MK040 Sermons
Seeing is Believing (Audio)
Last week, I spent a week of training out in a place called Glen Erie, which is in Colorado Springs, Denver, right at the base of the Rocky Mountains. We were about a mile from the Garden of the Gods for any of you that have ever traveled out that direction. We could see Pikes Peak when you walked out the door in the morning, just an absolutely spectacular location that we had to spend a week for training there. While we were there, one of the things we were told is there's some trails to hike, and there's some wildlife that you might be able to see when you're out there, so they said you might come across some turkey, wild turkey. So I've seen wild turkeys before, and I saw one there, and you might see some deer eating in the grass, and I've seen deer before, but they said you might see some big horn sheep. I've never seen big horn sheep out in the wild. So we went on a couple shorter hikes early in the week, and didn't see anything, and then about halfway through the week, one of the guys was out on a hike, and he actually came across a herd of big horn sheep, and took some video, and he had some cool video footage, and was shown as this video footage of these big horn sheep, but it wasn't just enough for me to hear that they were there and see somebody else's video footage. I actually wanted to see the big horn sheep, and so we went out on a hike the very next day, and we got to this crossroads, where up about 2,000 feet up, and we could see them down on a plateau, we could see a few of them down there, like how do we get them, like let's just go straight down, they're like that's not a good idea, you know, and so we wanted to round through some other trails, got lost, got off the trail, got back on the trail, and finally we came around the corner, and we saw, as we looked down, we saw another plateau with about 25 to 30 of these big horn sheep down there. And so we began to make our way down around the backside of them, and as we got down closer to closer, probably got within about 20, 25 yards of them, and then they started to move, and we were able to capture some footage of them, but I got to see them, and I got to be right up there, close to them, and watch them at function out in the wild, and it was a really, really amazing experience. And this morning we're going to talk about seeing, we're going to talk about believing, and for some of you, when you hear someone tell you something, you're like okay I believe it, and I'm good with that, and others of you are like no I'm not sure I believe it just because I heard it, I would like to see it, and so you might see some video evidence, or someone might show you a picture, and you're like okay I'm good, but others of you are like no I'm not good, I actually want to see it myself, I want to be there, I want to see it myself and experience that, and this morning we're going to look at three individuals that Jesus met, or they were confronted with the reality of Jesus being alive, and we're going to look at their response when they discovered that this morning. If you have your Bibles, if you would turn with me to John chapter 20, John chapter 20 is the passage that we're going to be at this morning, if you don't have a Bible our guys have some, and they'd love to pass them out to you so you can follow along, and John 20 is where we're going to be at this morning. John 20, and as you're turning there, let me just read you a few of the verses. It says early on the first day of the week while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciples, the one Jesus loved, and said they've taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they put him. So Peter and the other disciples started for the tomb, both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came up behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple had reached the tomb also, or first, also went inside. He saw and believed. Let me just tell you a little bit of what had happened. The way the story went is Jesus had died on the cross, and he had died on the cross, and after he had died, after he had pronounced those words, it is finished. The Bible says that he gave up his spirit, spirit left him. Two men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, they went to the Roman rulers, and they said, "Can we take his body down, and can we put his body in the tomb?" They said, "Why was that so critical?" Because sundown was about to happen, and from sundown on Friday evening until sundown on Saturday evening was the Sabbath. That's when the Jewish people could not do any work. They had to get the body down off the cross, which was not an easy task to accomplish, and then get the body into the tomb. The Bible tells us that they wrapped the body in 75 pounds of cloth, and put Murr and Aloe on that literally to mummify the body. They took the body, and they put it in a tomb that had not been used before. It was a tomb that had been carved out of something in the ground, but often in the side of a cliff. They would carve out the inside of this cliff, and inside they would carve it off, and there would be a shelf in which they would prepare the body inside this tomb-like area. After they put the body on the shelf, there would be little tubes that they would then slide the bodies in all over this wall, and that would be the family crypt, if you will. So no body had been placed into this tomb at that point in time. And so Joseph and Nicodemus, they got the body ready, and as the sun was setting, they likely were not completely finished with this task, and so they left the body there, rolled the stone over in front of the tomb, and then went away. As the story goes on to say, Mary Magdalene then approached the tomb. It was now Sunday morning. She and some of the women had gotten up, had decided they would go back, either the men had not finished the job, or had not finished the job to the women's satisfaction. I'm not sure which it was, but we'll leave that question unanswered. But they went back to this tomb, and the other accounts of this happening tell us that they were wondering, "How are we going to move this stone from the front of the tomb?" You see, likely the tomb was, there was a little gully made there, so the stone would rest in the tomb and stay in place. And so they're trying to figure out how they would do this. In all likelihood, a gardener or one or two men with a lever in there could have lifted, could have put a little pressure, and got that stone up out of that small gully there, but the women themselves were not able to do that. So that was their concern as they came. And so as they got there, they were quite surprised to see the stone moved, and they didn't even look, they didn't even examine the location. They just took off running back to where the other followers of Jesus were located. Guys, can I switch to another mic here? It sounds like we're pretty scratchy. I'm just going to switch to one of these. How's that? That's better. So as they switched, as they ran into this place, look at what they said there in verse two. It says, "They came running, and this, look at what they said. They've taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they put him. They didn't say he has risen. They didn't say he is alive. They didn't say that at all. And you kind of left scratching your head thinking, didn't they know that that's what was supposed to happen? But that's not what they thought. They assumed that the body had been taken. Why did they assume that? Well, because in those days, as in any day, if there could be claims that this individual was no longer dead, but he was alive, but his body wasn't in the tomb, then the followers could give credence to that. Well, this story goes on. Peter and the other disciples started running, and I have to assume the other disciple who we know to be John, who wrote this book, maybe a little younger. He out-spended Peter, but not as confident as Peter. And so he just stuck his head around the corner, and all he could see was some of the cloths laying there, these 75 pounds of cloth, not with the body in them, but flat on this shelf. That's all John could see. Peter came running likely out of breath, you know, up to the tomb, ran into John, ran past John, knocked him over, and then as confident Peter always was, got right in there and saw that not only were the linens there, but the cloth that covered his face was there as well. John, seeing Peter's confidence, follows him into the tomb, and it says there in verse 8. It says he went inside, and notice what it says, it says he saw, and he believed. He saw and believed. Now, before we go any further, I want to talk about this idea of belief, because we tend to think of belief as simply information that I know and understand. You know, I believe that that math problem, that's the way you work out this, I know how to do that math problem, or I believe this historical fact that I did not know before. My daughter teaches history, she's always telling us these random facts about, "Oh, I didn't know that before, now she tells us, now we know." But belief is something more than that. Belief is something more than that. Belief is a confident trust. Now, how many of you in this room, when you went out this morning and put your key in your ignition, or you pushed the button in your ignition, how many of you wondered if your car was going to start? Okay, I got one hand there, okay, he's probably in college, you know, never know if it's going to run or not, you know, we've all been there. But most of us, the majority of this room, nearly every single person in this room, almost 100%, we had what? We had confident trust that that car was going to start. We believed that that car was going to start, right? I mean, for me to say that I trust this stool, I not only have to lean on this stool, but I have to be willing to take my feet off the ground and sit completely on this stool, which it will hold me, I tested it before, to demonstrate that I want, that I believe in this stool, that I have confident trust in this stool. And so when we talk about believe, and when John records a sense and says, "I saw," and I believe, it's not just, "Oh, I discovered something I did not know before." It is a confident trust, a confident trust. You say a confident trust in what, or in who? Confident trust. Well, I think for John, what he had a confident trust in, he had a confident trust that this person, Jesus, was the person that he said that he was. You see, John likely was a teenager. He was likely between the ages of 14 and 16 when he started following Jesus. You say, "Why would someone that young want to follow Jesus?" Well, imagine, if you will, that you are in high school and someone who is doing what you would like to do professionally, invites you to come and work for them, and they are at the top of their field. Are you going to question them? No, you're going to say, "When do I show up?" That's what you're going to do, and that's what John did. But John along the way heard Jesus say things like, "I am the living water. I am the bread of life. I am the good shepherd. I am the eternal one." Her Jesus say, "I am the living vine." Her Jesus say, "I am the resurrection in the life." Her Jesus say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." And he believed it. And what happened with John, I believe at that moment in time, is all of the evidence that he had been seeing, all of the things that he had observed about Jesus, all of a sudden at that moment, I may have clicked. And he realized, "This guy is who he says. He is. He's the Messiah. He is the Messiah." Notice verse 9, and remember John wrote this. Look what he says in verse 9, he says, "They still did not understand from the Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead." Quite an admission by John. "I believe, but I still didn't get it all. Still didn't get it." But that's what he said. He said, "I didn't have to know everything. I didn't even have all this stuff sorted out and figured out and organized in a system that I could clearly explain." But I knew, I believed that he was who he said he was. That was my experience as a young child. I had who Jesus was explained to me. I had someone clearly explained to me that I was a sinner, that I did sinful things, which that wasn't a hard one to figure out. I kind of knew that even as a kid. And yet I understood for the first time that it was my sin that kept me from a relationship with God, who created me, who made me, who loved me. And the only way I could have that relationship within is I had to do something about this sin in my life, and the only way that could happen is to accept what Jesus did on the cross for me. And I heard the evidence, and I believed. And that's what John did. Well, the story continues in verse 11. It says there, "Now Mary stood outside the tomb, crying. Obviously Mary had made her way back to the tomb." Let me tell you a little bit about Mary. Mary is a woman who we know a little bit about. She was a woman that the Bible tells us in, I believe it's in Luke chapter 7 or chapter 8, that she was possessed by 7 or 8. What this means is that she had spirits controlling her body, deciding what she was going to do, and where she was going to go, and how she was going to act. She was not free. She was under someone else's control. Until she met Jesus. And when she met Jesus, she was freed. She was rescued. She was saved. She was delivered. She didn't know all the reasons. She didn't know all the theological truth about Jesus. She didn't know all these things that he had said, John. All she knew is that she was once in bondage, and she was once a slave, and now she was free. That's all she knew. And she said, "This guy has changed my life, and I'm going to give up everything, and I'm going to go and follow him." And the Bible records that she, along with other women, followed Jesus, and likely from their income, they helped us support the group of individuals that were following Jesus. The Bible tells us, and earlier in John's Gospel, he says that when Jesus was there hanging on the cross, she was there at the foot of the cross. And you remember all of Jesus' disciples had ran away. Only this woman who had been rescued by Jesus was there. And she was devastated. She was devastated. You don't read about Peter and John and them shedding tears. You read about Mary, a woman whose heart had been saved, but now whose heart was aching. As Johnny said earlier, even if we know the reality that there's more to this life, that God has put eternity in our hearts, and we know that there's more beyond what we can see and touch here. When we lose someone we love, when we lose someone who has loved us, our hearts ache. And that was Mary's condition. The story goes on that as she's standing there crying, she decides to kind of peer into the tomb. And what does she see? But she sees two angels. I always wonder how they knew they were angels, but somehow they knew that they were angels. And they said, "Woman, why are you crying? This was obvious. This was visible. This was not, you know, kind of, you know, this was a woman who was weeping noticeably." Look what Mary says, "They've taken my Lord away, and I don't know where they put him. No sense that he's alive. No sense that he rose from the dead. All she knows is the one who rescued her. The one who saved her is gone." At this moment she turned around, and John records that she saw Jesus, but she didn't recognize him. Whether because her head was down, because she was weeping, whether her eyes were misty, because she was overwhelmed with grief, whether he was standing off in the shadows, she didn't recognize him at all. And she simply says to him, or he asks, "Her woman, why are you crying? Who is it you're looking for?" She did not recognize his voice in the midst of her grief. For the third time she says, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you put him, and I will get him." There's a little bit more intensity that I sense from Mary in this moment in time. If you have carried away, I will go and get him. She said, "I will do whatever it takes to just bring back the body of the one I love, the one who rescued me, the one who saved me, just so he can have a decent burial." Jesus turned and said to her, "Mary." That's all he said. "Mary." There's something powerful about hearing the spoken word. This past week I connected with some individuals that I had met at a training down in North Carolina last summer, and we reconnected people from different parts of the country, enjoyed some time with one another, learning, growing, being stretched. So a bunch of us were on Facebook, just on Facebook Messenger, and we were sending some messages back and forth about just some things that were going on in our lives. I don't know how they did this. Maybe someone can show me afterwards, but somehow they were able to record a short message and actually put it there in Facebook Messenger. So when I tapped it, I could hear their voice. I don't know how they did it, but they did it. I was like, "Wow, that's JR. Wow, that's Pam. Wow, that's Michelle." I recognized their voices instantly when I heard it. And instantly when I heard their voice, even though we had been texting back and forth a number of messages, it changed. I remembered them. I remembered them. And there's something about when Jesus said Mary's name that instantly she remembered and recognized Him. The one that had saved her, the one that had rescued her, the one that had delivered her from this bondage, from this change that no one else had been able to save her from. She heard her voice and she realized it was Jesus. She goes on to say Rabona, which means teacher, and then Jesus says, "Don't hold on to me for I've not yet ascended. Go instead to my brothers and tell them I'm ascending my father and your father into my God and your God." She literally says, "There's still more." Jesus says, "There's still more that I have to go and do." But notice what it says when she goes to tell them in verse 18. What does she say? She says, "I have seen the Lord. I have seen the Lord." And it's amazing to me because even though John had to see the evidence and he had to look at all the evidence and instantly the evidence all came together for Mary, it was something deep inside of her heart. Where she didn't know where to turn, she didn't know who to turn to, and the only place she could turn was Jesus. And when she saw him, it all came together for her. Not just an emotional response in the moment, but this was the one that she loved. This was the woman that she loved. And maybe for some of you, that's your story. Maybe for some of you, that's where you are. When you're at this place and you don't know where to turn relationally, you don't know where to turn financially, you don't know where to turn professionally. You don't even know why you're here this morning other than someone promised you Easter dinner afterwards. You know, but you're like Mary where you don't know where else to turn and your heart is broken and you're willing to turn to Jesus this morning. The story continues and what happened next is the disciples gathered together in a room and it says that they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. You say, "Why were they afraid of the Jewish leaders?" Well, think about it with me. What do we know about our military and how our military handles threats to our freedom and our security? When they know there's a militant group out there, who's the first person that they target in that militant group? Who's the person they target? Person at the top, right? The leader. The leader. The person at the top of the chart. They want that person taken out because they know when there's a loss of leadership that the movement and the threat is greatly reduced. But what do they do next? Then they've got the second level of generals and those individuals that report to the leader and they're next in line. And the disciples feared that once Jesus was gone that the Jewish leaders were coming after them next. And so they were in this room. They were scared. They did not know what was going to happen. And the Bible tells us when they're there in this upper room that Jesus appeared to them. Don't know how it happened. Don't know how it took place. It just did. But they were thrilled. They were excited. They were overjoyed. The one that they were following, he was alive. But there was one individual and he gave them some instructions about what was going to be happening next. One of the followers was not there and he was a man by the name of Thomas. And so they all went back and they said, Thomas, you're not going to believe what happened. We saw Jesus and Thomas is like, really? Thomas is like, sorry guys. I don't believe it. Look what it says in verse 24. Now Thomas, one of the twelve was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples said, we have seen the Lord. They also saw Jesus. But Thomas said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. For some of us makes Thomas sound a little, almost a little arrogant. I will not believe. But let me tell you a little bit more about Thomas. Thomas was like John in that he was one of the first groups that followed Jesus. And in John chapter 11, the story is told where Thomas said, God Jesus, wherever you're going to go, I'll go. If that even means giving up my life, I'm in, I'm in. But then you start to get this sense as you read more and more about Thomas. And after jumping in, he began to have some second thoughts. And he began to wonder, what is this all about? A little bit later in John 14, after Jesus makes this amazing statement, he says, I am the way, the truth in the life. No one comes to God except through me. Thomas said, Jesus, can you tell me where we're going and how we're going to get there? Because I don't have any idea about this stuff. Everybody else is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thomas is like, what in the world are we talking about here? And then they come back and say, we've seen him. He's alive. We've seen him. He's alive. And Thomas says, I haven't seen him. I haven't seen him. And I'm not going to believe until I can see. There's that word again. Until I can see the nail prints in his hands. I'm not going to believe until I can touch his side where the soldier's spear went in. I'm not going to believe. And a lot of time we give Thomas a bad rap. Anybody know what Thomas is called? He's called what? Douting Thomas. But we forget that Thomas was once all in. Thomas's story is like a lot of people's story. More so, I think, than John's and Mary's. Because there's a lot of people that at some point in their lives are like, yeah, I'm all in and they're like, ugh. But I prayed and you didn't answer my prayer. And you took this person from me that was so meaningful in my life. And I needed this and you didn't come through for me. And what I wanted was a good thing and it didn't work out. You're like, I don't know if I believe all that. But I think Thomas's story is much more like our story than any of these other stories. For many people in the community that we live in. Many people who are raised with some type of religious background. Some type of religious experience. Some place they were dragged to as a kid and maybe made some kind of decision or prayed some kind of prayer. But now they're just loaded up with questions and they don't know what to do with them. And they're scared to ask because they don't know how God will respond. Well, it says a week later that disciples were in the house again. Can you imagine what that week was like for Thomas? I mean, the twelve closest people in his life? One's gone, that's Judas. The other ten are like, come on, dude, what's up with you? Can't you just listen to us and agree with us? Can't you just believe? He's like, nope. Gotta see it to believe it. Nope. Gotta see it to believe it. Probably felt pretty ostracized. Left out. It goes on to say there in verse 26, Thomas was with them. And then through the lock doors, Jesus came and stood among them and again said, "Peace be with you." And then he turned to Thomas and remarkably, he said the exact same words that Thomas had uttered. He said, "Thomas, I want you to see the nail prints in my hand. Put your finger here. I want you to reach out your hand and put it into my side." At that moment in time, in the middle of all of his doubts, in the middle of all of his questions, Jesus showed up in Thomas' life. It's scary and uncertain if you're wrestling with doubts. If someone you love, someone you care deeply about is wrestling with doubts. But I have grown to this place in my own journey to know that if someone is wrestling with doubts, that God will show up in their life in an unmistakable way, that there is no question that it's God. And their doubts turn to faith and belief and the confidence. Look at what Jesus then invited Thomas to do. He said, "Stop doubting and belief." Literally, he said, "Move from your disbelief to believe." He said, "I want you to put your complete confidence, your complete trust in me, in me." Notice Thomas' response forwards. Look at what he said. He said, "My Lord, my God." Ironically, none of the other disciples made that statement. None of the other disciples uttered this statement, "My Lord and my God." And I wonder if for Thomas there was something about that moment in time where there was this awakening in his spirit, this realization that all of these doubts, even if he didn't have them all answered completely, that God had shown up in his life. And in that moment of time, no matter what else was going on in his life, he was going to turn his life over to God, turn his life over to Jesus, let him be the ruler, let him be the Lord, let him be the king of his life for the rest of his days. And there's this deep-seeded, at the core, committed devotion to Jesus that nothing was going to change. Three individuals, one that saw the evidence, logical thinker, rational thinker, sequential thinker, all the facts lined up, he believed. Mary, someone whose heart was aching, desperate, broken, looking for someone to rescue her, Jesus showed up. Thomas once in, but now tons of questions, not sure what to do with all of them. But God showed up, and he also saw, and he believed. Look at how Jesus ends this section. He says in verse 29, "Because you have seen me," there's that phrase again, "You have believed." But notice what he says, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." You know, that last phrase affects every single person in this room, because in this life, we won't see Jesus. I believe, and I think the Bible's clear about this, that he's in heaven with God right now, interceding the prayers of those that follow him, preparing for a day when he will be seen on this earth. But he said, "For those individuals that say, 'You know, I'm ready, I'm ready.'" I've seen all the facts, and they've lined up, and I believe. My heart is broken, there's nowhere else to turn, I have no other hope, I have no other answers, I have no other place in this life. I believe, or I was all in and I've got tons of questions, but God showed up in my life in a way that is undeniable. Today, I believe. I don't know where you're at in your journey. One of the things that we encourage people here at CCC is to be honest about where you're at in your journey. The truth is, God knows where you are. God knows if you're at one of these three places this morning. And he simply says, "I just want you to be honest with me about where you are." And we believe, no matter where you are, that God is going to meet you there. And God is going to walk with you in his time, in his plan, for you to come to a place of believing him. Notice the first day that Thomas didn't believe Jesus didn't show up the next day. It was a whole week later before he showed up. So we don't know when, or we don't know where, or we don't know how God's going to show up in your life, but we believe that he will. I want to ask if you would just, if you would close your eyes and just take a moment to talk to God. Just to be honest about where you are in your journey right now. Which of those three individuals can you identify the most with? If you're at the place in your journey where you've seen and you do believe, this morning is an opportunity just for you to thank God for that that he showed up in your life. Maybe you got questions and maybe you just need to know that questions are okay with God. But know this, he loves you, he gave a son for you, and even if the questions aren't all clear right now, he invites you to decide if you want to believe in him. You want to say I don't get it all, but I know I can't make this life work alone and that I need Jesus. God I thank you that this morning we can celebrate a risen Savior, a risen Lord. And as we've looked at the stories of three different people who wrestled with believing and seeing, pray God that we've seen ourselves in those stories. And that if you have met us in our story that we have great reason to celebrate today, and if we've still got questions and uncertainties that we leave with great hope, then you're an amazing God who offers relationship with us, an invitation to believe in your Son Jesus. [BLANK_AUDIO]