Good morning. Let’s open to John 20, and we’ll begin reading at verse 1—not chapter 1.
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
Then she ran to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”
Peter therefore went out, and the other disciple, and were going to the tomb.
So they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first.
And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in.
Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself.
Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in also; and he saw and believed.
For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.
Then the disciples went away again to their own homes.
But Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping; and as she wept, she stooped down and looked into the tomb.
And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
Then they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”
Now when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?”
She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned and said to Him, “Rabboni!” which is to say, “Teacher.”
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things to her.
Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Can we go back to John 1—way back to John 1—and read verse 29?
The next day John, being John the Baptist, saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Then we go ahead to John 11, starting with verse 23.
Jesus said to her, being Martha, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
And then one more verse, in Luke 12, verse 50.
The Lord Jesus is speaking, and He says, “But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how straitened I am till it is accomplished!”
Lord, we want to thank You. We want to thank You that You brought us to Yourself through Jesus Christ, and we come here because of that. There is no other reason why we are here: because of Jesus Christ, whom You sent, and He has brought us to You.
We come and ask, Lord, that You will bear witness to Your Word. Just bear witness to the truth and the power that are in this little section of Scripture that we have read. Lord, may it have an effect on our lives, just as it had an effect on the apostles’ lives. We ask, Lord, for that same type of effect on ours.
We tell You, Lord, how weak we are and how unable we are to even make a move toward You. So we ask that You quicken Your Word to us. Anoint it. Make it so that, Lord, it registers within our hearts, opens our eyes to what You have done, and allows us to walk in newness.
Only You can do this, Lord. Only You are able to do these things. This is what we ask for in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Sorry, I have my ear plugged here.
This is my next-to-last message on John. You are probably saying, “Good riddance. We’re glad to get on to something else.” But that is okay.
Last time, when we did John 19, we talked about beholding the Lamb of God. That was about the time when the Lord was crucified. This time, we are looking at something else: the resurrection.
I am not going to go into all these little details about the resurrection, but I will say this: without the resurrection, Paul says, we are of all men most miserable, if Christ did not rise. That is a heavy truth.
The world, as it is under the sway of the evil one, does not want a resurrection. It is happy with a tragic Christ, because the world loves to feel sympathy for one who has suffered, and suffered unjustly. But that is as far as it wants to go. It wants to feel sympathy; it does not want a resurrection.
Praise the Lord, God wanted the resurrection. And God got a resurrection because of what we talked about last time: the Lamb was worthy. The Lamb was worthy to die first, and if the Lamb was worthy to die, then the Lamb was worthy to be raised. That is what we are looking at this morning.
This is the last sign in the Gospel of John. I know a lot of people say there are seven signs—the turning of water into wine, and so on. We have gone through all these things. But this really is the last sign, and this is the sign that Jesus always referred to in His ministry to His disciples.
“You will be given no sign except the sign of Jonah.” He was three days in the belly of a whale, and then he came back. Or even in John 2, where He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will rebuild.” This is the last sign that our Lord Jesus gives while He is on the earth.
Let me say this also about the resurrection: the resurrection is a divine act. It is an act of God, not some man-made thing. It is an act of God.
I think that is really, really important, because we need to see that God is acting. God is acting on behalf of His Son, on behalf of His own glory, and on our behalf. This is an act of God. It is a divine speaking.
Remember, all the signs here in the Gospel of John—John did not include all the miracles that Jesus did. If you read the other Gospels, you see a lot more miracles. You have to say, “Was John sleeping during the rest of them? What happened?” But he picked seven.
These are important because they are signs, or symbols, to us. This is a sign. This is a symbol. This is a speaking of God to us.
In Hebrews 1, it says that God had spoken at various times by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son—or in Son. This is what we want to see in this little time that we have together: what is God speaking to us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? What is He saying to us?
We take, as Christians, as fact that Christ rose from the dead, and we have as our proof that empty tomb. That is our proof. Our faith is based on the resurrection of Christ. It is not just that He died, but that God raised Him from the dead. That is what our faith is based on.
I want to look at four statements of our Lord Jesus Christ in this chapter, and two actions of Jesus Christ in this chapter, which have helped me to see what God was saying when He raised Jesus from the dead.
So let’s look at them. I am sorry, my ears are so plugged. I feel like I am on an airplane.
Let’s look first at John 20:19.
Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut and the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
The first statement of the resurrected Christ to His disciples is just this: peace.
What does He mean by that? Think of all the things that Jesus could have said: “Where were you guys? Where were you? I saw maybe one of you at the cross. Remember John? I spoke to John. I saw one of you. Where were the rest of you?”
He could have said, “You know, I have been telling you this for three years. I was going to rise from the dead.” But they never got that.
Jesus comes, and He comes for the first time risen from the dead. The first thing He speaks to them is peace. It is as if to say, “I hold nothing against you. I am not angry with you. I am not mad at you. Peace. You can relax.”
What He is saying is that God is at peace with you. The wrath has dissipated. The wrath has been totally spent. I like this word I was reading somewhere: it was exhausted. That is a great word, because it means, “I just cannot do that anymore. It is gone. Everything I had is gone. I have nothing against you.”
What God is saying to us when Jesus speaks peace to the disciples is this: “I am satisfied with the sacrifice made on your behalf. I am totally satisfied with it. I am satisfied with the offering made for sin.”
That is what God is saying when He raised Jesus from the dead: “I am satisfied. I am satisfied forever.”
I am putting emphasis on that because Scripture says that Christ died once for all. We can look at it as meaning all of us, or we can look at it as all my sins. I want to look at it both ways, because I think it is inclusive.
In Christ being raised from the dead, God is saying to us, “I am satisfied. I am satisfied with that offering.”
Remember when we were studying Genesis, and Abraham was taking Isaac to sacrifice him? Isaac said, “We have the wood. We have the fire. Where is the lamb?” You remember what Abraham said: “God will provide Himself a lamb.”
God provided Himself a Lamb: Jesus Christ the Righteous, the spotless Lamb of God. That is what we talked about last time in John 19.
Remember how the Passover lamb, before you sacrificed it, had to be kept for days while you checked it out to see if it had any blemish? The life of Jesus Christ before men on earth was blameless. Before God, He was blameless. God is satisfied forever with the offering made by His Son on our behalf.
That is not all. We see in John 20:20:
When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side.
Why? Have you ever wondered that? Why did He show them His hands and His side?
First of all, they would know it was really Him, because He was pierced. This was not a ghost or something of that nature. This was Him.
It is like at the Lord’s Table. This morning, when we were around the Lord’s Table, it is like this very incident happened. It is like Jesus came in and stood before us and said to us first, “Peace.”
Then the elements symbolize what? How can we have peace? There is no peace without those wounds. There is no peace without it. He had to be wounded. He had to be bruised. A penalty had to be paid.
His having these wounds forever—forever—shows us forever that the penalty is paid. The wounds witness to us that the penalty was paid. It is not just that there is resurrection, but that the wounds are there. They knew that He had been on the cross.
The penalty is forever paid. When we see Christ, we see His wounds. We see the price of our ransom in those wounds. We see the cost of our redemption. We see that Christ was crucified for us, and it was this Christ who was raised from the dead.
Isn’t that what Peter says in Acts 2:32? “This Jesus”—the One that you crucified—“this Jesus God has raised up.”
So we hear His voice say, “Peace.” What does that mean for us? It is peace from all guilt and shame forever. From all guilt and shame—not just from the sin, but from the guilt and the shame of sin.
It is all done away with. The resurrection says to us that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God. The resurrection says to us that God says, “He is My Lamb, and that offering is acceptable to Me. From Me to you comes peace. You are reconciled forever.” Amen.
John 20:22 says:
And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
I am not going to get into some doctrinal thing about when they received the Holy Spirit, but I am going to say this: what the resurrection means for us is that the Holy Spirit has been made available to us.
When He breathed on them, this is not the breath of resuscitation, like we give somebody CPR or mouth-to-mouth to bring them back to life again. If we are just resuscitated, it means we are still alive, but it is the same old life.
The sacrifice of Christ for us did not mean that our sins are forgiven and then we are just on our own, trying to live worthy of God or worthy of the gift that He has given us. No, this is the breath of regeneration.
It is like Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones. He said, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel said, “You know, I do not know.” Then all the bones came together, and the sinews came about. You had all these people, but no good. Then what happened? The breath came into them.
Or how about when God created man in Genesis 2:7? It says that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.
He breathed into us life—a regenerated life. This is not the old life that is overcome and will constantly be overcome by sin. It is not that life. This is a new humanity. This is the humanity of Christ, a resurrected Christ over whom sin has no dominion.
Think of this: when Christ walked on the earth, sin had no dominion over Him. He never once gave in to sin, whether it was the temptations Satan gave Him from outside, saying, “Do things out of Yourself,” or whether it was taking a station that was not His to take.
When He gave up everything, He did not take the station of God. He took the station of a servant, and He never went out of that place. This is the very life that has been given to us because of the resurrection.
We do not get this life in any other way. You cannot earn this life. You cannot work up this life. This life is a gift to us, and it comes only because Christ has been raised from the dead.
In this life, we have the power to overcome sin, if we allow the life to live in us. We will talk a little about that later. But because He rose from the dead, God is saying, “I have given to you a new life—not just a power, a life. Because the life is the power.”
“I am the resurrection.” He did not just say, “I am the resurrection.” He said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” So it is more than just some power.
That is what Simon Magus wanted. Remember in Acts, when the Samaritans were being saved and Peter and John went down? They were laying hands on people, and the people were receiving the Holy Spirit. Simon said, “I want that power.” But it is not power; it is life. In that life is the power.
It is because of that life that Jesus lived that He could not be held in the tomb. Because of that life, He could not be held. That life has been given to us through the resurrection.
“Receive the Holy Spirit.” Take it. Take it.
Some of us have had charismatic experiences, right? I remember when the man who led me to the Lord, Jack Goffigan, was helping us. We would read books about the Holy Spirit and say, “What is this?” It was like something new.
We called him and asked, “What is this?” It was like we were the disciples in Acts 19, when Paul said, “Have you received the Holy Spirit?” You remember what they said: “We did not even know there was a Holy Spirit.”
How many of us are like that? We know there is a Holy Spirit because we read it in the Bible: Holy Spirit. But as far as our experience—and I am not saying to get some weird experience—we really do not know that He lives in us.
But the Lord is saying, “Take Him. He is in you. You do not have to live on your own strength. I have given to you life. Take it. Take it. Lay hold of it.”
Isn’t that what Paul says? “Lay hold, that I may lay hold of Him who has already laid hold of me.” That is what the Lord is saying: take this life I have given you. Take it. Bring it in. Know that you have it.
It is a wonderful thing. When you realize you have life in you—like when you are forgiven of sin—there is a weight lifted off, and you say, “Oh, thank You, Lord. I do not have to deal with that.”
But when you find out you have life, it is not merely a relief; it is a joy. It is a joy that comes in, and you say, “There is something in me that overcomes. Oh, I am not left to myself.” To lay hold of that—isn’t that one of the fruits of the Spirit? Joy.
God is saying to us in the resurrection, “I have provided for you life: a regenerated life, not the old life; a new life. Life after My Son, which I have given to you in seed form. I put it into you. Allow it to grow. Take hold of it. Allow it to do what it is supposed to do.”
Now, in John 20:17—we are going backward—Mary Magdalene sees that it is the Lord, and Jesus says to her:
Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, “I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.”
He is not just risen from the dead. If He were just risen from the dead, He would be here now. You know what I mean? He would be living in Jerusalem. But He is not just risen from the dead. It is more than being raised from the dead: He has ascended.
He has ascended to a place on high, to a throne. What does it say? “You are seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
This is hard to say, so I want to use a couple of hymns. Sometimes we think, “Out of sight, out of mind,” right? A lot of times we think Christ is not here—that He is away.
But when He ascended on high, what does Scripture say? He led captivity captive. He took them with Him. We are seated with Him.
What does that mean? It means the access that Jesus Christ has to the Majesty on high, seated at the right hand of the Majesty, we have also. We have the exact same access to God as Jesus Christ. Wow. That is an amazing statement, do you not think? But it is the truth of the Gospel.
We have been put into Christ, as Christ is in us. We have been put into Christ, and we have been taken up into the heavenly places.
Let me read a couple of verses from some hymns. It is funny: we do not sing a lot of hymns about this. I am going to read a whole one because I have a little time, and then I will read a verse of a different one.
Hymn 145, written by the poet Wordsworth, says:
See the Conqueror mount in triumph;
See the King in royal state,
Riding on the clouds, His chariot,
To the heavenly palace gate.
Hark! the choirs of angel voices
Joyful alleluias sing,
And the portals are lifted
To receive their heavenly King.
Who is this that comes in glory,
With the trump of jubilee?
Lord of battles, God of armies,
He has gained the victory.
He who on the cross did suffer,
He who from the grave arose,
Has vanquished sin and Satan;
He by death has spoiled His foes.
And while He lifts His hands in blessing,
He is parted from His friends;
While their eager eyes behold Him,
He upon the clouds ascends.
He who walked with God and pleased Him,
Preaching truth and doomed to come,
He, our Enoch, is translated
To His everlasting home.
These two verses are wonderful:
Now our heavenly Aaron enters
With His blood within the veil;
Joshua now has come to Canaan,
And the kings before Him quail.
Now He plants the tribes of Israel
In their promised resting place;
Now our great Elijah offers
Of His grace a double portion.
He has raised our human nature
On the clouds to God’s right hand;
There we sit in heavenly places,
There with Him in glory stand.
Jesus reigns, adored by angels;
Man with God is on His throne.
Mighty Lord, in Thine ascension,
We by faith behold our own.
In other words, we behold our own ascension with Him by faith. We see ourselves put in that place where Christ has that access, where Christ rules, and we are there with Him.
This is a wonderful thing. Some of us think these things are just too high to think about. But it is the high things that bring us away from the earth.
When we think, “Oh, I can only have the lower things,” no—we are not meant just to have the lower things. We can settle for the lower things, but we are meant for the high things. When God created man, man was meant for the high things. The plan has not changed.
Christ has ascended with us, saying, “This is where we should be,” reigning with Him—not sitting just on the earth, groveling and waiting until He comes back again. No, we are supposed to be living His victory because He has ascended on high.
If we go back to Hymn 135, verse 4—Wesley’s great song of resurrection, Christ the Lord Is Risen Today—it says:
Soar we now where Christ has led,
Hallelujah!
Following our exalted Head,
Hallelujah!
Made like Him, like Him we rise,
Hallelujah!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies,
Hallelujah!
All of it is ours: the cross, where He poured out His life; the grave, which is empty because He rose; and the skies, where He rose to and has been seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. This is our place.
Do not cling. Do not cling to some earthly form of Christianity, some set of rules where it says that you must do this, you must appear here, you must do that. Do not cling to that.
When I was in California, one of the Ecklen boys—you know the Ecklen boys, the gorillas, because they are big, they are huge—I will not say his name, but you can guess. He was opening the Lord’s Table.
He brought us all the way back to the garden. He brought us to the place of saying that man’s idea was to cover himself with his own devices. He looked around at what God had given him, and he sewed himself fig leaves.
But that was not what God wanted for him. A lot of times, we settle for that. We settle for making fig leaves for ourselves.
Do you notice these trees out here? What happens to those leaves? They shrivel and die, right? How long is your fig leaf going to last? It is going to shrivel up. Pretty soon, what are you going to have to do? You have to get another one.
You are going to be satisfied with it for a while, and then it is going to shrivel up. You are forever doing that. That is not Christ’s way.
It is not for us to be in the low parts, trying to think that by ourselves we can attain what God wants. We cannot. But let us go on high.
When Watchman Nee wrote Sit, Walk, Stand, what was the first thing you do? You sit. Where do you sit? In the heavenlies. You sit in the heavenlies, because it is by sitting in the heavenlies that you are able to walk on earth and stand against the enemy.
We do not climb up the ladder. We start in Christ at the top. That is where we started. That is our place in Him. That is our place in Christ.
Finally, in John 20:21, Jesus says:
Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.
This opens up a whole new realm of service to God, because it is service through an endless life. It is no longer service that is not good enough. It is no longer service that God says is filthy rags. It is service that is acceptable to Him.
The resurrection not only lets us know that God is satisfied; it not only lets us know that God has provided life for us; it not only lets us know that we are seated and have the same access to God as Jesus Christ had. It also lets us know that now we serve with Him.
You are probably wondering why I read that verse in Luke. In Luke, Jesus said, “I have a baptism to go through, and how I am straitened—how I am confined—until it is accomplished.”
What was that baptism? That baptism was His cross and His resurrection. I am putting it together. Baptism does not just dunk the person; otherwise, we would have a lot of drowned people here. After you dunk the person, what do you do? You bring them back up.
That is the baptism. “I am going to be baptized. I am going down, and I am coming back up.” When I come back up, because I am putting My life in you, I am no longer straitened. I am no longer in one body, in one place, at one time. I am everywhere.
It is not merely My teachings that you are trying to go about and teach other people. It is My life that is in you. Because My life is in you, there is liberation for others.
Isn’t this what Bobby was sharing the other morning, about three weeks ago, concerning the year of Jubilee? Isn’t this the ministry of Christ? The ministry of Christ allows us to share with Him in the setting free of captives.
We are not just talking about evangelizing. Evangelizing is wonderful; it is part of this. But it is also to the saints and the people of God who are brokenhearted, who are hurt, who are weighed down by their sin and cannot get free of it.
It is because of that life that is in us—not because we go there and say, “Hey, brother, I think you need to read this book.” It is because of that life of Christ in us, which has compassion for them, prays for them, brings them before the throne of God, and loves them.
That is the ministry of Christ to the church: that He loves it. He died for it so He can present it without spot or wrinkle.
Because that life is in us, when we see the spot and wrinkle, we do not simply go and try to correct a brother. We go to the Father because we have access to Him. We say, “Lord, what can I do? How can I help this brother? How can I love him? How can I bring him back so that he is back in the place where he should be?”
The sister—how can I help her? These people who are lost and do not know what they are doing—how can I help them? Oh, Lord.
If the life is in us, the life of Christ, then that life is the life that cares for the world. We do not care for the world; we are selfish beings at best. But Christ loves the world, and Scripture says the love of Christ has been shed abroad in our hearts.
We are called to work with Him: to redeem, to bring back to purpose. We can never die like He died, but we can die to ourselves in bringing His people to Him.
Isn’t that what Jeffrey was talking about the last two weeks? Dying to ourselves and bringing other brothers and sisters to God. For what purpose? For God’s purpose, because God cares for them.
That is why we bring people: because God cares for them, because the love of Christ has been shed abroad in our hearts for them—to reconcile, to heal, to build up, to correct or admonish if we have to, to save.
Now, how do we apply all this?
We are called to be witnesses of the resurrection.
When Christ ascended in Acts, that is what He talks about: “You will be witnesses of Me.” Not merely of His teaching. Not merely of His healing. But witnesses of His resurrection.
If you look in Acts 1:21-22, Peter says:
Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to the day that He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.
If you read Acts 2 and Acts 3, they are talking about it: “He rose. He rose. We are witnesses. He rose.” You were all witnesses of His death, but we were witnesses of His resurrection.
Paul, in Acts 13, when he is in Antioch of Pisidia, talks about the resurrection again. We are witnesses to the resurrection.
What does that mean, because we have not seen Him alive like that? I have not seen Him like that. But He is risen. He has risen in my heart. He came into me when I was born again. That is what happened: I was born again. He came into me, just as He came into everybody who was born again.
To be a witness of His resurrection means, first of all, that all these things that Jesus spoke here are ours. How do I witness to the resurrection? I am at peace.
I am at peace with that sacrifice that Christ made for me. I am no longer fretting about whether I am good enough, or anything like that. I am at peace, and it is a peace that other people can see. It is a peace that other people can sense.
“What is with this guy? What is wrong with him—or what is right with him? Why is he like this? I see his life. I see the turmoil he goes through. I see the mistakes he makes. Why is he at rest?”
Because I have taken and believed what Christ has done for me.
When I was in college, after I had my charismatic experience and quit trying, I had a guy come up to me. He said, “You know, I watch you come home from the campus every day to the apartments. I have watched you for a month. I see you coming around. You are so peaceful.”
I was a witness. The witness went out: “You are so peaceful. Why?”
It is the risen Christ who speaks through you. It is not the teachings of Christ that speak; it is the living Christ in you that speaks.
John 1:4-5 says:
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
When Jesus was talking to His disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, He said, “You are the light of the world.” Well, wait a minute. What is the light of the world? In Him was life, and that life is now in me.
The light of the world is in me—not my doing good works and things like that, but the life is in me. For me to be a witness of the resurrection is to allow that life to have sway in my everyday dealings until the Lord comes back.
That is how I witness to the resurrection. It is not beyond any of us who are Christ’s to have this witness. If you are Christ’s, then Christ is in you. It is not beyond you; it is within you.
The only thing we have to do is let the life have its sway.
You know what is funny? I always like using this analogy of pregnant women. Pregnant women are marvelous beings. Us men never know the joy of pregnancy, and I do mean the joy of pregnancy.
I remember when Barb first found out she was pregnant. They talk about that glow—now, she had it. Boy. The glow was, “There is life in me.”
But she never resisted that life growing in her. It is an amazing thing. She did not resist it. She let it grow in her, and she let it grow to what it was going to be. One turned out to be Katie, and the other one turned out to be Jamie.
But we can resist. When you understand, when you really see what the life is going to be, then you have hope.
We had those books where you looked at the baby in the womb. First of all, it looked like some alien being. Then it starts forming. At the end, they show the baby and say, “This is what it is going to be.” That is better—not what it is supposed to be, but what it is going to be.
Then you look at the other stages, where it looks like a dinosaur someplace, and you say, “How?” This is the way we are. We look at ourselves and say, “How?”
We look to the end. That is what gives us our hope. We look at the end. Take out that picture: “Oh, there is the full baby. This is what it is going to be like.” That is where we get our hope.
Hope is expectation. We have an expectation that He who started this life in us will finish it. He is the Author and the Finisher. He began a good work; He will finish it.
It is for us to say, “Lord, make me aware of this life in me. Help me. Give me grace. When it is moving and trying to grow in me, help me step down.”
If you fail, we have an Advocate. Praise the Lord. But we have this great hope of resurrection.
Let us take hold of it. Let us take hold of this hope that we have in resurrection and ask God—just say, “Lord, see in me Your risen Son. Bring Your risen Son to being in me. Finish the work of Thy new creation. Help me in letting You have sway.”
Let us pray.
Our Father, how wonderful You are. How wonderful You are, that Your purpose was not just to forgive us. Your purpose was to make us into that being that You always meant us to be. How wonderful that is.
How wonderful it is to know that this is our end because Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Lord, we pray that we would see Him risen.
Remember how Elisha said to Elijah, when Elijah said, “What do you want from me?” He said, “I want a double portion of your spirit.” Elijah said, “If you see me when I am taken.”
O Lord, allow us to see You. Open our eyes to see You where You are. You are risen, You are exalted, and You are in us.
Help, Lord, that truth, that revelation, to take hold of us. Like Peter and John and the rest of the apostles, Lord, make us new creatures in Christ. We ask this in Jesus’ name.