Life in His Name

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. 2So 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." 3 So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb...(Peter) entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there….9they did not yet understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. 10So the disciples went away again to their own homes. 11But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. 13And 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."14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said, "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." 16Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" (Teacher)….18Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," 19So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you."20And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord…24But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came….He said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." 26After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you." 27Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing." 28Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" 29Jesus said, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed." 30Many other signs Jesus performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31but these have been written so you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name. - John 20

Faith matters. Faith is not just believing something, though it involves it. Faith is entrusting yourself, or at least some aspect of yourself, to the care of something or someone else. Life regularly requires such faith of each us. For example, anyone who invests with a financial institution must entrust at least some of their financial health to that institution's care. Hopefully, none of us banked on Bear Stearns, whose value recently went from $170 to $2 a share. If we had, our misplaced faith would have cost us. Faith is certainly required whenever we go in for an operation. Once we are under the anesthesia, our lives are literally in our surgical team's hands. That is faith - believing in and banking on, and I truly believe your eternal destiny depends on whether or not you trust your life to the care and control of Jesus Christ. I know believing in and banking on the historical reality of Jesus’ bodily resurrection can be challenging, and I pray God will use this message to help overcome obstacles between you and saving faith in the resurrection.

I see three categories of obstacles to saving faith in our text. First, I see Mary struggling with naturalistic faith assumptions. She saw the evidence, immediately jumped to a plausible conclusion, and in her mind that’s the way it was - grave robbers stole the body. The problem was her reality was not really reality and that is the case with all who preemptively rule out the resurrection, simply because they are closed to even considering the possibility of a supernatural event. So many people fall for a false dichotomy between faith (supernatural/resurrection) and reason (natural/robbers). One of the most relentless purveyors of this myth is the biologist Richard Dawkins, who wrote the bestseller The God Delusion, but like all of us, Dr. Dawkins is a man of faith. Consider his quote from a recent NY Times interview: “I cannot know for certain, but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life according to that assumption.” That is faith. So, how do we overcome our naturalistic assumptions? First, we must realize that they are faith-based. Beneath every doubt is a belief. Disbelief in ‘this’ is actually belief in ‘that’, and it helps to realize we are comparing two faiths rather than faith vs. reason. Next, we must be open to the reasonable possibility that if God can create all life from nothing at all, this God can also create life from death. Then we must consider the evidence for Jesus' resurrection honestly in light of that possibility.

The next obstacle to saving faith that I see in our text comes from Peter and the beloved disciple, who had a lack of Scriptural awareness. They did not realize they were witnessing exactly what the Bible promised. The Bible is like no other sacred book, which are usually the product of a single ‘enlightened’ author. The Bible is 66 books written by at least 40 human authors from various cultures and walks of life over a period of 1500 years. It was written about the most profound and often divisive issues of life and yet there is thematic harmony and factual consistency throughout. In fact, it is literally the unfolding of a single, non-contradictory story, and I do not believe that just happens. Still, even during Biblical times, Jesus fulfilled numerous, highly detailed Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah right in front of people, and they missed it. How? He once said to those who did not believe in the resurrection, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). I think that still applies. Knowing God and the Scriptures goes together. The more you know the Scriptures - the more you will be awed by God’s power and the more you will be able to trust in and rely on His resurrected Christ.

The final obstacle to faith in our text is evidenced by the most famous skeptic of all, Thomas, who lacked tangible personal experience. His close personal friends’ experience was not enough for Thomas, and I get that. One of the things I love about Jesus is His willingness to do whatever it takes to overcome our sincere obstacles to saving faith. The One who let Thomas reach his hand into His side will do what it takes to reach you, if you truly want Him enough to sincerely seek Him. Everyone who sincerely seeks Him, like Mary (the first person to see Jesus after His resurrection), finds Him. Mary was seeking Jesus before dawn, and she stayed after everyone else went home. She sought Him with tears, and when He finally called her by name, her tears turned to joy. Yours will too. More than 500 people saw Jesus alive after His death. His first followers went from cowering in fear to boldly giving their lives to proclaim His resurrection. These things and so many more are written that you may believe in Jesus, the living Son of God, and through believing in and banking on Him, may have life in His name.

Hosanna!

On the next day the large crowd who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, 13took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD, even the King of Israel." 14Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written, 15"Fear not, daughter of Zion; Behold, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”16These things His disciples did not understand at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him. 17So the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify about Him. 18For this reason also the people went and met Him, because they heard that He had performed this sign. 19So the Pharisees said to one another, "You see that you are not doing any good; look, the world has gone after Him." - John 12:12-19

Imagine the scene: Thousands and thousands of people are making their way into Jerusalem for the annual Passover celebration. Most of them are bringing lambs to be sacrificed. A famous historian from that era, Josephus, reports a census that recorded 256,500 lambs slain during a single Passover! It is tough to imagine such a scene, but it was an annual trek for faithful Israelites, who were following God’s directions from centuries earlier. God instituted the Passover when He used Moses and miraculous plagues to free His people from slavery in Egypt. At that time, He told each family to sacrifice their best lamb, eat it, place some of it’s blood over their doors and be ready to leave Egypt. That night deadly judgment fell on every house that was not covered by the lamb’s blood, and in an instant, God’s people were set free to follow and worship God.

So, back to our scene in roughly A.D. 30, Jesus is making His way into Jerusalem to offer Himself up as the Passover Lamb of God (John 1:29). On the way, a crowd of people who have heard that Jesus miraculously brought a dead man named Lazarus back to life is waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna!” - meaning “Save!” or “Save now!” That sounds promising until we realize that many of the same people were shouting “Crucify Him!” by the end of the week. What happened? In part, I think many of them were looking for a different kind of salvation. They wanted salvation from Roman occupation. They wanted an earthly “King of the Jews,” and once it became clear that was not Jesus’ agenda, they rejected Him. The same thing happens today. So many people come to Christ looking for salvation from something different, and actually less, than what Jesus has come to save us from. Jesus has come to save us from God’s condemnation. He has come to set us free from sin’s penalty (death), and it’s enslaving power over us. Just as the Israelites were hopelessly trapped in Egypt and utterly powerless to free themselves, all people - including each and everyone of us - are hopelessly trapped in sin until God miraculously saves those covered by the blood of His spotless Lamb, Jesus.

It is tragic when people come to Christ for financial salvation or marital salvation or some other salvation and use that as their basis for accepting or rejecting Him. A right relationship with God can and often does help with all of those matters. People following God’s lead become better stewards of their resources and experience improved financial health, for example. But - God invites us to receive peace with Him on His terms - not ours! He sets the agenda. In Luke’s account of this event, he records that Jesus wept over Jerusalem and lamented that they were not receiving God’s terms of peace. Here He was - the Prince of Peace - the King of kings - riding in on a colt (a custom for kings coming in peace vs. coming on war horses), and they were missing their God-given opportunity to escape spiritual bondage and ultimate condemnation. It was then, and it is now, a heart-breaking tragedy.

So, how does a person accept God’s terms of peace? Well, first we must understand them. God has graciously revealed in the Bible that He is the Creator, Sustainer, and rightful Ruler of everything that exist. He has also revealed that He created us to love us forever and to enjoy life under His benevolent rule and care. He calls all people to respond to His perfect love by loving Him and all other people all the time. What a world this would be if we did! Of course, we have all fallen extremely short of that mark. Most people have utterly ignored God and His right to rule their lives. Some angrily protest His rule. A few try to deny His existence, but all fail to always love Him and to love our neighbors the way we love ourselves. This is sin, and it destroys our peace with God, each other and creation. Thankfully, God is destroying sin and restoring His creation, and He is doing so in a way that frees even the guiltiest sinners who accept His terms of reconciliation.

Here they are: Each of us must recognize our guilt and need for a Savior. God repeatedly reveals in the Bible that we all are not only guilty of sin - we are all helplessly trapped in sin. So, first we admit our guilt and need. Next, we turn from sin and self-righteous attempts to earn God’s favor, and we turn instead to God to ask Him to forgive our sin against Him and to free us to live new lives for Him. So, second we beg for saving grace. Finally, we trust in and rely on the reality that God loved the world, including each of us, so much that He gave His only begotten Son so that everyone, including you, who believes in Him and receives Him to be their Savior and King will not perish but will instead have everlasting life in His name! So, understanding the term and the salvation Jesus (the sinless Son of God who bore sin’s penalty in our place) is offering, I pray you turn to Him now and cry, “Hosanna!”

Live the Life

Picture a cross being plunged into still water and sending out concentric waves. Consider everything inside the waves to be inside the Body of Christ and everything outside the expanding context of the waves to be outside the Body of Christ. Within the context of the outermost wave, the leading edge between the Body of Christ and the spiritually lost world, there are multiple other waves - each creating a smaller context within the other.

The point of the picture is this: I believe that God works in and through the church to create contexts that help people move forward in their relationship with God. It is God's work, but we are active participants in that work. We work by His empowerment under His direction to fulfill our role in creating these concentric contexts of spiritual growth.

With this in mind, SoundLife desires to be a growing God-centered church where:

• Love Leads (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)
• Truth Frees (John 8:31-32)
• Hope Heals (Romans 15:13)
• Faith Works (James 2:14 & 26)

Love is the proper leading edge between the church and the world. Everything that happens in the Body of Christ is meant to happen within the context of love. Consider truth. Truth frees within the context of love, but outside the context of love, truth can be devastating. If I know you love me and have my best interest at heart you can share difficult truth about me with me, and I will listen and prayerfully experience increasing freedom in that area. The same truth used against me outside the context of love will likely raise my defenses and drive me away. Tragically, too many churches lead with truth rather than love, and it drives people away from their only true hope. Speaking of which, briefly consider hope in it's proper context - truth. Just as truth belongs in love, hope belongs in truth. True hope heals, but the only hope outside the context of truth is false hope, which does not help anyone in real life. Finally, God-given faith works with joyful perseverence within the fueling context of hope, but it chokes in an atmosphere of hopelessness.

So, let's look at the commitments we need to make to fulfill our roles in creating these contexts of faith, hope, truth, and love. In order to "Live the Life" (that is the God-centered life that we believe God calls us to live), we commit to....

SHOW THE LOVE by reaching out to, welcoming and serving people from all backgrounds and stages of life.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."- John 13:34-35

SHARE THE TRUTH about God, His word, and ourselves with humility, kindness, and courage.

“Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ.”– Ephesians 4:15

BUILD THE BODY by actively giving our time and treasure to church and community group ministries.

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope…He gave…the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ… from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” – Ephesians 4:4, 11 & 16

SEND THE SERVANTS by going and helping others go to serve our neighbors and the nations for the advance of the Gospel.

“‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How then will they call on Him they have not believed? How will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent?”- Romans 10:13-15

If we will truly worship God and consistently show the love, share the truth, build the body, and send the servants, then I believe we will truly live God-centered lives together and fulfill the great mission God has given us. So, let's 'Live the Life' and watch in awe as God grows us into the God-exalting, life-transforming church that He is calling us to be!