You sound great, thank you. What's talking to the kids about just a little while ago about giving? What is this? I asked them about that. The question is that giving really is at the heart of the gospel. If you think about it, and we often talk about things like people who will donate blood or organ donors, is the gift that keeps on giving. I think about the heart of the gospel, how much it is a matter of giving. God gives us life. He gives us this incredible world in which to live our lives. And we are given choices, moral choices. We are given the choice between right and wrong, good, bad, and so forth. And the ability to make those choices. All these things God has given us. And when we sin, and we all do, the Bible is quite clear that all have sined. I'm sure the glory of God. God gives us then a means of redemption. He gives us a way of salvation for all of us who have fallen and have become estranged from an enemies of God. He gives us a way of salvation. Stay in this passage this morning. By the way, you have in your bulletin, John 20, 19 through 31, this passage is so loaded. And so theologically bent that I'm going to stop at verse 23. And this will take more than one week to get through it. But as I studied the passage this week, and I read the commentaries, and I just try to have steeped myself in the passage, the nature of God's giving and giving and giving kept coming through to me. So let's read the passage together and then we'll talk about it. John 20 verse 19, on the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. After he had said this, he showed them his hands inside. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again, Jesus said, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone, his sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. Let's pray together. Father, I am very grateful this morning for the fact that you are a giving God. You give us all good gifts. And then you give us the second chance and a third and a tenth and a hundredth. And you continue to give us the new chance of redemption. The immerses are new every morning. Thank you, Father, for all you're giving us. Thank you most especially now for the Word of God. The written Word of God, that we can look at, we can study, we can take it from the page. And allow you to write it on the tablets of our hearts. And I thank you for the living Word, Jesus. I pray Lord that He would be lifted up and glorified and made evident now in the preaching of the Word and that we would, each and every one of us, leave this place, more conform to His image. The Word we got here, just by being together with our brothers and sisters in Christ, lifting up our praises, our offerings, our prayers, and by the reading and the preaching of the Word of God that we would be more and more conform to His image this day is my prayer in His name. Amen. Let me set the context for you. If you haven't been here for a while or maybe it's first time or you're not used to this kind of in-depth study of the Word of God, we're almost at the end of John's gospel. We started this over two years ago. We've taken a lot of breaks to address other issues and other subjects. Over two years ago we began looking at John's gospel. We're now at the end of the gospel. Jesus has gone through the last supper. He has been betrayed, arrested, tried, scourged, crucified. He was dead, buried in the grave for the three days. And now, risen again last Sunday, we celebrated Easter, our Resurrection Sunday. And the tomb was empty and Jesus made and John tells us about an appearance to Mary Magdalene. But he's not made his appearance to the disciples yet until the evening of that first day of the week when he appears in their midst. And he gives him this first gift, he gives him the gift of peace. On the evening of that first day of the week, the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews. I mean, they'd seen what they did to Jesus. They had no reason to believe they wouldn't come and do the same to all of them. Doors locked for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Hebrews, Shalom on him. Peace be with you. Put yourself in the place of the disciples. We did just for a few moments. What was the last interaction? What was the last encounters they had had with Jesus? Thursday night, the supper, the garden of Gisemini, falling asleep. The trail, the soldiers came, what had they done? They had scattered to either homes or other hiding places in Jerusalem. Peter had denied him. They had abandoned and deserted him. And now he stands in their midst in this locked room that they're closed in for fear of the Jews. And he stands in their midst. If you're one of the disciples, what would you expect to hear from Jesus at that point? What would you expect would be his response toward you? Anger, maybe. Rebuke, disapproval, maybe even scorn and rejection. I mean, look what they had done. And instead, Shalom, peace be with you. I bet they were overjoyed. Leaved, I bet they were overjoyed. And think of all they'd been through. And the last is just 72 hours for them. They've had everything that they've worked for. Everything they believed in all their hopes, all their dreams. This man, they put all their faith in and followed him for three years. And now he's been struck down, killed. They've been scattered and dispersed. Everything they'd hoped for annihilated. And then he's there. And then he's back saying, Shalom of him, peace be with you. What have you done? Did you think it's put you beyond the reach of God's grace? What have you ever done or said or thought? Or not done or not said or not thought? What have you done that you thought put you beyond the reach of the forgiveness of Jesus? Beyond the reach of the grace of God? His word to you inside that lock and fortified citadel of fear and guilt and shame. He appears to us in our midst and he says to us, Shalom. Peace be with you. That's good news folks. This is good news. He moves into our lives and instead of more fear and guilt and shame. He says peace, peace be with you. I've told you my story before and I won't tell you the whole long story again. I mean, it's not that long but teenager. If you'd known me back then you would have thought it was a good kid. Great family, decent student, okay, athlete. Thought I had things going for me. But inside in here boy, empty and turmoil. Part of it probably because my dad was in the air force and moved around a lot. Every time I'd get settled in one place we'd move and go someplace else. That probably was part of it. But all that really did was just triggered the emptiness in here. And I would lie awake at night and wrestle with God. And want more than anything to have peace with God. And I knew no peace until as a teenager and a youth speaker at the church I grew up in. Well, grew up good every now and then, you know, Christmas Easter. Like some of you. And I grew up in this church and a youth group speaker one night told us that the way to have peace was to find Jesus, was to see Christ as Lord. And I see Christ as Lord. And I can tell you, without fear of being dishonest to the soil or a background integrity that in all the years since then, the turmoil in the chaos and the tough times. And we've had him. I've had him. My family's had him. There's still underneath it all that safety net of knowing that no matter what he'll make it okay either in this life or the life to come. He'll make it okay. The peace that goes beyond understanding. Look at verse 20 again. After he said this, he showed them his hands inside the disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. And again, Jesus said, peace be with you. This is Jesus's resurrected body. What was it like? Really, really no. Because obviously recognizable. I mean, they knew it was Jesus. They knew who he was at first, but they weren't sure what form he was taking. Some of the other gospels say they thought he was a ghost and then he shows them the wounds, the scars, his hands, his feet, placed inside with a spirit gone in, the puncture marks on the top of his head and that crown of thorns. So his glorified body, his resurrected body is recognizable, but it's different. It can dematerialize and rematerialize for you. Harry Potter fans, he disapparates and then re-apparates. We don't know how we're not told just all of a sudden he's in their midst inside this locked and closed room. Recognizable and yet made different somehow some ways. I've heard it said before, the only man made things that will be in heaven. The only man made things that will be in heaven are the scars and Jesus's hands and his feet and his side and his head. Peace, he says to them. You know, everyone of Paul's letters, the Apostle Paul, who knew a little bit about turmoil, who knew a little bit about pain and rejection and ostracism. Every single one of his letters has in his greeting peace, grace and peace to you. Peace. First thing Jesus gives them, he gives them the gift of peace and then he gives them a task. He speaks to them of mission. He gives them a gift of peace and he gives them a task, mission, verse 21. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. This is an echo of what he said in his prayer back in John chapter 17, verse 18. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. How did the Father send Jesus into the world? We can use a lot of descriptive terms. This is where I asked the question how that I'll be average. We could say the Father sent Jesus into the world joyfully. He sent him into the world courageously. We could say he sent Jesus into the world unconventionally. All those are true. I'm going to focus in on three others. How did the Father send his son into the world? First thing I would say to you is he sent his son into the world purposefully, purposefully. In the eternal covenant and the counsel of the Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, they did not call the counsel and the Father said to his son, son, go down there and do some good things. Just go down there and do some good things. Go down there and teach some great lessons and heal some people and feed some masses and help a little lady's grocery. Just go down there and see if you can do a few good things. Now he said, son, our planet is dying. Our people are lost. I want you to go save them. What was his mission? What was his purpose? Luke summarized it very succinctly in Luke 19 and verse 10, for the son of man came to seek and to save what was lost. That's why he came. He taught great lessons. He healed the masses. He fed the masses. He healed the individuals. He fed the masses. He helped people. He did miracles. He came though to seek and to save what was lost. We really believe this. Do we really believe Jesus is that son of man that his purpose in coming was to search for and to find what was lost and that outside of Christ? That includes us. Outside of Christ we are what was lost. We are that which he came to seek and to save. We are outside of Christ. We are without hope, without God in this world, but for the atoning death of Jesus and Nazareth on across two thousand years ago. Do we really believe this? He came for this very specific purpose. He didn't come to be a role model, although he's the greatest role model anybody could ever have. He didn't come just to be a great teacher, although he's the most dynamic teacher this planet has ever known. He came specifically to die on a cross as the atoning sacrifice for your sins and mine. Ladies and gentlemen, listen. The cross is the end of the idea of Jesus as merely a great example. I will talk with people often about what it means to be a Christian and quite often they will say nice to me about what church membership. Church membership is great. That's not what it means to be a Christian. Unfortunately, the sad truth is churches all over this country around the world are full of people who have names on membership roles. They have no clue what it means to know Christ. I pray that's not the case here. We try very hard to make sure nobody joins this church without knowing Christ as Lord, but it's possible. Church membership is great. I'm for church membership. That's not what it means to be a Christian. I'll ask them what else it might mean to follow Christ and know Jesus. They say, will they obey the 10 commandments? I'm all four obeying the 10 commandments. I live in Miami with you. I hope you obey the 10 commandments. I'll give them my best shot as well, especially when we're driving on us one together. I really want you to be a commandment follower then and do unto others and all the rest. That's not what it means to follow Christ and even if it did, Bible is quite clear. None of us do it. Not one of us follows all 10 commandments, not one. So I ask people, okay, if that's what it means to follow Christ and know Jesus is to obey the commandments, then what was the cross of Christ for? What was the cross for? And more often than not, I'll just get these blank looks. Because if you could be good, if you could be a church member, if you could obey the commandments, if you could do those things, why do you have to die? The cross of Christ is or should be the end of the idea of Jesus is merely a great example. DM Sterns was a pastor in Philadelphia for a number of years. He's preaching one time in Philadelphia. The clothes of the service, a stranger came up to him and said, I don't like the way you spoke about the cross. I think that instead of emphasizing the death of Christ, it would be better to preach Jesus to teach you an example. And pastor Stern said to this man, if I presented Christ in that way, would you be willing to follow him? The man said, I certainly would. All right then, said pastor Sterns, let's take the first step. He did no sin. Can you claim that for yourself? The stranger looked confused and was surprised and he said, no, I acknowledge that I do sin. Pastor Stern replied, then your greatest need is not to have an example for a savior. You don't need an example. You need a savior. Jesus was so devoted to his mission that he walked into a certain brutal death to accomplish that. I was just watching on the news the other day. And this is just for which the shroud of turn is on display again in the town of Torino and Italy. I don't know if it's the burial shroud of Christ. There are parts that you look at and you think, when it sure looks like it is and there are other aspects that you say, well, maybe not. My faith doesn't hang on whether it's the burial cloth of Christ. If it is, it's marvelous testimony, wouldn't it? But it's not well okay. One of the reporters that are talking about it said, this burial cloth of Christ certainly shows the evidences of a man who had been brutally tortured and then crucified. It's not Jesus, you got to wonder who is it? That's what Jesus walked into. When he was born in Bethlehem, when he grew up around Nazareth, when he increased to wisdom and stature in favour of God and men, when he taught those lessons when he healed people and he fed the masses, when he performed miracles, when he raised those others from the dead, he did that knowing that the end of his life would be on a cross. He was committed to his mission. The father sent him purposely, father sent him sacrificially. He went into hostile territory, did he not? His own didn't recognize him, he didn't receive him. We are sent into increasing the hostile territory in a culture, are we not? We now live in a culture that for a long time was normally Christian, at least nominally Christian. The rank and father passed majority of Americans from the foundations of the country and before we would have said they were Christians even today, the majority of people will profess to be Christians. But we live in a time where now people no longer, just if they're not Christians, they don't just disagree with us. They don't not only disagree with us, they resent us for believing what we believe and many believe we don't even have the right to believe these things anymore. And we certainly shouldn't be talking about them. Last October, the Congress passed what was called hate crimes legislation. It was tucked into the National Defense Authorization Act. It's tucked into another bill that you couldn't vote against it. So they tucked into the National Defense Authorization Act, the hate crimes bill, which makes it quite possible, I want you to hear me say this, makes it quite possible that they may come when pastors like myself, if we preach what the Bible says about things like marriage and homosexuality and same sex marriage and so forth. Again, with no hate, I don't hate, but if we faithfully present with the gospel, what the Bible says about it, the time may come where pastors in this country may be arrested for hate speech. That's the way this culture is drifting if we don't find a way to reverse it. It costs to be a Christian, it always has. It has always cost the follower of Christ time, money. The option to always get your own way. When you come to Christ, you lay that down. It costs ladies and gentlemen dying to self. Here's where Jesus is our great model. Yes, He's our Savior, but He is also our great model. Philippians chapter 2, verse 5, Paul writes, had this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. 2, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond servant, and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. It's where my favorite hymns see from His head, His hands, His feet. Sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did air such love and sorrow meet or a thorn's compose so rich a crown? When I survey the wonders cross, He emptied Himself of what did He emptied Himself, ladies and gentlemen? His divinity? No, He still got the empty Himself of His righteousness? No? Still perfectly righteous? Did He empty Himself of His power to forgive sins or to heal the sick or raise the dead? No, obviously not. No. He emptied Himself. He set aside His privileges, His rights to be treated as God. Why would He do that? Why would He come so sacrifcially? Why does a husband get up in the middle of the night and go to the drugstore for a sick wife? Well, you might answer well, He better. Why does He do that? Why does a mother, step all night, the sick child night after night? Why do people agree to be kidney donors and bone marrow donors for their loved ones and their friends? Why does a soldier go off to fight a war? They all do it for the simple reason there is something. There is someone else they love more than they love their own lives. Something someone else we love, more than our own lives. And that's why Jesus came. He came to sacrifice Himself for the sake of the world, for those who would respond to the gospel call. He calls us to lay down our lives for others as well. It isn't always comfortable and it will not always make me happy, but it will make me faithful. And it will bring glory to God. The Father sends His Son to the world purposefully, sacrifcially, and He sends His Son to the world incarnationally. The end coronationally, the word made flesh. This is where it all comes together, folks. Everything that Jesus was and is everything He did and He does, He's one of us. He is one of us, the scandal of the gospel that in Christ the word became flesh and dwelt among us. God, as a Jewish man, as a peasant, a commoner, a baby born to common parents and a tiny town, an insignificant little otherwise, insignificant little country in the ancient Near East, the scandal of the gospel in Christ, the word was made flesh, folks, not stained glass. He was born in a stable, not sanctuary. He grew up in a real family. He had real parents, real brothers and maybe sisters are not sure, but we certainly had brothers. He went to real weddings and real funerals. He drank real wine. She had real tears. He worked a real job, and when he overdid it, he got calluses. In the carbonary shop that the tool slipped, he cut himself. He bled real blood. He had really sore muscles. He had real friends. He had real enemies. And he identifies with us incarnationally. He was, and he is one of us. And in doing so and coming incarnationally and working that job and growing up in that family, he lays claim to all of life. Not one aspect, not one square intercretion over which Christ does not cry. This is mine. It's all mine. All of life on this planet is his rightful domain. And that night, that clothes and that locker room, he declared his intention to send us as he himself was sent. Our hands are his hands are feeders, feeders, words are his words as we seek to incarnate the gospel for a cynical world. Don't believe what we say anymore, folks. They really don't. But there is no denying what it is we do when we incarnate. Christ himself, as we go and we extend his ministry to the others in this world, there's no denying the servanthood of one who is committed to follow Jesus. As we go to not only tell the good news, but to be the good news, to loss and dying world that's desperate to hear that good news. That's our mission as individual Christians. That's our mission as a church to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That's what we do in here on Sunday mornings, corporally, we should be doing individually throughout the week. To build one another up, to encourage one another, come alongside Sunday mornings, yes, but also between Sundays, to put an arm around his shoulders to say how you do it, man. You struggle and so am I. We'll share our struggles together. We'll share our successes together. We'll encourage one another to build one another up, to build up the body of Christ, to advance his kingdom into the kingdoms of this world as we go as we share our stories with other people. This is what I was. This is what happened to me. This is what I am now. Perfect, hardly. But safe, forgiven, and redeemed. That's our story and share that story with others. As you are faithful to your wife, as you're a good faithful wife to your husband, as you are a loving parent who puts the needs of your children before your own, as you're honest on your jobs, as you do your job with integrity. You advance this kingdom when you refuse to cut that ethical corner to take the easier out because everybody else is doing it. We advance his kingdom in small steps and in large in silent ways and in ways that scream loudly. You'll notice that none of this is here to make me feel comfortable. I want to comfort. I wouldn't be here this morning. I want to comfort. I wouldn't do this and neither would you. None of this is here to make us feel comfortable. Let me ask you a question. Has following Christ caused you to do anything this week that you would not have done otherwise? Well, cause you not to do something this week that you would have done. Has following Christ caused you to inconvenience yourself in any way this week, this month, this year, ever, following Christ doesn't make us comfortable, makes us faithful. Sanctification without sacrifice is the modern evangelical heresy. The thing that we can follow Christ without making any changes in our lifestyles is the modern evangelical heresy. We need to repent of it. I was thinking this week praying against all odds that they would find those four last miners. They didn't know where they were. They thought they might have gotten in one of those safe areas and they couldn't find them and could make contact. And they tried to go in to that contaminated mind full of poisonous methane and the highly combustible mixture of the elements in there. God bless the miners. I cannot imagine spending my life 8 and 10 hours a day underground the way they do. But praise God, we've got electricity in here, largely because of men like that. And maybe women too, I don't know. But as I was praying, asking God, please God, please let them find this far before I give them that. Just give them that. But it occurred to me that as those rescue teams and then recover teams, as they would go into those minds fitted with the gas mass and go into those contaminated. Knowing that it could be fatal for them as well. And then they failed to recover anybody alive. I thought what a picture of what Christ has done for us. He enters into our underground, if you will, of this contamination zone. It's toxic. It's poisonous. For all they got to enter a simple plan like this. And he comes in to the difference between him and what we saw this past week is he accomplishes his mission. He rescues the ones, he comes to rescue. He goes in there, he leads out the ones that he came rescue. And then he himself is crushed in the recovery and rescue process. That's what he did for us. And he knew going in. He knew going in that would cost him his life. But he did it. He did it for us anyway. He sends us as he was sent. He sends us purposefully. He sends us sacrificially. He sends us incarnationally. He gives us the gift of peace. He gives us a task, a mission. I'm going to stop for this morning here. Next week we're going to pick it up if he gives them the power to do it. And the Holy Spirit. He gives them the power and the Holy Spirit. And he also gives them the authority to forgive. He gives them the authority to forgive sin. I'm telling you, this passage is loaded, folks. It's packed and that's why I want to take more than one week with it. So we'll stop here for this morning and I encourage you back here for part two next week because we look at these gifts that keep on giving and what Christ has come and given us people. Let's pray together. Father, I don't begin to understand the love that would send your son into our underground, our disaster. Knowing he would come and leave his people to life, he would leave his people who would rescue us from the catastrophe of our lives of the simple planet, the toxic planet, but at the cost of his own life. Lord, we don't begin to understand it but we receive it. We're thankful for, we're grateful for it. And I pray this day that you would help us to realize that he has sent us. He sent us purposefully. He sent us sacrificially and he sends us incarnation and to move into the lives of lost and hurting and dying people. But not only tell the good news, but to be the good news, I pray that we would do that this day. Pray it in his name. Amen. Well, amen again. We thank you for being here today and we thank you for being here as part of your service of worship on this the Lord's Day. We're receiving out of the Lord's benediction. Go now, the love of God the Father, the grace and mercy of God the Son, the fellowship and companionship of God, the Holy Spirit, live the life, amen.