The difference between faith and doubt

[0:00] I'd like you to turn, if you can, to John chapter 20, and we're going to be reading the first 18 verses. Over the years, we've looked at different parts of the resurrection.

[0:19] We've certainly looked at Jesus and Thomas and Jesus appearing to the disciples in the locked room. We've looked at the empty grave from different angles, from the angles of the soldiers, and allegedly that they were sleeping and still able to know that somebody took the body.

[0:39] But if they were sleeping, yeah, it doesn't make any sense, right? I mean, you don't know what's happening in the world around you when you're sleeping, do you? No, well, the soldiers who said they took the body while we were sleeping, boy, I mean, I'm struggling with that one.

[0:59] But, so what we're going to do this morning is we're going to look at Mary's response to an empty tomb. And so we'll do that by looking at the first 18 verses of John in John chapter 20.

[1:13] Now hear God's word. Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

[1:25] So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.

[1:39] So Peter went out to the other disciple, and they were going towards the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.

[1:52] And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloth lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb.

[2:03] He saw the linen cloth lying there, and the face cloth which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself.

[2:19] Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

[2:31] Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. And as she was, and as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.

[2:52] They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

[3:06] Jesus said to her, 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.

[3:23] And Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and she said to him in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher. And Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

[3:39] But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father, and your Father, to my God, and your God.

[3:50] Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and that he has said these things to her. Well, may God bless his word to our hearts, and we'll come back to that in its message form after this next hymn.

[4:10] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[4:20] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[4:30] Amen. Amen. Well, having read John 20, at least the first part, the first 18 verses, it should go without saying, but I'll say it, that Christians' whole purpose here depends entirely on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[4:57] The very fact that we've decided to come to church and sit here is because we believe that Christ has risen from the dead. The fact that we pray, the fact that we've read this word, the fact that we will share in communion like we did Friday evening and, you know, throughout the year, is because we believe that Christ has risen from the dead.

[5:23] Everything comes back to this single point. And so now, as we look at Mary coming to a tomb, this tomb, we have at least a couple of questions that go through our mind.

[5:38] The first one is, why? Isn't that a fair question? Why are the disciples running to the tomb?

[5:51] Well, there may be a couple of reasons that we can sort of extrapolate and sort of get clear on. But if our faith is based on a resurrected Christ, then the tomb is simply going to be empty anyway.

[6:08] Perhaps they just wanted to see for themselves. Now, the issue before us is this, or at least it is for Mary and it is for the disciples. All they know at this point is that they have an empty tomb.

[6:21] Okay? But what are we dealing with? What are we dealing with? All that they have is a missing body. So what are they then dealing with?

[6:34] Are they dealing it from Mary's point of view? Because Mary's conundrum, or at least one of the things that she is struggling with, is I know the tomb is empty. I know the body of Christ is missing.

[6:47] Okay? But Mary's assumption is it's missing because it's elsewhere. It's missing because somebody's taken it. Well, she's right on both occasions, but she still believes that what's missing is a missing dead body, not a missing resurrected body.

[7:07] And I would want to suggest to you that the people of the day were faced with the same questions as they looked at an empty tomb. What are we dealing with here?

[7:19] A missing body. Yes, the body's missing. It's an empty tomb. It is an empty tomb. The question is why? Why is the body missing? Is the body missing because it is a dead body that has been moved elsewhere, like Mary believes to be the case?

[7:33] Or is it the fact that we're dealing with a missing body because it has resurrected? And so this first part of John is what leads us into answering those questions.

[7:47] Paul goes on to say in Corinthians, if you were to put it a slightly different way, that this is so central to the Christian faith, that if Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, then everything else is a waste of time.

[8:00] It's all in vain. Whatever we believe, whatever we do, whatever good life we try and live, none of it now makes any sense, at least not consistent sense.

[8:14] Okay, the Christian life can only make sense if it's founded on the fact that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. Now, the Old Testament promised that God's Messiah, the one who would save his people from their sins, would do so and live forever.

[8:33] Okay? I want you to think about that for a moment. The Savior that God promised would come would save his people from their sins and live forever. You can read about it in Psalm 16 or in Isaiah chapter 9.

[8:47] But at the same time, this same promised one, this Messiah, would suffer. Isaiah 53. So, now you've got two statements where you've got one where there's suffering and one where there's living forever.

[9:04] How can both be true? Well, both are true in the fact that Christ suffered, died, and then rose again. So, it's the life, death, and resurrection which sort of makes every promise in the Old Testament, yes and amen, in Christ Jesus.

[9:23] We believe Jesus died and we believe Jesus rose again. Or we have nothing worth believing at all. Okay? Let's just put it.

[9:34] If we don't believe this morning that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and we don't believe that he rose from the dead justification, life forevermore, eternal life with God, then we have nothing worth believing at all.

[9:49] It's as simple as that. Okay? And that's Paul's conclusion. Paul's conclusion doesn't even take into consideration everything else that God has said.

[10:00] He simply gets to the point of the resurrection in Corinthians and says, look, it all comes down to this. If Christ has not risen, then everything else is vanity.

[10:12] It's all in vain. But Christ has risen. And because Christ has risen, we now experience these benefits of redemption.

[10:25] Here's the summary then of Mary coming to the tomb. You'll notice that I'm not going to be able to pick up on everything here, but there's a couple of things here that are worth noticing. Number one, it mentions in John chapter 20, verse one, that it's the first day of the week, which is strange for a Jewish community because the Sunday would not be the first day of the week.

[10:45] But they obviously understand, at least John, as he writes his gospel, understands that Christ's resurrection is what brings in this new creation, is what brings in this new order.

[10:58] The other thing that we notice is that the disciples come to the tomb and sort of run away again back to their homes, but Mary's left at the tomb weeping. And it's only at that point does she enter and see two angels, which the disciples, having entered, did not see.

[11:14] Now, we don't have time to go into the details of all of that, other than to say that some of the details that are mentioned here are impressively significant for building our faith.

[11:26] Now, it's clear that as she arrives at the tomb, she is expecting a body. Well, she is at least expecting that the tomb's still to be locked, still to be shut.

[11:38] But she comes, and the stone has been rolled away. She doesn't know what to make of this, and so she runs back and tells the disciples, Simon Peter, and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and she says to them, the body's missing.

[11:54] Now, there is no explanation for why the body's missing. It's just that Jesus isn't there. She believes that he is laid somewhere, verse 2, that the body has been taken out of the tomb, and we don't know where they've laid him.

[12:11] So she's got this idea that he must be somewhere, lying somewhere. Someone's laid him down somewhere, but he's not in this tomb anymore. So Simon Peter and the other disciple run to the tomb, and then, of course, it seems that the other disciple is fitter because he overtakes Simon, gets to the tomb first, but Simon Peter is the one who enters first.

[12:36] There's this bit of jostling, it would seem, and they both look into the tomb, and they believe, but it's not entirely sure what they're believing because we're told in verse 9 that they are yet to understand the Scriptures.

[12:50] In other words, they're in the position where they're trying to figure out what their eyes are comprehending. They're trying to figure out what has just happened over this weekend, that a couple of days ago, on the Friday, we saw our Lord crucified, we saw our Lord die, and now we know that he was put in this tomb, hence why they run to that tomb, and we've got here, and he's not here, and they've got all this information that they have gathered, they have seen, they have witnessed, and they're not too sure what to do with it.

[13:24] How are we to make sense of any of this? Well, they run off back to their homes. Mary is left by the tomb, you'll notice, verse 11 onwards, crying.

[13:36] She's weeping. And there just so happens to be two angels there addressing her, and they say to her, why are you crying? Why are you crying? And she turns and says, the body of Jesus is missing, and I don't know where they have laid him.

[13:52] She's still thinking in turns, verse 11, that the body of Jesus Christ has to be somewhere, lying somewhere. If he's not lying in this tomb, he has to be lying somewhere.

[14:02] Right? Why? Well, because it's a dead body, and this is what she is thinking. Jesus then turns up and starts speaking to her, but she doesn't recognize that it's Jesus.

[14:14] She thinks it's the gardener, and we're not too sure why. We're told that it's early in the morning. Is it because the light was dim, and could that be the reason? Or could it be because she just cannot get over the fact that Jesus, she cannot comprehend that Jesus is risen from the dead, so the last person she would expect to see is Jesus, so she thinks it's someone else.

[14:36] We don't know why, and so the gardener says to her that she thinks it's the gardener, but it's Jesus. You know, why are you weeping? And of course, the same answer follows.

[14:48] Somebody's taken Jesus, and are you the one who's put him somewhere? Have you put him somewhere? Jesus then calls to her by name Mary, and suddenly, it's as if that one word spoken by Jesus sort of brings her to her senses, where she begins to realize that suddenly, it all fits together, that here is Jesus Christ risen from the dead, and Jesus tells her to go and tell the disciples exactly the same thing, and you have a beautiful few parallels here, which we will get onto in a moment, but the central message is this.

[15:28] Go back and tell them, verse 18, that I have seen the Lord. Go back and tell them that. Just go back and tell the disciples that you have seen me.

[15:40] Jesus has said that he already has to go back to the Father, but go back and tell the disciples that you have seen the risen Lord. Okay. There's a few things then to make our way through, and the first, of course, is the difference between doubt and faith.

[15:58] Now, I've always said that doubt can only exist if God exists, and I haven't got time to go in to restate why that's true, but it's a fairly easy one to get to.

[16:10] But it would be fair to say that Mary comes to the tomb. She's not doubting because she's expecting to find a closed tomb.

[16:22] She doesn't come with doubt because, right, the doubt only creeps in when she's like, I don't know where Jesus is. She's come expecting to find a tomb that's locked, but she comes and finds an empty tomb.

[16:38] And it seems to me, and you as you read it, that the resurrection doesn't even seem to cross her mind as an explanation for why the tomb is empty. She seems to be fixated on this idea that the body of Jesus has to be laid somewhere.

[16:53] Now, the issue is, is she doubting the resurrection, or is she just not even considering it? Right? Because we got back in John 11 with Mary and Martha, and Jesus, and they say to her, well, we know Lazarus will rise again on the last day, and Jesus says, no, you've missed the point.

[17:14] You're missing the point entirely. What we are to understand from this is that the actions of God and the plans of God have always been taught throughout Scripture, and we simply have to bring the way we think about things in line with the way that God has explained them in His Word.

[17:36] Now, it's one thing to know the Scriptures, okay, and it's another thing not to believe them. It's also one thing not to know the Scriptures, and another thing not to believe anything, and they're not the same.

[17:51] Let me just explain briefly. I can know the Scriptures and then choose not to believe them. I can be, someone can read to me a section of Matthew or Mark or Luke or John, and I could, not now I could because God's given me grace through faith, but people can go, yeah, I just choose not to believe that.

[18:12] So they have the Scriptures and then they choose not to believe them. Okay, but that can't apply to someone who doesn't have the Scriptures. Okay, hence why you have Paul saying in Romans, well, how can they believe if they've not heard?

[18:29] Okay, you've got to have something to believe in. Okay, so people who deny the Scriptures or who say, I don't believe that Jesus rose from the dead, having never heard that Jesus rose from the dead, they would never say it.

[18:44] They would never say it because they've never heard that Jesus has risen from the dead. And this is what Paul was saying in Romans, how can they believe unless someone goes and tells them what to believe?

[18:57] And so what we have here with Mary and the other disciples is that they clearly don't understand the Scriptures, verse 9. They're perceiving everything but the Scriptures concerning what is happening isn't abundantly clear to them.

[19:15] So in this context, doubt exists for the same reason faith doesn't. Biblical faith or faith in anything really in this context, you can only have faith in something.

[19:33] You can only have faith if something exists. I'll explain it another way. In 1 John 5, it says this, for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world, your faith.

[19:51] Your faith. That's how you overcome the world, your faith. 1 John 5, verse 4. The issue that we have before us here is that faith in God's Word is what conquers our doubts.

[20:08] Which means this, that faith is not what we fill in the gaps of a lack of understanding. And too often, some people want to say, when one person doesn't understand, you've got to have faith.

[20:23] That's not an answer. In fact, it's a very poor answer. Because you can only have faith in something. And for those who believe that faith somehow fills in the gaps, the gaps that are created by not knowing or not understanding, and we don't know what to do with them, just have faith.

[20:46] That doesn't work. That doesn't work. That's why a person who doesn't understand the Scriptures or hasn't heard the Scriptures to be told by somebody else, well, you've just got to have faith.

[20:57] They go away thinking, well, it's not made any difference at all. Well, because it won't make any difference at all. Because faith only operates based on the revealed Word of God.

[21:10] That's what we're to have faith in. Faith never takes the place of gaps in our understanding. Faith never takes the place of gaps in parts of God's Word that we don't know.

[21:26] And so, those who struggle with their faith often struggle simply because there are gaps in their understanding, okay, like the disciples, or there are gaps in how much Bible knowledge that they actually know in the first place.

[21:44] So, never think this morning that Christians have faith to somehow fill in the gaps of the things of the things that they don't know. That's not what Christians believe, and that's not what Christian faith is.

[21:59] Christian faith is faith in what God has said and what God has done. It's not faith in the gaps where we can't work it out.

[22:10] And that's what builds believers up. You look at Mary. Mary has no understanding of what's happened, and she has no faith. So, the idea that faith somehow fills in the gaps where there is no understanding isn't true in Mary's life, and neither is it true in your life.

[22:30] Okay, so if you in any part of your Christian life are struggling with doubting this, right, right, where were you in the last Bible study? I can explain why you doubt fairly easily.

[22:45] that's not difficult. It is because you're not receiving God's word, or having received it, you're not then understanding it.

[22:56] But once you've received God's word and you understand God's word, it can't help but strengthen your faith, knowing that it has come from God. And that's the point here that's being made.

[23:10] Having faith in the resurrection of Jesus means that you know what has happened, happened, and you believe what has happened because you believe that God has told you.

[23:22] You believe that God has told you. Okay, you also believe that that's possible because with God all things are. Okay, you believe that God can make this known to you by grace through faith, that he can make this truth penetrate your very heart, simply because God can do something like that.

[23:47] Okay, so our faith takes God as he is. We don't limit God down to a human level. We believe that what God says about himself is true, and then we look for that truth to turn up.

[24:01] And sure enough, that when we come to believe in God by faith, everything that God says to be true about himself, we then know to be true about himself. And this is absolutely crucial if these disciples are going to go into the world and tell everyone that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

[24:21] There's absolutely no way that this body has been taken from the tomb and laid somewhere else. We have Christians who have died ever since the resurrection of Jesus Christ because they've been persecuted for their faith.

[24:36] No one lays down their life for someone else who's dead. You don't perpetuate a lie by dying for it.

[24:49] This is either true or it isn't true. And the fact here that we are coming to realize is that it's true because God is telling us so.

[24:59] How do you explain the angels? How do you explain Jesus turning up and speaking to Mary? What about then the details? Well, there are a few details here and all of them have meaning.

[25:12] One of the things is this, that when you read God's word, we know that we ought to pay attention to God's word, but it just so happens that when we read God's word, we forget that lesson.

[25:25] God says pay attention and we start reading and what we do is we get to the end of the chapter and if someone says to us, what have you just read?

[25:38] Why do you do that? Well, you do it because you don't actually know what you've read. It's pretty dangerous to read your Bible like watching TV.

[25:52] It doesn't take any effort to watch TV. It doesn't take any effort, it takes some effort to sit still if you can't sit still, which is a problem, especially for a 43-year-old man.

[26:07] Just learn to sit still for a bit. Well, okay, but the point is, is that reading God's word must be taken with the seriousness that it deserves.

[26:20] One of the things then that we do when reading God's word is to pay attention to things that might slip our minds. I just want to pick up on a few things. The clothes, the clothes of Jesus Christ being left behind in the tomb and the face cloth being folded up and put to the side is a clear indication that it's been left there.

[26:41] It's been left there. But why has it been left there? I'm not entirely sure why it's been left there. I can't get to the exact meaning of why it's there, but we can certainly point out the most obvious thing, that we know back in chapter 19 that Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[27:01] And he was the one who prepared the body of Jesus Christ for the tomb. And Jesus only needed it, as you know, for a short while.

[27:12] And what we seem to have with this picture of the clothes being left behind and attention in verses 5, 6, and 7 being drawn to the fact that these clothes have been left behind simply points to one thing and one thing only, at least apparently, obviously, and that is everything that relates to death is now being left behind.

[27:37] These clothes that were set aside for burying people and that you wrap them up and the face cloth and everything that's then folded and put to the side is being left behind. The tomb is being left behind.

[27:50] I guess if the resurrection is a message of Jesus Christ overcoming death, death, then it's also a message here of Jesus overcoming all the things that are associated with death.

[28:02] Okay? People who live forever don't need graves. Okay? Now, in this world, we need somewhere to put bodies. Okay? And that's a fair point.

[28:13] But, okay, those people don't need them because they're not there anymore and yet you pay an awful lot of money for them. Okay?

[28:24] But when you think about it from a biblical point of view, okay, we have to do something with the remains of a body, okay, that the person themselves doesn't need anymore because they belong to Jesus Christ.

[28:37] They simply left all of that behind. Okay? And so you can go there and you can find remains. Okay? You can find clothes. You may even find jewelry if they've been buried with some.

[28:50] But you will not find them if they belong to Christ. They have gone to be with him. The rest is left behind. And this here seems to be a picture of everything being left behind.

[29:05] Everything associated with death is left behind. The other thing to notice is the fact that Mary is weeping. In verse 11, we're told that she stays behind.

[29:17] The disciples have run off and she's crying. She then makes her way into the tomb and angels, verse 13, ask her, why are you weeping? And then Jesus, verse 15, though she doesn't know that it's Jesus, is also asked her, why are you weeping?

[29:34] Now, from Mary's point of view, okay, that's an insensitive question. Right? It's obvious why I'm weeping. Okay? someone's taken the body of Jesus and I don't know where they have laid him.

[29:50] But from the point of view of the angels and from the point of view of Jesus, it's a gentle rebuke. Why are you weeping? Why are you weeping?

[30:02] And she's weeping because she believes that the body of Jesus Christ has been taken and is laid somewhere else. And she shouldn't be weeping because the body of Christ has risen from the dead.

[30:14] It is a very, very gentle rebuke. But it is a rebuke. Why are you weeping? It is a rebuke. And we know that Jesus is gentle back in John chapter 11, where you have a picture of Jesus' resurrection in the resurrection of Lazarus.

[30:33] And you've got Mary and Martha not understanding why Jesus hasn't turned up. And then Mary sits down and Jesus sits down and you have that one verse which says Jesus wept.

[30:45] And any of us reading John 11 want to go, why is Jesus crying when he knows in a couple of minutes time he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead? Why are you crying, Jesus?

[30:59] Well, we know that Jesus enters into the grief of people who lose people through death. And that's here. But here, concerning Jesus himself, not Lazarus, Mary's question, or the question put to Mary of why are you weeping, is a gentle rebuke.

[31:19] In other words, Mary, come on. Understand, believe. Have I not taught that I would rise from the dead? But her mind is not yet there and neither is her heart.

[31:31] The other detail to notice here is the change in status of the people. You'll notice that when Jesus speaks to Mary, telling her to go back and tell the disciples that she has seen the Lord, notice how Jesus refers to his relationship with them.

[31:51] Verse 17, Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and tell my brothers. Who are the brothers of Jesus?

[32:02] Well, they are the disciples. And say to them, I ascending to my Father and to your Father. I'm ascending to my God and to your God.

[32:13] And Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples that she has seen the Lord. One of the beauties here is the privilege of being able to say, Our Father who art in heaven.

[32:26] You know, there's, if you go back in history, in fact, even in some churches, there's a big debate over whether or not we should teach our children to say the Lord's Prayer, or if we should teach children in schools to say the Lord's Prayer.

[32:43] Because we, should we be affirming that God is their Father when he may not be? Right? Bearing in mind that the fatherhood of God is established in the life of people through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[32:59] What is it that actually brings us into being able to call God our Father? Well, sonship. Being made a child of God.

[33:11] Okay? I don't call, I don't know who my father was. Well, obviously I knew I had a father, but I don't, if I knew who was, I wouldn't then call the next door neighbor my father.

[33:26] And I wouldn't call him my father simply because I recognize that I'm not his son. It's not something difficult to figure out here.

[33:37] And so I don't want to lessen the privilege by saying anybody can say this. I don't want to lower the privilege or lower the accomplishment of Christ by sort of flattening everything out and the same privileges belonging to everyone.

[33:51] It's clearly not the case. What we have here when Jesus says, go and get my brothers and go and get, and I'm going back to father and my father and your father and, you know, go tell the disciples.

[34:05] He's indicating that through his life, death, and resurrection that we have been brought into a new relationship with God. God, one that did not exist before we were brought into a new relationship with God.

[34:20] Now it is true there is only one God and father, and so in one sense God is the only God over all the people in the world. But we're not talking about who God is here, we're talking about how we relate to God.

[34:34] That word your, that word our, is a particular gift of redemption. It is a particular blessing of redemption. It is something which has been accomplished through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[34:50] We are brought in to the family of God and therefore now able to call God our father. And God looks upon us as his children.

[35:02] And as he says in Hebrews, that not all people are his children. So God makes a distinction, and I think we ought to appreciate that distinction and understand the privilege we have in Christ Jesus.

[35:16] The gifts that we have in Christ Jesus. Here's the exhortation then as we sort of wrap all this up. As you look at the cross, your mind should go to one thing and one thing only, that it should have been me.

[35:33] It should have been me. But it wasn't. And it wasn't because God put his son there instead of you. And the reason he did that is so that he could bring you into relationship with him.

[35:49] It was so that he could make peace with you. We now have the privilege of being able to call God our father and being able to call Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior because he is.

[36:04] Jesus has done it all. What then does this mean now that we live a life in light of the resurrection? Well, one of the things that it means is that we understand that all authority belongs to Jesus in heaven and on earth.

[36:18] What does it mean now for Jesus to give our marching orders? Okay, the church gets its marching orders from the Lord Jesus Christ. Go out and make disciples.

[36:29] Why? Because I've risen from the dead and all authority has been given to me. What does it mean for the truth of the resurrection to settle into some of the decisions that you're going to make tomorrow morning?

[36:43] And some of us might struggle to figure out how the resurrection actually makes any difference to the decisions I'm going to make next week. And that's where the learning comes in.

[36:53] That's where the understanding comes in. Like Mary, we need the truth of the resurrection to make sense. We need the truth of the resurrection to settle into our bones, into our heart, into our mind, and to make sense.

[37:08] We know, or we ought to know, what we are to do with it now. Now that we know that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, what does believing it actually mean? What am I to do with this?

[37:20] Am I simply just to believe it? Well, it's not just believing it. It's rather believing what it means. What does it mean for Jesus to have defeated death?

[37:31] What does it mean for Jesus to have all the authority? What does it mean for you to know that you serve a risen Savior? What does it mean for you to know that you have a new life that will live forever?

[37:44] What does all this mean? In light of the resurrection, we know it to be true, but what does it now mean? And so the truth of the resurrection has to settle into you like it had to settle in to Mary.

[37:56] So here's the final thought. We should never be surprised as we read the scriptures that time and time again, there are people who want to get rid of Jesus. They try to trap him.

[38:09] They try to seek and get him into trouble with the authorities, that is the authorities of this world. They plan to kill him, and then some eventually do kill him.

[38:21] But the question that remains now as we look at all of this, is what can you do to a man who's risen from the dead? Okay?

[38:33] All along, you've got people who hate Jesus. They want to crucify him, and they end up crucifying him. But now they've got a new problem on their hands, and that is what can we now do to him that he's risen from the dead?

[38:45] What can you do to a man who doesn't die? Well, this is where we ought to realize that all authority belongs to him. This is the one that we serve, the one who has defeated death, the one where all true authority is found.

[39:04] And so, if you want a little bit of courage to live your Christian life, then hide behind the courage of Christ Jesus. Or rather, immerse yourself in the courage of Christ Jesus.

[39:16] Knowing that greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world, and also this. That it doesn't matter what the world says about Jesus. It doesn't matter what my friends say about Jesus.

[39:27] What are you able to do to someone who can rise from the dead? And the answer should be obvious. Nothing. Nothing. We serve, and we live, and we are saved by a risen Savior.

[39:43] Amen.