their house. Again, it doesn't say, I don't know what the attitude was. I don't know if they're walking away. It's got to be an extraordinary story.
Mary's Encounter at the Tomb
Well, remember they ran to the tomb and apparently they missed Mary in this transaction. Because we find her in verse 11 standing outside the tomb and she's weeping. And she stoops and she looks in and she beheld two angels. She sees these two angels. One sitting where His head had been. One sitting where His feet had been.
Let me just read this and ask you if anything strikes you as odd here. "And they said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' And she said to them, 'Because they've taken away the Lord and I don't know where they've laid Him.'" Did anything strike you odd? "And when she said this, she turned around." Did anything strike you odd in that? There's no wrong answer here. I'm just asking for an observation. Anything strike you odd?
There's something that strikes me very odd. Yeah, she's talking to angels and doesn't seem at all stunned by it. It would seem to me, if I walked into this empty tomb and here are these angels, these guys in white sitting there, that just seems to me that there would be a reaction to that. So I don't know what she saw. So what did she see? I don't know. There's a lot of I don't knows. I don't know. It's a very interesting response. Very casual. Very comfortable.
And she turns around and she sees Jesus, but she didn't know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Why are you weeping? Who are you seeking?" And she thought He was the gardener. Now, that baffles me too. Maybe it's because when she had last seen Jesus, He was beaten beyond recognition and thorns in His head and He'd been scourged, and so it just never occurred to her that this was Him. But did He look the same? I mean, we get a sense that when the disciples see His resurrected body, they understand that it's Him. She doesn't get it. Something doesn't happen. It's odd to me. That's all I'm saying to you. I'm not saying this to confuse you. I'm not saying it to discredit the story. I know the story's true. I just find it interesting. She thinks He's the gardener.
The Right Question
"Why are you weeping? Who are you seeking?" Now, that's the right question. We could ask that question to you today. Whom are you seeking? Because if it's anything other than Christ, you are seeking and looking in the wrong place.
"Sir, if you've carried Him away, tell me where you've laid Him. I'll take Him away." And Jesus said to her, "Mary." And she turned and said to Him, "Teacher."
Now, I've read a whole bunch of stuff. This is like we've done in a lot of this Gospel stuff.
You just want to go off and preach an old fancy lesson and run wild with this stuff, it's pretty easy to do it. And I've heard them say, "Well, they recognized His voice." Well, stop. He'd already said more than that to her, and she didn't go, "Oh, there's a familiar voice." He already said, "Who are you looking for? What are you doing? Why are you crying?"
What happens at this moment? Let me take you back two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I asked you a question. I asked you not to answer it. Just simply go and think about it. And if you want to talk about it, let me know. If you've got answers, let's dialogue here. Not now. At another time.
And the question was this: Lazarus comes forth. Lazarus comes out of the tomb. And the Scripture says, "Many, not all, believed." Why many? Why not all? Remember that moment we talked about? Why are we looking at all this? What do you want to see? What do you need to see?
The Holy Spirit Opens Eyes to See
What is going on at that moment? I suggest to you it's the same thing that happened to Mary here. At a moment in time, the Creator God, through the Holy Spirit, opened her eyes to see and her ears to hear. And what looked like a gardener to her—and I'm confident that she went back and told, you've got to understand, John's recording first-hand account here. I guarantee you, John's writing down what Mary said: "That was the gardener."
And in a moment in time, her perception of this man moved from gardener to Savior. What happened? The Holy Spirit opened her eyes. "My sheep will hear My voice," Jesus said. And then when He's done, as He said so frequently, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
And I was amused by that. You mean there were some who didn't have places to put their glasses? No. What He's saying is the same as when we say, "I see it. Oh, I get it." Here's what He's saying: "I hear it. Oh, I understand it." You see that two-step process? It's not just to hear the words, it's to understand what they mean. And there is nothing I can do or any other human can do to open your ears and to put this truth into you.
Natural Man Cannot Understand Spiritual Things
Here's what the Scripture tells us. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14: Natural man cannot understand spiritual things. Natural man. A man, woman, boy, girl who is unrepentant, unregenerate, not born again, in their natural state, the way they come into this world, lost in sin, they cannot understand spiritual things. They're not going to get them. It's not that they aren't explained well.
Natural man—it's very important, what's the word? Cannot. Cannot understand spiritual things. So you've had the moment. You've been there. You've sat in the booth at a Mimi's or down at AJ's getting coffee or in a restaurant. You're at Morton's. Boy, if you're going to Morton's, let me know so I can help join you on that. But you're going out, you're sitting, you're talking, and you're talking to this person and you're just kind of moving it along and you're laying this out and you're talking about sinful man and a holy God and Jesus' death.
And you're saying, "What do you think?" And they say, "Oh, I don't know whether to get the garlic potato or the salad. I'm not sure." You say, "What happened there?" Or you're sitting with two people and this one goes, "Wow!" And this one goes, "Huh? I don't know. Huh?" "Wow!" "Huh?" Now what is that? I can't believe the explanation because the same two people heard the same thing.
God's Sovereign Choice in Salvation
Well, we go back to Romans 9. While they were in the womb, Jacob and Esau, neither one had done anything. Twins. Same mom, same dad. So it's got none of that going on. Same background. They hadn't done anything. And God says, "Jacob I loved and Esau I hated." Jacob I loved. Jacob I chose. Jacob I embraced. Esau I am not going to show him favor.
Salvation is of God. We talk about this over and over and over again. And in all likelihood, if you are in a reasonably good church, they're going to say to you, salvation is from God. God saves sinners. But like every other discussion you have, we need to start defining that. What does that mean?
What that means is, God is entirely responsible for your salvation. By that I mean, responsible in the execution of that salvation. He opened your eyes. He gave you ears to hear. He gave you a heart to believe. He drew you to Himself.
Salvation by Grace Alone
You're saved by what? Grace. You're not saved by faith. You're saved by grace. What is grace? Unmerited favor. Now here you go, and I don't mean this to be flip: What can I do to merit unmerited favor? Nothing.
This guy who said, "Wow," gets from God grace. This guy who said, "Huh," gets from God justice. That's a big concept for 7:40 in the morning, sitting in a bar in Scottsdale. But see what happens when we see this? All of a sudden, when you start to do this, don't you feel yourself getting smaller and smaller and smaller? And God getting bigger and bigger and bigger?
So here you go. We got Peter. Peter's walking away, and it seems to be that Peter's kind of going, "I don't know." John's going, "I get it." Mary all of a sudden recognizes Him.
Jesus Redirects Mary's Focus
Now Jesus isn't done with her. Here's what He says: "Stop clinging to Me." Now that is the first response that seems natural to me. "I've lost you once. I'm not going to lose you again." "Stop clinging to Me. Don't cling now. There's something more important." In a sense, it's not said here, in a sense He's saying, "You've got all eternity for that. We've got plenty of time for that. Listen, I haven't ascended yet."
We know they've got another—You go. You go. Look at what He says in verse 17: "My brethren." It's the first time this phrase now is used. He's now beginning to talk about the body, the believers, in terms of brothers and sisters. Work on the cross takes the sinners and places them into the same family. "Go tell them."
Two Groups of People
Here you go. We've got six or seven minutes. Let me do this. We've got two groups of people in the room. One group of you have never responded. And you might be sitting there today saying, "I have no clue why I'm here."
I hope He's already up and done. I'm hungry. And I didn't mean to be here and it's an accident and I don't want a part of this anyway. I'm out.
It may be you've never responded, but all of a sudden for the first time you're going, well, that makes sense. I see that. You know what's going on there? You just need to understand that's God beginning to work in your life.
When God Opens Your Eyes
So what do you do with that? Well, you don't run from that. You run to that. You acknowledge that you're a sinner. Your sin has separated you from God. And there's nothing you can do to repair that. Nothing you can do to fix that.
There's no church you can join. There's no act you can perform. There's nothing you can do. You acknowledge your sin. You repent. That means you turn from your sin and you turn from your own ways and you turn from your own religion and you turn to Christ and to Christ alone.
And in that moment in time, you move from sinner to saint and your destination changes from hell to heaven. And it's entirely a work of God. And maybe He's opening your eyes.
A Personal Testimony
That happened to me in March of 1980. It was an intense period of about six days where I was absolutely in turmoil. Literally at one point sitting there shaking. And all of a sudden, sitting out at McCormick Ranch right there by the lake, by myself, I understood my sin and Christ's gift.
Did I understand it fully? Obviously not. But I understood that. And it was March 6, 1980. God saved me. Now maybe you're in that process. That's one group.
For Those Who Already Believe
The other group, those are you who have gotten it. You're Christians. You know this. You're in fact going through this saying this isn't exactly new stuff, is it? And no, it isn't. So let me ask you if you're doing what Mary did here in verse 18.
And it seems to me that she does it under the direction of Jesus Himself. "Mary Magdalene came and announced to His disciples, 'I have seen the Lord,' and He had said these things." At the end of Matthew's Gospel, He says to you who are believers, go and make disciples of all nations. And teach them and baptize them. Are you doing that? Is your life a testimony to what the risen Christ has done in your life? You're calling Him Master, Lord, Savior?
Mary, it seems to me, begins to do the most natural thing in the world and that's to go to these disciples. Remember, you've got John who saw it, Peter confused, and the others sitting there. Probably saying what in the world is going on? And now Mary comes and says, here's what I saw, here's what He said, here's what's going to happen. All of a sudden, He's talking about ascending. That has to be new information.
Living as a Witness
Is that what you're doing? Is that what your day looks like today? Do you have in this day today opportunities where you're going to be able to sit down with somebody? Maybe in an intense situation? Maybe just in a passing conversation? Maybe just as they observe you at work where these people are going to look at you and God's going to use your life to open their eyes and to touch their heart. It's His work using you. Do you have that? Because that's your responsibility.
Here's what Paul writes, Romans 12: don't be conformed to this world. One of the paraphrases says, don't copy the behavior of the world. Another one says, don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed. How? By the renewing of your mind. You start to think differently. You see things differently.
The bottom line is not the bottom line anymore. All of a sudden, your life has different meaning and different purpose, different direction. You parent differently. You're a different husband, a different wife, a different employee, a different employer. All of a sudden, your life looks transformed. Not finished. Not perfect. But somebody can look at you and say, there's a difference here. This is what he was. This is what he is now. This is what she was like. This is what she is now.
That's an awesome privilege. Are you doing that? That's His call. On your life. You know Jesus. That's your responsibility. Privilege. To live a life.
Words Are Necessary Too
And let me just add this. It's not that you go and live a life and people will see the difference and that's the end of it. They're going to see a difference in you. When they do, you're going to have an opportunity, typically at their invitation, to talk to them about what's different.
I have lots of people that say, I'm just going to live a life and let it speak for itself. That's not enough. No person I know was ever won to Christ through a wordless sermon alone. Somewhere you've got to say, it's Jesus. Somewhere you've got to say, I was a sinner. Especially if they don't know you.
Especially if they don't know you. They've only known you since you've been converted. They've only known you in the last two years. That's what I see at our church. Our church, when you walk in, you see a lot of people and your sense is, there's a bunch of people that got it together. And you know what? A lot of them do. But you need to understand something. They were a mess when they got there. They were a mess when all of a sudden, God opens their eyes and changes their hearts.
Hope for Every Mess
And you know what? You're a new creature. Maybe you're sitting here today and you're saying, listen, my life is such a mess. I don't think there's any hope for me. There isn't any hope for you on your own. But in Christ, you're a new creature. He'll change your heart. He'll change your life.
You know why? Very important here. Because He'll change you. And that changes your life. I don't know your burden. I don't know your problem. I know that you want to say it's economic or social or it's educational, and it's none of that. Your problem is sin. That's the problem. That's the problem with man. And I'll tell you something even stronger than that. And it's pride. That's what keeps you from God.
Lewis describes pride this way: as the complete anti-God state of mind. I'm watching this bishop this week and I'm saying, what is this guy doing? Why would you not sign this and say, we've had problems, and go to La Jolla for a week? Why do you want to stand there in defiance?
I'll tell you what, my sense is that pride crept in. I don't know how you can even stand there and look in the camera myself. Pride. That's your ultimate sin. That's mine. That will keep you from God.
The Ongoing Battle Against Pride
Once you are a Christian, once you've come to Christ in repentance and faith, if that pride is not crucified again and again and again and again, it will just lead you into all sorts of sin.
We're going to stop. We'll pick up next week right there.
Closing Prayer
Father, help us see this truth. Thank You for Jesus Christ. Thank You for His life and His death. Thank You for His resurrection. Father, thank You for the Holy Spirit that comes at the appointed time and opens our eyes and now we can see things as they really are.
All of a sudden, we can see our sin and we see Your holiness and we see a chasm that we could never bridge. But Father, thank You for Jesus who died so that we could have eternal life. And now we move from sons of disobedience to become children of God through Your work.
God, thank You for that gift. Thank You for that reality. Now, let us live the transformed life by Your strength, our obedience. We pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.
Have a great week. We'll see you next week.