John 20:19–23

0:00 Well, before we get started today, I want to give a shout out to the welcome team that serves our church so well on Sunday mornings and even Sunday evenings. They stand at the doors, they're the ones who are smiling when you come in and hand you a bulletin, maybe point you to, you know, a cup of coffee or a bathroom or whatever you're looking for. They do a great job, and every Sunday when I walk in, I notice that because I come in this back door over here and head up the stairs. And always, there's some smiley, happy person who acts like they're glad to see me when I walk in.

0:31 And they'll offer to hand me a bulletin. And it's just great. And so I just want to say thank you to the greeters and welcome team for being so happy and so welcoming on Sunday mornings, except for today. So this morning, I walk in. The person at the top of the stairs is, you know, typical smiley, happy person. She's handing out bulletins. She's directing people where to go. And I think, this is good. I'm going to get, you know, greeted again here at 3rd Avenue.

1:02 It's a wonderful, beautiful fall morning. And she looks down at me and sees me coming up the steps. And she frowns at me. A scowl from the greeter. And the very first words that I hear upon arriving at 3rd Avenue Baptist Church this morning were from her, Why are you wearing Notre Dame colors? And so I looked down and I noticed and I said, well, there's one little line of red right there.

1:38 Look, I am grateful that we are a church that holds one another accountable. And so I repent in dust and ashes of wearing Notre Dame colors today. But after that game last night, I think it's all okay because I think we own those colors too. Enough trash talk. Take out your Bible. We are continuing our study today of the last couple of chapters of the Gospel of John. We're going to be in John chapter 20 again today looking at just five verses, so not very much text.

2:13 But I think what you're going to see is that there is a lot piled into this text. Actually, if you're new to Third Avenue, we've been coming back to a chunk of the Gospel of John every year for about the last eight years. So my hope as, you know, every year, each fall, when you start to feel the air getting more crisp and the leaves changing, right? And the sweet, sweet smell of Cardinal football victory in the air. I hope what starts going through your mind is not just things like, man, I need a pumpkin spice latte.

2:46 Or, man, where are the pumpkins? Let's make some jack-o'-lanterns. Or, wow, it feels like time to beat Sam Hartman again. About 50 of y'all got that joke. But I hope kind of what starts going through your head is, wow, I am really craving me some gospel of John. Maybe you'll just make it a kind of lifelong tradition. That when the air starts to get crisp and the leaves change, you'll go read some gospel of John. Anyway, we're in the last two chapters of this book that was written sometime. I promise that was the last football joke I'm going to make.

3:19 There will not be another single one throughout the entire sermon unless the Spirit inspires, and I cannot predict that. We're in the last two chapters of this book. It was written in sometime about 30 to 50 years or so. We're not exactly sure. I tend to think it's on the earlier side of that, 30 to 50 years after Jesus' resurrection and ascension. And what we've got here at the end of the book is basically a series of stories where Jesus appears to his followers at a number of different times. a number of different places, and basically handles some unfinished business with them before he ascends to his Father in heaven 40 days after the resurrection.

3:56 You know, somebody has pointed out that human beings tend to have a fascination with a person's last words. So if you read biographies, you know, a famous person, everybody wants to know, well, what were the last words that he said? Sometimes they're profound. Sometimes they're not that profound at all. But we as human beings are fascinated by those last words. And that's no different when it comes to Jesus. So especially around Good Friday, around Easter, you'll often get sermon series or, you know, programs or cards or whatever it is on what we call the seven last words of Jesus.

4:30 Probably some of you could recite those as Jesus is on the cross. I thirst, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. It is finished. Woman, behold your son. Man, behold your mother. You can probably name all seven of what we call the seven last words of Jesus. But I think it's been pointed out and correctly that it is a strange thing to say that those are the seven last words of Jesus. When he literally got up from the dead and said a whole bunch more words after that. They weren't the last words.

5:02 They were sort of the middle words, kind of, of Jesus. Well, here in the last two chapters of this gospel, it turns out that John the Apostle gives us eight more last words of Jesus. And as we study them over the next few weeks, I hope you'll see that they're words of great encouragement and mission. Let me tell you what they are. Chapter 20, verse 16, Mary. Chapter 20, verse 19, peace be with you. 2021, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.

5:37 2022, receive the Holy Spirit. 2027, stop doubting and believe. 2029, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Chapter 21, 16 and 17, feed my sheep. 2119, follow me. See, all of those phrases are about a certain thing. They're about Jesus accomplishing a certain thing. It gives you the flavor of these last chapters and what Jesus is doing in them. because what he's doing is healing and repairing and encouraging and commissioning and sending and authorizing. Essentially, he's getting his followers ready for the job that they're going to be doing for, well, the next, well, I mean, it's been 2,000 years or so, so far, the job we're going to be doing until Jesus returns. Well, today we're looking at the second of three stories that come right in a row in chapter 20, where Jesus appears to certain people, first Mary, then his disciples, then eventually the man that we call Doubting Thomas.

6:39 And in each one of those stories, Jesus' appearance affects some monumental change in these people. They're in one state, they encounter the risen Christ, and they come out of that encounter in a completely different state. It's the same progression in every one of these stories in chapter 20. So at first the person is sunk in some kind of intense emotion. None of those are good. Last week we saw Mary sunk in her grief. It was just an invincible storm of grief that had gotten a hold of her heart. Today we're going to see the disciples sunk in fear. Next week we're going to see Thomas sunk in this refusal to believe.

7:11 It's not just doubt. It's refusal to believe. And then in all three of those cases, Jesus appears. And all of a sudden, in a moment, everything changes. We saw last week that Mary's grief, when she sees and recognizes Jesus, transforms into joy. The disciples' fear turns into something I'll tell you about later today. And then Thomas' doubt or refusal to believe turns into something else that we'll look at next week. So that's where we are. In terms of the story, that's kind of what's going on.

7:42 Jesus is appearing to various people after his resurrection. It's Sunday in our text today. Jesus has already been resurrected from the dead early in the morning. Some of his disciples have seen the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene has seen Jesus, and she's told the disciples about that. But they, the 12 or the 11 now, haven't seen him yet. And that's where we pick the story up. So look with me at John chapter 20, starting in verse 19. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you.

8:23 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. So it's five verses, not a whole lot of text. And sometimes on the rare Sunday, I get to stand up here, especially on a short little text like this, and say things like, well, you know, it's a short text.

9:02 And to make it even easier on us, there really aren't any theological or exegetical problems with it. It's extremely straightforward, and it's going to be an easy morning. Well, sadly, that is not the case here. This is a tiny little text, five verses, but it's absolutely stuffed full of theological and exegetical troubles. Awesome, huh? Super fun. I mean, let me just lay something. I love it when you've got problems because that means I get to teach you something, right?

9:34 And that's fun for all of us, I think. Let me give you some of the problems with it. For starters, why does Jesus say hello to them twice, 19 and 21? Did John just kind of forget where he was in the story? Did he write it down twice? Did Jesus actually say it twice? I mean, peace be with you is a normal Hebrew greeting. There's nothing special or profound about it, you would think. And yet Jesus says it twice. Why does he do that? Also, what exactly does he mean by, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you?

10:08 You know, are we supposed to understand that Jesus' sending of us to the world is precisely the same as the Father sending him into the world? Do we have the same mission, the exact same goals? Should we use the word incarnational to talk about our presence? in the world? What about that last part? And what's going on there when Jesus breathes on them and says, receive the Holy Spirit? And is that when the disciples get the Holy Spirit?

10:42 Because as I've read the rest of the New Testament, it doesn't seem like they get the Holy Spirit until Acts 2 at Pentecost. And yet here you've got Jesus breathing on them and saying, receive the Holy Spirit. And then there's that last sentence. Is that really giving the apostles authority to forgive sins, that's how the Roman Catholic Church has understood it through history, that heaven has given authority to forgive sins to the priesthood. And so when you go into a confessional and you confess your sins to a priest, that priest has the right to say whether you are absolved of those sins or not, based on certain penance that you do. And then heaven waits on his verdict so that if he forgives your sins, your sins are forgiven in heaven. Is that what that means?

11:27 Well, those are all questions we'll get into this morning, but in the midst of all of that, in the midst of all the troubles that we get to look at and the exegetical things that we get to talk about, I don't want you to miss the main point of this first appearance of Jesus to his disciples. This is the first time that they saw him, right? Mary has seen him. Peter and John have seen the inside of the empty tomb and the deflated grave clothes, so to speak, but they haven't seen Jesus. I don't want you to miss the reason for that. I don't want you to miss the reason John wrote this story down in the first place. He wants you to see that just like the disciples and just like Mary, when you come face to face with Jesus, that is not something that you just turn away from, bored, and carry on with life.

12:12 It's something that changes and reorients and redirects the entire purpose of your life. So here's the main idea. To be a Christian is to accept a mission of offering forgiveness to a fallen world. To be a Christian is to accept a mission of offering forgiveness to this fallen world. That's the first part. And then the second part is, and that mission is empowered and authorized by the king himself.

12:46 That mission is empowered and authorized by the king himself. He doesn't just leave us to do it alone. We're going to look at this text this morning, these five verses and three points, which I think you'll see just kind of trace out the progression of what Jesus does with his disciples here. So I'm going to give you these three points, tell you what verses we're kind of particularly looking at, and I want you to pay particular special attention this morning to the point titles. Okay, you ready? Number one, verses 19 and 20, he settles them.

13:20 He settles them. That's verses 19 and 20. Verse 21, point 2, he sends them. So he sends them. That's verse 21. And point number 3, he sanctions them. Verses 22 and 23. You see what I did there? Settles, sends, and sanctions. May I have some applause, please, for that alliteration. Thank you. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

13:51 I tell the interns, I don't particularly like alliteration. I don't like it when preachers do alliteration. This is inside baseball. But what happens is that you typically go looking for the last S word or whatever, and you pick a word that doesn't fit. And you just end up doing it because you like S's better than clarity. I don't like that. And so when it works, I just feel particularly proud of myself. And so that's what you've got this morning. You know, at the very end of the sermon last week, I told you that Mary's story, as you kind of look over it, is, in fact, our story as Christians.

14:28 Mary was sunk in grief. She was sunk in hopelessness. And then she meets Jesus, and Jesus calls her name and brings her to spiritual life. And then immediately she's overcome with joy, and Jesus sends her to go tell others about him. That's Mary's story, and it's also our story as Christians. Well, same thing is going to happen here. The disciples' story in these five verses is also our story. See, once we become, as human beings, once we become convinced that Jesus really is the Son of God, guess what happens next?

15:00 He calls us immediately, he sends us immediately to hold him and his gospel out to this unbelieving world. And when we do that, when we tell other people about Jesus, when we proclaim the name of Jesus in the fallen world, we are doing so with all the authority of heaven behind us. It's an incredible thing to realize, and it's what we're talking about today. So point number one, he settles them. And man, did they need some settling. It had been a rough few days for the disciples.

15:30 I mean, it's been a really long time since we studied it, but you do realize that even though it's been like two or three years since we looked at it in the Gospel of John, it had only been one week. It had been seven days that they were on top of the world as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on what at the time would have been understood to be a kingly donkey. And everybody came out of the city, great crowds, calling after Jesus and proclaiming him as king, laying palm fronds in front of him and taking their own cloaks off their backs and laying it down in front of his donkey.

16:04 Because in their minds, the Davidic king was coming back to take the messianic throne away from the Jews and sit on it himself. One week prior, he was the great king, the great Davidic messiah returning to the ancient capital city to take the empty throne again. One week prior. But things deteriorated really quickly after that. And as soon as Jesus made his way into the city and started teaching, the Jewish leaders concocted a series of confrontations between themselves and Jesus in which they tried to embarrass him, tried to get him in trouble with the Roman authorities.

16:40 But blow after blow, Jesus met them until finally they decided that the jig was up and the time was done. And so they conspired with the Romans and with Judas Iscariot, one of his followers, in order to have Jesus killed. And so before they even knew what exactly was happening, the disciples were in the Garden of Gethsemane outside the wall of the city watching in the middle of the night a line of torches make its way across the Kidron Valley from the city into the garden. And they watched Judas open the gate and walk up to Jesus and put a kiss on his cheek.

17:14 And then it was only a few hours before they saw Jesus being hoisted up on a cross. In a matter of five days, he went from being proclaimed king of the Jews to being crucified as king of the Jews. And then what happened? If Jesus died at about 3 p.m. on a Friday, what happened then? What happened between 3 p.m. Friday and early in the morning on Sunday? Well, I'll tell you what happens because the Bible tells us what happened.

17:47 For all the headiness, for all the hope that they had, for all the promised courage that they were going to show to their king, for all this cocky talk that they made about who was going to sit on his right and left when he came into his kingdom, for all of that at 3 p.m. on Friday was when their hope collapsed. Their courage collapsed. Everything they'd thought about, everything they'd hoped for, everything they'd dreamed of was suddenly as dead as their master. And what took its place, according to the Bible, was fear.

18:24 And there was good reason for that. There was good reason for fear to wrap its icy cold fingers around their hearts. And everybody knew that there was good reason for that. Because the fact is, when Rome decided that a would-be Messiah out in the wilderness or in the city of Jerusalem had become too much of a threat to ignore, They didn't just kill the pretender Messiah himself. They ripped out his influence, root and stem. They tracked down his followers and crucified them too as accomplices.

18:57 So the disciples weren't unreasonable in locking themselves in a house. They weren't unreasonable. Nobody would have accused them of being silly for locking themselves in a house, for hiding, for cowering. They weren't wrong about the might of Rome. They were just wrong about the deadness of Jesus. Look first at verse 19 there. John chapter 20, verse 19.

19:27 There's a couple of, when you first look at it, I think just sort of unremarkable details. First of all, notice that this is on the evening of Sunday. On the evening of that day, so the same day that Mary saw Jesus, the same day that the disciples ran to the tomb and saw it empty and saw the collapsed grave clothes, on the evening of that day, the first day of the week. What's the significance of that? What is the significance of it being evening on the first day? Well, my guess is that probably this is just a reminder that these aren't just legends that are being stitched together.

20:03 A story that somebody told and then somebody else retold and then another one that got told this way and that way and ultimately somebody took the, you know, events that are all disconnected and stuck them together into a bunch of legends. It's not that. These are eyewitness accounts. And John puts little hints in his book all the time that remind you that he was there for these events. You're not getting this 50th hand or 20th hand or even 10th hand. You're getting these eyewitness accounts firsthand from John's pen to your eye. He wants us to know that.

20:38 For some reason, the fact that it was evening stuck in his head. And so 30 years later, he wrote it down. Also notice there that John tells us that the doors of the house were locked. Why? Well, you think about it. The reason, of course, that the doors were locked was because the disciples were afraid of the Jews. They were afraid two days after the crucifixion. They were afraid that the Jewish leaders were going to do to them what they'd done to Jesus, hand him over to the Roman authorities to be killed and crucified out on a road somewhere outside the city.

21:12 That's why the doors were locked. But that's not really the question either, is it? The question we ought to be asking is not so much why were the doors locked, but why does John tell us that the doors were locked? I think it's possible this is just another little eyewitness thing. It seems like a strange thing for John to remember, right? I mean, why not give us some information about what food was on the table or whether there was a fire in the fireplace or, you know, whatever other details. Why the detail, why does it stick in his mind that the doors were locked?

21:47 Well, it's because he wants us to understand that however it happened, by whatever means that we don't yet understand as Christians, Jesus did not just walk through the front door of the house. He just came and stood among them. In other words, he was just there. It's a mind-blowing thing, really, isn't it? And to be honest with you, there's not a whole lot that we know. There's not a whole lot that we can learn.

22:17 There's not a whole lot that we're told about the nature and the physics of Jesus' resurrection body. But I think it's worth thinking about just a little bit. Let's pull some of the evidence together and see what the Bible teaches us about. Jesus' resurrection body. What do we know? Well, we know that Jesus' resurrection body is a real body, right? It's physical, you know, not just like yours, but it's physical. Like, you know, you could touch it, you know, you could see the scars in his hands and in his feet and in his side. He could embrace people. You could fall down on your face and grab his feet. It was a corporeal body.

22:48 His body can even eat. We know that his resurrection body carries some evidence of what happened to him on the cross, but the scars on his hands and feet and in his side. So in those ways, in being physical and carrying scars and being able to be embraced and to embrace others, his resurrection body seems to be very much like our bodies in those ways. But you start looking at the story, and there are also some very different things too. I mean, this right here in John chapter 20, 19 and 20, this is one. Apparently, walls and locked doors are no problem for the resurrected Jesus.

23:23 Same with the grave clothes and the stone in front of the tomb, right? Remember the grave clothes? He didn't have to take them off and wrap them up and put them inside. They just sort of collapsed once the body was out of them. He said on the day we talked about the stone being rolled away, that the angel didn't roll the stone away to let Jesus out. That wasn't the problem. The disciples needed to get in and see that the tomb was empty. That's why he rolled the stone away. I mean, another thing about his resurrected body, it looks like in the story that sometimes people can be staring Jesus in the face after the resurrection and not recognize him.

23:55 And then all of a sudden, when he decides to reveal himself to them, they do. You think about Mary in the garden. And she feels or whatever that somebody's standing behind her. She's talking to these angels, not recognizing who they are. She feels some sort of a presence behind her. Don't know if that's supernatural or not. You probably, you know, felt that. Somebody's drilling, you know, drilling holes in the back of your head, that kind of thing. Don't know if that's what was happening. But she heard or felt something behind her. She turns around. It's Jesus. But she doesn't recognize him as Jesus. She talks to him as if he's just the gardener, just the keeper of the tombs.

24:29 And she says, can you show me where you've laid my Lord and I'll take him away and bury him again if you don't mind. That's how she talks to the risen Jesus until he makes the decision to give her soul life by saying, Mary. And then all of a sudden she knows, she recognizes, she sees him. So somehow, his body is physical, and yet it also transcends the physical. It's recognizable, and yet somehow it also transcends recognition.

25:02 Now, here's the thing about it. The Bible tells us that in the last day, when you and I as believers are resurrected, our resurrection bodies are going to be like his. You ever just daydream a little bit about what that might look like? What that might mean? If you have a resurrected, last day, new heavens and new earth body that is physical and yet transcends the physical, that's recognizable and yet somehow transcends the recognizable, that can walk through doors, or maybe he didn't even just walk through the closed door, maybe he's able to just appear in various places.

25:41 If your resurrection body is like that, can you imagine what the new heavens and new earth is going to be? I mean, are you just going to be able to, like, teleport to the top of Everest and say you climbed it? You're going to be able to just, like, teleport into the Marianas Trench and say you went down there? Teleport to Jupiter and see what that's like? Sounds like fun, doesn't it? I don't know. The Bible just doesn't tell us a whole lot about it. The closest is probably what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. He says, Behold, I tell you a mystery.

26:14 We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable and this mortal body must put on immortality. And when the perishable puts on the imperishable and mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. What does that mean? What does that mean for what we're going to be doing?

26:47 As those who are redeemed and saved and glorified in the new heavens and new earth. How are we going to spend our eternity of days? I have no idea. What I do know, though, is that the new world will be infinitely more than any of us could ever ask or imagine. And it is sometimes a good thing for us as Christians to daydream about it. You ever do that? You ever just daydream about what the Lord might have in store for you in the new heavens and new earth? You ever just think about what it's going to be like?

27:17 Think about what adventures might be there. Think about what creative ventures might be there. What does the Bible mean when it describes all of those things about the new heavens and new earth? It's a good thing for you to have a Christian imagination. If you were ever carried away from your home in exile, if you were ever unable to go back to your home, you'd dream about it. You'd think about it. You'd daydream about the smell of the grass. You'd daydream about the feel of the sun.

27:49 You'd daydream about the sights and sounds of your home. You would. Christian, it's a good thing to do that about heaven also. Because what will happen is that as your mind is filled up with the glories of heaven, even as you imagine them, you don't want to go outside the Bible, but man, inside the confines of what the Bible says, go wild with your imagination. And what you'll find is that your affection for the king of that land will grow. And your desire to be there will grow. Daydream about heaven.

28:21 Let's keep looking at these verses. So Jesus came and stood among them, and look what he says to them. He says, peace be with you. Now, on the surface, that's just a very common Jewish and Hebrew way of greeting people. It sort of functioned a little bit like our word hello does, or even hi, right? But for the Jews, that phrase had meaning. those words mean something. They've got a concrete base to them, completely and utterly unlike our English word hello or hi.

28:52 Do you know where hello and hi come from? You know why we say those to each other as we greet one another on the street or in the entryway? The reason we say hello or hi is because that's the way you hail somebody down if you're yelling at them from a long way away. It's just a very natural way for the English sort of tongue and mouth and palate to cry out for attention, hello, right? Hey! And so those sort of distilled down into these words, hello and hi, that are essentially meaningless other than just putting some letters on a shout. That was not the case for the Jews, though, when they would wish one another peace.

29:26 The word peace to you is a real word in Hebrew. It's the Hebrew word shalom. You're probably familiar with it if you've studied the Bible at all. It refers to the peace that comes to a person or even to an entire world that is right with God. So when the Jews said it, it had a deeper meaning than what we tend to say. When you walk up to somebody and you say, shalom to you, shalom to you, what it was was more than just a calling out for attention. It was a blessing, and it was a hope. It was a reminder, and a prayer, and a challenge.

29:59 It meant something. If somebody walked up to you and took your hand and said, peace to you, brother. I mean, imagine if you greeted people, how it might change your day. If you started greeting people, not with something like, hey, bro, what up? But peace be to you. And people would definitely think you were weird. But they would think. Well, what did Jesus mean by it here?

30:33 I mean, you could say it was just a greeting, maybe even a happy one. I mean, you can imagine, you know, all the disciples huddled up around the fire, around the table, and Jesus just, you know, he appears in a corner, and just in a kind of friendly way, he goes, peace to you, and they all jump, right? I mean, you can imagine him doing that, and just kind of a happy way of startling his disciples and being funny, but Jesus obviously wanted, here's what I want you to see, he obviously wanted, and John wants us as his readers to give those words a second thought, because he says them again in verse 21.

31:10 And if it was just a greeting, or if it was even just a joke, right, that he wanted to startle his disciples, the joke is over after the first time. You don't need to say it again. But he does. And John writes them down again. And that flags to us that he wants us to think about them more deeply. So what do you think of? When the resurrected Christ stands in the midst of the disciples and says, Peace be to you. What do you think of? Well, what John wants you to think of is that Jesus promised his disciples days before his crucifixion, he promised his disciples that it was through his very crucifixion and resurrection that he would give them peace.

31:56 Chapter 14, verse 27. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. 16.33. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart. I have overcome the world. That's what he wanted them to realize. When he said that phrase twice, he didn't just want them to be thinking of hello or hi. He wanted them to think back and realize he told us. He told us that it's through his crucifixion and it's coming back on the third day that we would be given peace. That's what he wanted them to realize.

32:28 For the rest of history, he wanted them to remember that in the very first moment that they saw him after his resurrection, what he offered them was peace. Peace. There are a couple of layers to that, theologically speaking. And first and most important is just the objective reality that through his death and resurrection, Jesus makes peace between God and humanity. You remember the song of the angels out in the shepherd's field on the night he was born?

33:00 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace. That's what he came for. And the fact is, friends, we as human beings are at war with God. That's what it meant when Adam took the fruit off the tree and bit into it. It wasn't just a, you know, small traffic violation of some little rule that God had put in place to trip Adam up. That tree in the middle of the garden and that fruit that was hanging on that tree was supposed to be a reminder to King Adam of humanity that his authority was not ultimate.

33:37 That there was a higher king and a higher crown and a higher authority and that tree was to remind him that no matter what authority you've got, Adam, to have dominion over fish of the sea, birds of the air, and all the rest, you do not have authority over heaven. There is one who can set laws for you. So you remember what the serpent said to Adam and Eve when he came to them. If you eat this fruit, you will be like God. There will be no higher authority over you.

34:10 There will be no higher crown or throne above you. Just break God's law. Eat the fruit and dare him to make good on his threats. And that's exactly what Adam did. Eve took the fruit, bit into it, handed it to her husband. He bit into it, and when he did, he might as well have put his finger into the sky and said, God, I declare war on you because I will not have your authority over me.

34:44 We as a human race are at war with God. And if you're not a Christian friend, then you are right now at war with God. One of the most poignant verses in the entire book of Isaiah that we just spent a couple of months going through. One of the most poignant verses in the whole book is that your sins, Isaiah says, have made a separation between you and your God. And your iniquities have caused him to hide his face from you.

35:16 Friend, if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, that's your state. That's where you are right now. At war with God. A separation between you and the source of all joy and life in the universe. With the God of the universe's face hidden from you, that's where you are. And every day that you march through this life, every time you sit under a sermon that names the name of Jesus, every time you come to this church and you're called to repentance, you are re-upping your declaration of war. It's time to put the weapons down.

35:50 It's time to stop declaring war on God and let Jesus declare peace between you and God. That's what happens when you come to him. You come to Jesus and you say, Jesus, I know I'm at war with God. I know that's not a war that I can win. I know that what I deserve is for the curse of Eden, of Adam, taking that fruit, declaring war on God. I know that I have ratified that in a thousand ways in my own life. And I know that curse ought to fall on me. That sword ought to go through my heart. But Jesus, I know who you are.

36:23 And I trust that you save sinners by dying in their place. So will you please save me and declare that my warfare with God is in it? And I'll tell you right now, you come to Jesus and you say something like that. You repent of your sins. You trust in him as your Lord and Savior. Heaven will declare peace with you. And your warfare will be ended.

36:55 Don't go on fighting. Lay down the weapons. And let there be peace to you. If you're a Christian, your warfare with God is ended. That separation between you and God is closed. And when you realize that, I think what happens is that you can see very quickly a second meaning of this peace that Jesus gives. There's that objective peace between you and God. It's just ended. You're justified. It's done, right? You're forgiven. The separation is closed, and there's peace between you and God.

37:27 But there's also a second sense, and it's a more personal and subjective sense of peace. In other words, a calm heart, a steady sense of purpose and direction, an understanding that you, in this life, despite everything life might throw at you, you are headed somewhere, and it's somewhere good. Man, so much of this life that we live is just a bunch of chaos, isn't it? It's just a buzzing chaos of troubles and heartaches and disease and death and ads and news and opinions and hot takes and wars and fears and earthquakes and demands and expectations.

38:06 I mean, most of our life is just this never-ending loop that looks like a clockwork orange. But then you know that feeling when you go to a place where there's no cell signal? and you just get to spend a few moments just looking at a mountain. Or maybe when the electricity goes out, you just get to spend a few minutes just staring off into a rainstorm. It's wonderful, isn't it? Well, multiply that times infinity, and that's the kind of peace that Jesus gives, only infinitely greater.

38:41 For everything that's happening in life, for all the events, for all the circumstances, for all that the world is trying to get you to pay attention to, the buzzing just stops. And you can remember that you've been saved by Jesus and you can just stare off for a while into the high mountain ranges of the new heavens and new earth. Let your heart be calm, brothers and sisters. No matter what's happening, it is the call of a Christian for our hearts to be calm. Because we know that our sins are forgiven.

39:13 We know that the warfare of this age is not gonna last for long. And one day very soon, one day very, very soon, like it did for Kathy, one year ago, heaven's morning will break and earth's vain shadows will flee and you'll be looking into the face of your beautiful king. Let your heart be calm. What else do you see here in these verses? They're in 20. Jesus shows them his hands and his side, these wounds where the nails had been in the spear.

39:45 And the point of that here, of course, is to prove to them that it's really him, right? Not a ghost. And the gospel of Luke tells us the same story. It gives us more detail about this appearance to the disciples. And in fact, in Luke's story, it's exactly what they think when Jesus first appears. They think they're seeing a ghost. But Jesus shows them, no, it's really me. See, those are the nail prints in my hands. And there's the spear in my side. And look at the result of that. The disciples' fear right there, in that very verse, melts into joy.

40:18 Now, why would that be? I mean, why does their fear become joy all of a sudden? Is it just because their friend is alive again? Well, yeah, sure, that's great, right? But there's definitely more to it than that. Because if Jesus is alive, if Jesus is really resurrected from the dead, and all of a sudden they're convinced of that, right? And if that's true, then that means that Jesus really is who he said he was. He's the Messiah. He's the Son of God. He really is the Savior of the world.

40:48 And that's why the resurrection is the bedrock of the Christian faith. That's why Paul says, look, if the resurrection didn't happen, then we Christians are of all people in the world most to be pitied and mocked. If it's not true, we're a joke. You see why that is? It's because every time Jesus talked about his resurrection, every single time Jesus talked about his resurrection, it was in the form of an argument about his identity. The way it worked every single time was, look, I am this or that, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, whatever it is that he's trying to show them.

41:26 I am this or that. That's my claim. And if I get up on the third day after being crucified, you will know that that is true. And if I do not get up, then you will know that it was false. That's why it makes absolutely no sense for some Christians, so-called, to say that they want to be a Christian and follow the teachings of Jesus, and yet they do not believe that he bodily got up from the dead. It makes absolutely no sense to do that.

41:57 The whole of the Christian faith rests on whether Jesus got up from the grave or not. So look, if you want to think about Christianity, if you want to think about the heart of it, what you need to do is go to the resurrection. We've talked about this before. The heart of Christianity is probably not the things, if you're not a Christian, if you've found yourself offended by Christianity at some point, the heart of Christianity is probably not those things that you find most offensive. It's just not. The heart of Christianity is not what you think about the creation of the world six days or longer than that.

42:32 The heart of Christianity is not about the sexual ethics of Christianity, important as those are. The heart of Christianity is not about this or that other thing. The heart of Christianity is whether Jesus got up from the grave. And if he did, then everything else falls into place. The whole Bible becomes your authority in life. If not, never mind, you're off the hook and so am I. But if you want to know Christianity, you go straight to the bedrock of it. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Well, here's point number two.

43:04 He sends them. He settles them first, proves that he's resurrected, and that settles their hearts. Point number two, he sends them. Well, by now it shouldn't be super surprising what happens next because it happened with Mary in the passage last week, right? As soon as she recognizes him, she tries to embrace him, and then Jesus immediately sends her to do something, right? go tell my brothers now that you've recognized me for who I am now that your soul is alive go tell somebody about me well same thing here as soon as they recognize them as soon as their fear is melted into joy it's time to get to work and so Jesus says there in verse 21 he said to them again peace be with you as the father has sent me even so I am sending you now I think at first glance when you look at verse 21 there it tends to strike us on a first reading as a pretty easy verse. It's straightforward. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. But I also think that once you start to think about it a little more deeply, questions start to come up, right? I mean,

44:08 this is John, this is basically John's version of the Great Commission. Every single one of the Gospels in the beginning of Acts records Jesus giving marching orders to his disciples. Every single one of them. So Matthew, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Mark, go into all the world, proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Luke and Acts, you will be my witnesses to these things. Those are all pretty easy to understand. This one in John, though, is a little more mysterious, right? It's a little more enigmatic. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.

44:41 Okay, so the basic thing that we can see there is that there's a parallel of some kind between the Father sending Jesus to the world and Jesus sending us to the world. There's some sort of parallel there, but what is it? I think one of the problems that people have with this verse is that there's a tendency that people have to put way, way, way too much freight on this verse, as if what it's asking us to do is basically just identify anything that we find interesting about what Jesus did or who Jesus was, and pretty much just apply that to ourselves. You know, we see Jesus doing something, well, as the Father sent him, so he's sending me. So one really popular example of that is the idea of what's called sometimes incarnational ministry or incarnational evangelism. You ever heard that phrase? It gets thrown around a lot, and a lot of times it's based right here on John 20, 21, and it's the idea that we as Christians need to be incarnate, like Jesus was incarnate,

45:42 Among hurting people, right? To be with them, to empathize with hurting people in their pain and in their difficulty. And only then, after we've been incarnate among them, will we be in a position to tell them the truth. And this verse right here, 2021, is often used as a basis for that idea. So just as Jesus was sent as incarnate, therefore because we are sent as he was sent, we need to be doing incarnational ministry too. Okay, what's the problem with that? what's the problem with that?

46:18 Well, just to be straight, it's not that it's wrong to say that one thing Christians ought to be doing is living among sinners or empathizing with hurt. That's not wrong at all. That is, in fact, part of our calling as Christians. But it is to say that, well, that's just not what the word incarnate means. The word incarnate is bigger than that. It's a specific word that means God becoming human. That's what that word means. And that has happened precisely once.

46:50 And you and I cannot do that. And so to apply that word to ourselves, to metaphorize it, and turn it basically into a synonym of the word empathy is really to fatally cheapen the whole mind-blowing reality of the word becoming flesh. That was a one-time thing never to be repeated. So the point, I mean, that's just one example. But the point is that you just can't use this verse to just say, well, okay, it's true of Jesus. Therefore, it's true of me too as one who was sent like he was sent.

47:24 You can't do that. That's not the point. So what is the point? Well, notice there what Jesus says in the very next sentence. He ties this sending of the disciples into the world to the gift of the Holy Spirit, to the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins. You realize that, oh, we're being sent by the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim forgiveness of sins. You realize that. It pulls it much more into view and into focus with those other Great Commission texts, doesn't it? And that fits perfectly with what Jesus says here in 21.

47:57 He says in Luke 4, I was sent to proclaim good news to the poor, To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And of course Jesus came to do more than just proclaim forgiveness. He came to win it. But the verse starts to make sense. As he was sent to win and then proclaim forgiveness, so we are sent into the world. Not to win it, that's done, but to continue to proclaim forgiveness to the world. Look, here's what I want you to see from that.

48:28 Here's what I want you to understand. To be a Christian, to be a Christian is not to join a leisure club or a friend group or a social outfit. It's not to join a gardening club or a conversation salon. No, the way the Bible actually talks about it is that to be a Christian is to be conscripted. To be joyfully drafted by the king of kings into a military unit that's fired and driven by a mission to conquer the world. That's what it means to be a Christian. I mean, of course, the thing is that the weapons of our warfare, as Paul says, they're not physical, right?

49:04 It's not guns and swords. Christians aren't interested in forced conversions or making people proclaim Jesus or fly the flag of King Jesus or bow down to him. That's not what we're interested in. No, what the Bible tells us is that the arsenal by which we fight this war against the principalities and princes in dark places, the weapons by which we fight are the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. That's how we, the army of the king, that's how we resist evil. That's how we push back against the darkness. We stand and we hold out forgiveness to this fallen world, just like Jesus did.

49:39 And just like his people have done for 2,000 years. I mean, Christian, are you aware of that reality when you go about your daily life? Are you aware that you've been caught up into a massive cosmic spiritual war? and that God has given you a critical role to play in it of holding out forgiveness. I love what somebody said. We would be a whole lot more prayerful and we would be a whole lot more intensely sold out to our Christian faith if demons were visible.

50:16 It's true. Friend, you've been caught up in a cosmic war. You've been drafted into the host of the king. Let that affect the way you live your daily life. He sends them. That's the second thing. Here's the third and last thing. He sanctions them. He sanctions them. Sanctions, it's just a word that starts with S, right? Fits the bill. And it's a good word because what it means is authorizes, right? He authorizes these disciples.

50:48 In other words, if you look at verses 22 and 23, what Jesus is doing there is authorizing and empowering his disciples to do exactly the thing he's sending them into the world to do. Which is a good thought, right? Because it's one thing to be sent to do something, but not to be given the authority or the power to do it, right? So, I mean, you could imagine somebody yesterday being sent to L&N Cardinal Stadium, right? I'm sending you. Go into the game. You look back and say, well, where's my ticket?

51:20 I'm going to need a ticket to get in the gate. And the guy says, I ain't got nothing for you there. Just go to the game, right? That's not helpful at all, right? But if you're authorized and empowered to go to the game, it's like here are your four tickets. Now go to the game. You're like, yep, this is something I can do because I've been authorized and empowered to do it. So that's the way it is with Jesus. He doesn't just send us to go do the thing and then sort of brush his hands of us. He also gives us power and authority to do the thing. Well, here he does it in two ways. Look first at verse 22.

51:53 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. Okay, what's going on there? He breathes on them, right? And he says, receive the Holy Spirit. Now, that verse has caused more than a little bit of confusion because, like we said at the beginning, people think, well, hold up. Is he giving them the Holy Spirit here? Like, is the Holy Spirit actually being given by Jesus right here? Because I thought that happened at Pentecost. I thought that happened like 80 days from now. I thought that happened in Acts 2, not right here while Jesus is still, you know, unascended.

52:27 Well, it's a great question. And the fact is people have come up with all kinds of ways to fix that problem. So people have said through the centuries that, well, maybe Jesus is just giving them a piece of the Holy Spirit. Or maybe what he's given them is not the holy, Holy Spirit, but a different spirit that is holy. Others have just said, well, this is just in hopeless conflict with Acts. To the point that they've even said maybe it's not even supposed to be part of the Bible. But I think all of that just overcomplicates the whole thing.

53:00 This just isn't, I think, that difficult a passage. once you realize that Jesus, through this story that John has been telling, often does things right now that symbolize things that are going to happen in the future. Does that make sense? He does things right now that symbolizes stuff that's going to happen in the future. He does it all the time. I mean, when Jesus washes his disciples' feet, for instance, when he tells them, you know, if you don't let me cleanse you, then you can have no part with me. Does he mean that the cleansing that's happening that's going to fit them for presence with Jesus for all of eternity and having a part with us, does he mean that that's happening right then as he washes their feet?

53:43 Well, no, of course not. The foot washing is a symbol of the spiritual cleansing that's going to happen through his death and resurrection in a few hours. It's a right now symbol of a thing that's going to happen in the future. What about the cup at the Last Supper? Remember what he says there? This cup is the new covenant in my blood. I mean, does he mean that that wine and that cup is really right then the blood of the new covenant? No, of course he doesn't. It's a symbol of what's going to happen when he pours out his blood on the cross. Well, same thing here. Jesus is breathing on the disciples and saying, receive the Holy Spirit is a symbol.

54:19 It's an acted parable of what's going to happen at Pentecost. So that's what this is. It's a symbolic promise of the Spirit. And that promise is fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, some 80 days later. But look last at 23. Because there in 23, he also authorizes them to proclaim forgiveness to the world. 23. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.

54:54 Now, again, what is that saying? If you apostles forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is without. Is that like the Roman Catholic idea of the priesthood? That if the priest forgives you your sins, heaven will ratify that? Is that what that's saying? Well, no, that's not at all what that's saying. You don't see that said anywhere else in the Bible. You don't see the apostles claiming that kind of authority. In fact, they specifically disavow it. It is God alone who can forgive sins. It's not what it's saying.

55:25 Actually, this is very technical and formal language that lines up almost perfectly with what Jesus tells his people in Matthew 16 and 18 when he gives them the keys of the kingdom. It's the same exact idea. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. If you forgive their sins, they will be forgiven if you withhold it. See, it's exactly the same sort of formal language about giving someone authority to speak on your behalf if you're the king. So what Jesus is doing here is that he's saying, just like he did in Matthew 16 and 18, he's saying, listen, I am giving you guys and those who will come after you, everyone to whom I give the keys of the kingdom, and that's the church, right?

56:06 I'm giving you authority to go out into the world and proclaim the gospel, right? Make disciples of all nations and then to make a judgment about who in the world has received that forgiveness. And if you say that they're forgiven, if you say they have a credible profession of faith, then they are already forgiven in heaven. You're speaking in the name of the king. That's what he tells them. He's given them a charter of authority to speak the gospel and to put before people the choice of coming to Jesus and finding forgiveness or not.

56:45 That's a big calling, isn't it? It's a big calling for us as Christians. It's a big calling for us as a church. My friend, if you're a Christian, if you're a member of Third Avenue, you have encountered the risen, resurrected Jesus. He has said your name and your soul has come to life. And now guess what? Your life is no longer about just fitting in with the world, just sucking as much good out of this life as you possibly can. Your life, your purpose, your drive is to make the name of Jesus known.

57:19 I mean, friends, we've got, we as Christians, we as Christians have the only true message of salvation that anyone in the world is ever going to hear. This is it. This is it. This church, every other church of the Lord Jesus Christ scattered around the globe, we are the only ones that have the true word of salvation. Nobody's going to hear it from anybody else other than from Christians. What are you doing with that?

57:50 What are you doing with that? Because friend, if those lost people out there don't hear it from you, who in the world are they going to hear it from? Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we praise you today as the resurrected and reigning one. You're the one who gave your life for us. You're the one who lived your life in perfect obedience before the Father and then died on the cross so that we might be saved.

58:23 So that we might have forgiveness of sins. So that we might be justified in your Father's sight. Lord, we honor you and we praise you for the gospel. And we pray, Lord, that having encountered you, having come to you in faith, Lord, we pray that you would help us to see the amazing privilege that you've given us of being on mission with you. Of holding out the promise of forgiveness of sins to a dark and fallen world. Help us to do that well and faithfully until the day you come back. We ask that in Jesus' name and always to his honor and glory.

58:55 Amen.