And Lord, we pray the same thing for us. That You would save us. That the seeds of the Gospel that are sprinkled upon our hearts would bear much fruit for the glory of Christ. And so as we come to Your Word, O Lord, we pray that You would feed us and nourish us. That You would cause the seeds that have been sprinkled upon our hearts to grow deep roots Give us a deep-rooted faith, O Lord. Give us understanding through the power of Your Holy Spirit. We pray that we would hear the voice of our Good Shepherd calling us by name, instructing us, and feeding us, nourishing us indeed with Your Word. We know that Your Word is sufficient, inerrant, breathed out by You, and that it is sufficient for everything we need to know about ourselves and you. So use your word today, O Lord, to strengthen us, but above all, to glorify Christ. In His name we pray. Amen. If you have your Bible with you, please turn to John chapter 20. We're going to be in John chapter 20, continuing our study of what happened after the resurrection in verses 11 to 18 today. in one of the most moving passages, I think, in all the Gospels. A scene where hope is found in the midst of soul-piercing, soul-crushing sorrow. The greatest of all Christian virtues is love. We are instructed, as we know, to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We are instructed to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus said in John chapter 13, verse 35, that, by this all men will know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another, I think it's interesting that love is the one thing that Jesus singles out there, because there are other Christian virtues. He doesn't say, by this all men will know that you're my disciples, if you know your doctrine inside and out really well. Not to say that that's not important, it is. But what we should see here is that that's not as important as love. He doesn't say, by this all men will know that you're my disciples if you do this or do that, do any kinds of works. No, it's just if you love one another. The greatest of all Christian virtues is love. When Paul tells us what the fruit of the Spirit is, what it consists of, what's the first virtue that he names? Love. Love for God, above all, should be the primary virtue that characterizes the lives of all those whom He has redeemed. We have received a great love, and therefore, we should love in return. We should love God. We should love His Word. We should have love for His ways. We should love everything about Him and everything that He has done and is doing and will do. And we should have love for our brethren and for our neighbors. Francis Schaeffer, who was a great theologian of the 20th century, he agreed that love is what he called the characterizing mark of every Christian. He wrote this, he said, quote, How should we show the world that we are Christians? Through the centuries, people have displayed many different symbols intended to show that they are Christians. They've worn marks in their lapels of their coats, hung chains about their necks, and even had special haircuts. But there is a much better sign, a universal mark that is to last through all the ages of the church till Jesus comes back." And he goes on to say, of course, that that mark is love. Other virtues are important, of course, but they are less important than love. Which is good, because all these other virtues are very tumultuous, are very unpredictable. They're up, they're down. We have moments, for example, when our faith is very solid, when our faith is really strong. But we also have moments when our faith can be shaken. We have moments when our faith is downright weak and frail. The same can be said of the virtue of Christian hope. It's an unpredictable virtue. It ebbs, it flows, sometimes it's strong, sometimes it's weak. I know that for me, if I set my gaze upon the world, like reading news articles, looking at news headlines, if I do that for more than just a brief moment, I start to get a feeling of absolute hopelessness. Hopelessness for the state of our nation. Hopelessness for the state of the generations to come. Maybe even a sense of despair. It's only when I set my gaze back upon Christ that I regain the hope that seems lost when I gaze at the world for too long. Because I know that He's sovereign. I know that He is in control. I know that the future is in His hands. He holds tomorrow, and He holds the day after that, and He holds the day after that, and so on and so forth into eternity. And so, I have great, great hope when I remember that. So while these lesser virtues come and go and vary from one moment to the next with us, our love for God should never be shaken, should never waver. Paul ends the greatest chapter on love in the entire Bible, which of course is 1 Corinthians 13, by writing in verse 13, he says, but now faith, hope, love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. That is the chief virtue of the Christian. Now today we come to the passage which perhaps best illustrates that verse in all the Gospels, if not the entire Bible, the verse or the passage that illustrates this principle of love being a primary virtue. Now piecing together the testimonies of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we can fairly easily develop a logical sequence of what happened on that morning when Christ was resurrected from the grave. I remember it was my first semester in seminary. I found that there's an atheist out there who issued something called the Easter Challenge, in which he says, nobody can make any sense of Easter morning because these testimonies are all in conflict with one another. No they're not. As a first semester seminary student who was just getting started learning, even I could answer it at the time. Basically it goes like this, at dawn, probably a little bit before the sun broke over the horizon, the Son of God raised from the dead. And that was an event that was accompanied by earthquakes and by the coming of angels from heaven, which caused the Roman guards, who had been stationed right outside of Jesus' tomb in order to make sure that his disciples didn't steal his body, The earthquake and the coming of angels caused them to faint and to flee in fear. And so as the sky began to brighten, as the sun began to rise, a group of several women who had faithfully followed Christ throughout His earthly ministry came to the tomb of Jesus to anoint His body with spices. seeing that the stone which covered the tomb had been rolled away, the women panicked and either sent Mary Magdalene to go and tell the disciples, or Mary just did it on her own. Either way, Mary ends up going to tell the disciples that the tomb is open and empty. And while she is away, talking to the disciples, reporting the news to the disciples, the women who came with her to the tomb went into the tomb and they were told by the angels there he is not here for he is risen just as he said that's what we read in Matthew 28 6 meanwhile Mary Magdalene reached the disciples to tell them that the tomb was empty, not knowing that the angels had told the women that he had risen just as he said he would. So Peter and John raced to the empty tomb to see for themselves. And upon arriving, they found the grave clothes of Christ untouched, undisturbed, left behind, but his body missing. And so they returned to their homes. That brings us to the passage that we will be looking at today. where we find Mary Magdalene still at the empty tomb, in fact arriving back at the empty tomb after John and Peter had left the scene. The point of this passage that we come to today is that the greatest love in all of eternity is the covenantal fatherly love of God toward those who have savingly believed on Jesus. And to know this love in the experiential sense, to experience that love for ourselves, is to love Him back with a love that always abides. So we start with verses 11 to 13 in John chapter 20. where John writes, but Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping. And so as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been lying. And 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. Mary Magdalene was constrained by the love of God, compelled by the love of God to come to the tomb in the first place with the other women. That's why she showed up there. It was because she loved Jesus, she loved God. And the same love that compelled her to come to the tomb and to run and tell the disciples that the tomb was now empty, is the same love that compelled her now to look into the tomb for herself. John and Peter outran her to get there, and now they've left her there all by herself, like the perfect gentlemen that they always are. And so as she looks into the tomb, she sees two angels at opposite ends of the bed where his body had been laid. Now if you know your Bible, you know that their positioning here isn't accidental. They are at opposite ends, one at the top, one at the bottom of the bed. This positioning is not accidental, which we should recognize. Mary clearly understood the significance of their positioning. And so when she talked to John, she relayed this detail to John. And when John wrote this book, this testimony of the gospel, he includes this detail as well. He understood the significance of it as well. So what's the significance of how the angels are positioned, you might be asking. And that takes us back to Exodus chapter 25, where God gives Moses the instructions for constructing what we refer to as the Ark of the Covenant. And in verses 18 and 19, God instructs Moses saying, you shall make two cherubim of gold, make them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat or the atoning cover. I prefer mercy seat. The mercy seat. Make one cherub at one end and one cherub at the other end. You shall make the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat at its two ends. See, the mercy seat was found on top of the Ark of the Covenant, and God declares of the mercy seat in Exodus 25-22. That's where He says, there I will meet you. The Hebrew word for the mercy seat is Kapparet, which is closely related to the Hebrew word Kippur, which means atonement. Kippur, as in Yom Kippur, which we know is the day of atonement. When the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, the Greek word that was used for the mercy seat was Hilasterion. which usually gets translated in the New Testament, propitiation. Propitiation. So when the Apostle John writes in 1 John 2, verse 2, he says this, he says, he himself, speaking of Christ, he himself is the propitiation, the hilasterion for our sins. When he says that, what he means is that Jesus is our mercy seat. Jesus is the place where God meets with man. And just as the perfect and unblemished sacrifices that ancient Israel made enabled God to meet with man, only the blood of Christ atones for our sin. He is our mercy seat. Only His blood satisfies God's wrath against our sin. And so only His blood enables God to meet with us. So what is the significance of the angels seated at either end of the place where Jesus had been laid? It's a reminder, or an illustration, or a word picture of Christ being our mercy seat. the one who gave his life as a propitiation for the sins of all who believe on him. Notice, by the way, that as Mary comes into the tomb and sees these two angels seated on the bed where Christ is laid, what are they wearing? They're wearing white garments, he tells us. They're not dressed in black, in other words, which is the color that's worn by people or that was worn by people who were in mourning. Meaning, they're not mourning, which is very unusual if you're coming from Mary's perspective. Rather, they're dressed in white because they are not despairing. They are not mourning like Mary Magdalene was. They know that Jesus is alive. They know that Christ is risen. And so the angels ask her, Woman, why are you weeping? By the way, remember once again that that title woman is not derogatory. It's not a way of, you know, putting her in her place or anything like that. It's nothing like that. It's actually a title of respect and honor, just like Jesus referred to his mother Mary as woman from the cross. So it's not a sign of disrespect or disregard. It's not derogatory. It's actually very respectful. But we see this word weep or weeping repeated throughout these three verses. Why was she weeping? John wants us to see that she's weeping. That's why he keeps repeating it. He wants us to see the sorrow that is filling her soul, the grief that she is experiencing. Why is she weeping? I mean, I think we can probably imagine that between Friday, when Jesus was crucified, and Sunday morning, she probably hadn't had a whole lot of sleep. We know that she desperately wants to honor her Lord in His death. But at this point, She doesn't know what's happened. And so her faith is shaken. In fact, the faith of all of Jesus' disciples was shaken by the events that took place over the course of these three or four days. When Thomas, for example, was told that Jesus was alive and that He had appeared to the disciples, We call him doubting Thomas, but he wasn't just doubting. He wasn't just skeptical. He was actually filled with unbelief. He's going to say, if you want to glance down at verse 25, down in this chapter, if you've got your Bibles open, he's going to say to the disciples who had seen Jesus, I will not believe. It doesn't matter what you tell me. Unless I see him, I will not believe. He's not saying, I doubt what you're saying. He's saying, I won't believe what you're saying. And that's two very different things. Those aren't the words of a skeptic. Those are the words of somebody whose faith is run dry. And I think it's safe to say that this is how it was for all of Jesus' disciples until they knew that He had raised from the dead, until they had personally encountered the risen Christ. I'm sure that Mary Magdalene was in a similar place as Thomas was, if not the same place. She's very low on faith, if not running dry on faith altogether. And where there is lack of faith, you must also know that there's also going to be a lack of Christian hope. All of the disciples, including Mary Magdalene, had high hopes for what Christ would do. And those hopes and dreams were dashed to pieces just less than 48 hours earlier. We see this very clearly in the encounter that Jesus had with His two disciples who were on the road to Emmaus. We don't know which two disciples they were, but we are told about the conversation that Jesus has with them. It's recorded for us in Luke 24. But just like all the disciples, these two had anticipated what Jesus would do. They had high expectations for the Messiah's reign upon the earth. When Jesus spoke with them in Luke 24 verse 21, they said this, they said, we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. So when Jesus was crucified, when Jesus died, so did their hopes. so their hopes of what he would do. The irony is that he did come to redeem Israel, indeed he did redeem Israel, but they didn't understand what Jesus had told Pilate when he said my kingdom is not of this world. and they didn't yet understand the distinction between ethnic Israel and spiritual Israel that Paul would go on to make when he wrote Romans 9, verse 6, where he said, they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. Indeed, Christ did come and did redeem Israel, spiritual Israel. But the point is the disciples were somewhere between running low and running empty on both faith and hope. And so was Mary Magdalene. That's why she was weeping. That's why she had grief. But one thing that Mary and all of Christ's disciples did still have was love. Love for Christ. All of them still loved their Master, and it was this love that brought her to this point. It was love that caused her to want to hope that was causing her to weep. And we see that, and we see because her answer to the angels is to say this, she says, when she's asked why she was weeping, she says, because they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him. Not sure who they is, maybe the Roman authorities, but what we gather here is that she just wants to honor the deceased Jesus, but she can't. and praise the Lord for that. She can't, because neither can you, neither can I, neither can anyone, because Jesus is alive. He's risen from the grave. He's triumphed over sin and death. But we also see that this is her desire in her interaction with Jesus, not realizing it's him, thinking it's the gardener, which follows in verses 14 and 15. We read this. When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeing? Lead him away. Tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. Why does she not realize that she's talking to Jesus here? Let me start out by saying we don't know. You know, we at least can't be sure. Maybe it's because, you know, it's dark still. Maybe, you know, he had something covering part of his face. Maybe she couldn't see clearly through her tears. Maybe he just didn't want her to recognize him yet, which I think is probably the case. But whatever the case may be, she mistakes the risen Christ for the gardener. But she's so desperate to honor her Lord, she says to her Lord, not knowing it was him, believing him to be the gardener, she says, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. Now how is she going to do that? How is she going to take the body of Jesus away. She doesn't have the strength to do that. But she's not thinking about what she can or can't physically do. She's only thinking about how deeply, how much she loves Jesus and wants to honor Him. See, love will drive a person to say, I will just figure out a way to do what I couldn't do without love. That's biblical love. This is the kind of love that Mary Magdalene had for Jesus. And it's the kind of love that all of His disciples had for Him. Think about Peter, who doesn't wait for the boat to reach the shore to greet Jesus. He jumps out of his boat in his clothes and he swims to shore. This is the kind of love that Mary had for Jesus, that the disciples had for Jesus. This is the type of love of which Jesus alone is worthy. Now let me ask you this. Is your love for Jesus the kind of love that seeks to honor Him? Is your love for Jesus the kind of love that says, I'll figure out a way to do what I couldn't do without love? I hope that is the kind of love that you have, because one of the chief lessons that we're going to glean from this passage is that Christ not only calls us into His family, but He also calls us into His service. And you better know that when you are serving Jesus, it will require that you take more than just a couple steps outside of your comfort zone. Sometimes there's a very high cost, and you better not be primarily concerned with being comfortable. But love, love will always find a way to do what we wouldn't do without love. Why do people profess faith in Christ even if it means being decapitated? or losing their job, it's because love will always find a way to do what we wouldn't do without love. So what's the cure? for Mary's lack of faith and hope. How can that faith and hope be restored? How could she ever regain those virtues? As we'll see in the verses that follow, at least the central part of the solution is to know and believe that our Redeemer lives. Let's continue. V. 16-18 John says, Jesus said to her, She turned and said to him in Hebrew, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, stop clinging to me for I have not yet ascended to the father, but go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my father and your father and my God and your God. Mary Magdalene came announcing to the disciples, I have seen the Lord and that he had said these things to her. An old hymn that the Western church used to sing went like this. It said, because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Mary is a picture of that kind of hope and that kind of faith, that kind of confident hope. and belief being restored. Now up until this point she was thinking to herself, how am I going to face tomorrow? I'm overwhelmed by a sense of fear. How many of you know what it's like to be in that kind of mindset? To be in that kind of position? It's a terrible place to be, and I say that based on my own experiences, but Jesus' resurrection was the cure for Mary's fear and grief, and it's the cure for our fear and our grief as well. Think about what Paul said to the Thessalonians. They were concerned that those who had passed away before Jesus returned weren't going to get to see Jesus return in His glory. And so he instructs them not to grieve for those among them who have died, as do the rest who have no hope. It's from 1 Thessalonians 4.13. In other words, the world has one way of grieving. It's a hopeless grieving with no solution other than time just... healing those wounds. But Christians should not experience grief like this. We have hope. See, there's this hopeless sorrow, this hopeless grief that the unbelieving world has for those whom they lose to death. But for the Christian, we understand that death is not final. That death is not sovereign. That death is not supreme. It will not have the final say. So we shouldn't grieve the same way that someone who believes that death is final and does have the final say would grieve. Christians do grieve, of course. That is perfectly natural. We're instructed to grieve with those who grieve. But our grief is not without hope. Because He lives, we can face whatever, we can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is not only gone, but all fear is vain, to say the very least. And the grief that we feel in life, the grief that we experience in life is never, ever, ever a hopeless grief. Here in the garden, Jesus fulfills what were promised in Psalm 38, verse 18, which says this. It says, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Jesus washes away all of Mary's sorrow, all of her grief, by simply calling out to her, Mary. I think it's at this point that He wants her to know who He is. And so she turns toward Him again, and she proclaims, Teacher. Her faith races from zero to a hundred in less than a second. Before she can even take her next breath, she is filled to the brim with Christian hope once again. Why? Because He lives. Back in chapter 10, Jesus said of Himself as the Good Shepherd, He said, to Him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear His voice, and He calls His own sheep, how? By name, and leads them out. The fact that He calls His sheep by name reminds us that our Good Shepherd knows us individually, on an individual level, specifically, and that He calls out to us individually, specifically, to follow Him. And He went on to say in the same chapter, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. It's the voice of Christ that Mary had heard and recognized here. The voice which called her individually by name. When he commented on this passage, John Calvin said this, he said, quote, not by that ordinary voice which sounds indiscriminately in the ears of all, but by that voice with which he especially, or specifically, calls the sheep which the Father hath given to him. What this is, is an illustration, therefore, of what we call the sovereign effectual call, which isn't to be confused with what we refer to as the general call to salvation. See, in the general call to salvation, somebody preaches the gospel and people hear it. That word goes out to people from us. But God uses our general preaching, our general proclamation, our general voice to all to specifically issue what we refer to as His sovereign effect. The voice of the Good Shepherd calls out by name His sheep. The person who is known by Christ, therefore, hears his voice. And not just the voice of the preacher, when the gospel is preached, he hears the voice of the Good Shepherd. And upon hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd, all of his sheep recognize it. They hear their name called individually, and they respond by following him in faith. Now the text here in John gets really interesting, maybe a little bit confusing at this point. I say confusing because scholars throughout the ages have zero consensus on this. This is one of those passages where you'll see a lot of different ideas trying to interpret what Jesus is saying here. Not surprisingly at this point, Mary Magdalene is filled with a joyful exuberance and she apparently hugged him or reached out to embrace him. But Jesus responds to her by saying something that again might seem a little bit confusing. He says, stop clinging to me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to My brethren and say to them, I ascend to My Father and your Father and My God and your God. the stop clinging me clause is what gets people what confuses people I remember being taught in college that Jesus clearly meant that she couldn't touch him physically because he was only resurrected as a spirit and not with a body not a physical body that was raised and she couldn't cling to or touch a spirit But let me remind you that I went to a Christian liberal arts university. Emphasis on liberal, not on Christian. By the way, that's how I became familiar with all this garbage that I refute. It's because I was taught all this garbage. And one of the reasons I studied apologetics was to learn to respond to all the stuff I'd been taught in college that was just garbage. But others have said that he didn't want her to touch him because Jesus couldn't be defiled by human contact before ascending to heaven to present himself as the sacrifice that atones for sin to the Father. But both of these theories that Jesus's resurrection body couldn't be physically touched, either because he was a spirit or because if somebody touched him, it would defile the sacrifice that Jesus was going to make to the Father. These are easily dismissed. These are easily refuted when we remember that Thomas would physically touch the wounds of the risen Christ. Jesus, at this point, Jesus has already presented himself as the sacrifice that atones for sin to the Father. That was to happen on Saturday, on that Sabbath, the high Sabbath of the Passover. That's what happened that day. And his bodily resurrection proved that God's justice had been satisfied, that God's wrath had been satisfied, and that the Father was pleased with the atoning sacrifice that Jesus presented himself as. So why does Jesus say this? Why does he say, stop clinging to me? What does He mean? I mean, is He being rude to her? Is He rebuking her? Is He being unkind to her? I mean, she's overjoyed to see Him. I think we can say that's understandable, right? We can understand that wanting to hug Him or wanting to embrace Him would have been the most natural reaction possible, right? So what does Jesus mean when He says this? Well, there are two really important things that we should see in this text that help us understand what Jesus meant. First of all, He's telling her that He will ascend to the Father at some point, which is yet to come, but not yet. So Mary didn't need to hold on to Him. She didn't need to embrace Him as if she would never see Him again. And secondly, Jesus points out that Mary had the relationship that Mary had to the father and the relationship that Mary had to the disciples and to all who would believe because of their testimony, that that relationship, those relationships were forever changed by the reality of his death and resurrection from the dead. So he says to her, stop clinging to me. but go to my brethren and say to them." Could she go to the brethren if she was clean to Him? No. What she needed to see, what Mary and the disciples needed to know is that they were to relate to Jesus in a new and different way after His death and resurrection than they did prior to His death and resurrection. The relationship, the way that they related to one another had changed. They had to see Him differently than they saw Him before. Paul actually helps us to understand this with something he says in his second epistle to the Corinthian church. He writes in 2 Corinthians 5.16 saying this, he says, Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. They had known Him according to the flesh before, but now there was a new way that they were to relate to Jesus. They could hear Him during His earthly ministry. They could smell Him. They could touch Him. They could physically see Him. They could go to Him. But after the resurrection, everything was changed. Now they would know Him and hear Him and see Him in a spiritual sense. What does that mean? That sounds kind of like mysticism. I get that. I know it sounds strange, but this is one of the reasons that Jesus would ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to take up residence within each of his people, that reason being so that we may know and have fellowship, ongoing fellowship, at any time and in any place with Jesus through the internal ministry and testimony of the Holy Spirit. Mary was to know Christ not only as her Master, as her Lord, but also as her risen Savior. And to know Him through the power and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And to this day, friends, this is how we know Him and hear Him and have fellowship with Him as well. It's only by the work in the ministry of the Holy Spirit within us, that we come to see Christ not only as our Savior, but also as our Lord. After all, while Paul says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. He says that in Romans 10, 9. In verse 13, he says, whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. He also says in 1 Corinthians 12, 3, that no one can say Jesus is Lord except by. The Holy Spirit. I once heard a sermon by a pastor on Easter Sunday in which he said the Bible says if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. He says whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. So on the count of three, what I want us to all do is say Jesus together. Anybody can say Jesus. It's abominable. It's a terrible twisting of scripture. No, no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. Not by a pastor's prompting. Not by somebody preaching, hey, you just need to call on the name of the Lord and you'll be saved. If they truly do, it's because of the Holy Spirit, the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. Similarly, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2 verses 9 and 10, he says, but just as it is written, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him, for to us God revealed them through the Spirit. See, the resurrection changed everything. Jesus wasn't being mean to her. He wasn't rebuking her. He was letting her know that she, like all of the disciples, would have a new way of relating to him. Before the resurrection, in the flesh, Jesus could be at only one place at a time, but now Jesus can be anywhere. We can be in fellowship with Him no matter where we are, no matter what time of day it is. In Richard Phillips' words, he says, quote, Jesus wanted to point her forward, not backward, for her hope of communion with Him, end quote. But consider what else Jesus indicates will be changed. not just the way that they were to relate to Jesus but he says but go to my brethren and say to them I ascend to my father and your father and my God and your God what else is he saying has changed our relationship to the father has changed this is the doctrine that we refer to as the doctrine of adoption And it is such a wonderful and beautiful doctrine. There's a common misconception out there that all of us, by virtue of our humanity, are just born as children of God, simply by virtue of the fact that we are image bearers. But that is not what the Bible teaches. We're not all born into God's family. Instead, the Scriptures tell us that we begin, we're born into a state of being children, not of God, but children of wrath. That's from Ephesians 2. Heirs of sin, heirs of death, who walk the broad road that leads to destruction, enemies of God, rebels in His sight. but by the blood of Christ, shed for the propitiation of our sins, the remission of our sins. God adopts us into His family, purely as an act of grace and mercy. We're brought into fellowship with Him, and we're granted what you might call family privileges with Him, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And it's in this new relationship, this familial relationship, that Paul tells us that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, in Ephesians 1. What that means is that the Father relates to us in a way that is analogous to the way that He relates to Christ, His Son, in this glorious adoption. Do you understand this? Did you catch that? That God relates to us in a way that's analogous to the way that He relates to Christ? That's amazing. Do you see that Jesus is saying that we now stand before the Father in the same position that He is? The Son? We're adopted as sons. Heirs of an inheritance. When we say that grace is amazing, this is what we're talking about. None of us deserves this. Not even close. Not even a smidge. Not even... nothing. It sounds too good to be true, but God does not and indeed cannot lie. So it's actually gloriously good news that Jesus was not allowing Mary to go back to relating to him in the same way that she did before his resurrection, but announces that he is bringing her and all who believe into the family of God. through adoption, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But Jesus is also saying that we have a new relation to others, family. He says, but go to my brethren. Every other time he refers to his brethren in John's Gospel, he's talking about his brethren according to the flesh. He's talking about Mary's other sons, but he's not talking about them in that way here. Here he's talking, he's referring to the disciples as his brethren. Now, following the resurrection, this term refers to all who have believed on Jesus and have entered into God's family through adoption. The same Holy Spirit that will dwell in John, will also dwell in Peter, will also dwell in Andrew, and Nathanael, and Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and all who savingly believe on Christ. The same blood was shed for all of us, and we are all citizens of the same kingdom, the same city of heaven. We all stand in the same righteousness, the righteousness of Christ. Whether we love the brethren or whether we're irritated to death by them, we belong to them and they belong to us. This is the way that God has designed His family. And now we have the same obligations toward one another to love and to serve one another as Christ has loved and served us. Our relationship with the Father is changed. Our relationship to fellow Christians is changed. Our entire purpose in life, indeed, is changed because all of God's children are appointed to join the work that God is involved in. We no longer labor for our own glory, but for the glory of Him who redeemed us with His blood. And to that end, we're instructed to take the good news of forgiveness of sins, of reconciliation with God, of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and in adoption as children of the Most High God. We're to take this good news to the world around us. Is that good news? Yes! There is no better news. The preaching, the proclamation of this good news is the means that God has ordained to individually call His people by name. Those who were born children of wrath, now called home and into His family. This is what you might refer to as the family business. And we are to labor joyfully and diligently for the harvest. That's why we support missions. That's why we support our street preachers. Because this work is God's work. This is what we are to do. And it's one thing for me to get up here and share the gospel on Sunday mornings. I'm preaching to people who choose to come to church. How will the people outside of these walls ever hear the gospel if Christians are silent once they leave the door? Once they walk through the door? They won't. They won't. This is missions territory we're entering into here. If there's missions territory anywhere in the world, listen, Seattle is prime missions territory. There are places around the world where we're sending missionaries who need missionaries less than places like Seattle do. And I'm dead serious about that. Here, Jesus fulfills a proclamation, a promise of Psalm 22, which we've already seen tells us of Christ's thoughts on Calvary. In verse 22 of Psalm 22, it says this, it says, I will tell of your name to my brethren. by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. God's people will hear His voice doing just that whenever the good news of the gospel is preached. As the first one, what a privilege, the first one to see the resurrected, risen Christ, Mary Magdalene of all people, the woman who was once possessed by seven demons, but was set free by God's grace through Christ's ministry. She would be the first ambassador sent forth by the resurrected Christ to tell of the good news that Christ is risen and that she has seen Him with her own eyes. She would go to tell the brethren and declare, I have seen the Lord. By the way, if they were making this up, a woman wouldn't have been the first one sent. That's just not how that culture was. A woman couldn't serve as an eyewitness in a court proceeding in that culture. But Jesus, the Bible's not all about being chauvinistic and hating on women. Jesus has a way of honoring women and this is one of the greatest places where we see him honoring a woman. She's the first one sent to tell the disciples and friends that is the task to which you and I and all Christians are also called. to declare to the people around us that we have seen the risen Christ, that we have experienced His power, that we have witnessed His presence, and that all who believe on Him will be saved. Let all who are thirsty, let all who have been crushed by the weight of their sin, let all who have labored in vain to earn their way to heaven, to earn their good standing before God, and have grown tired and weary from trying to get to that point, Let them all hear the good and glorious news that there is no other name under heaven which is given by which we must be saved. Jesus is the only way to the Father. The floodgates of His grace have been opened on Calvary, so come and be cleansed. His death was sufficient for the remission of sins for even the vilest of sinners. and His bodily resurrection proves it. So come and be reconciled unto God. If today you hear His voice, don't harden your hearts, but simply believe. Don't you see? Don't you see? The greatest love that could ever possibly be known, the greatest love in all of eternity is this love, this redeeming love, this covenantal fatherly love of God toward those who have savingly believed on Jesus. Friends, I want you to know that love, but I don't want you to keep it to yourselves. I want the world to also know that love. Don't you? Friends, please know this. One of the chief things that we see here in this passage is that Jesus can take the vilest of sinners. He can take somebody who's been possessed by seven demons and use them. And He can also find us in our griefs and our sorrows and fill us with hope. Because in the resurrection of Christ, death has lost its sting. Sin was defeated. We are assured that Christ's sacrifice was sufficient. And so whatever griefs and sorrows you might bear, whether today or whenever, don't ever lose sight of the fact that the same power that raised Christ from the dead now dwells in you. The same love that the Father has had for eternity toward the Son is now ours as well. And so, we can face tomorrow. Whatever may come, whatever may happen, whatever, We can face tomorrow because we know that our Redeemer lives and reigns forevermore. What are you going to do with that information? Go and share it with somebody. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You once again for Your Word and the way that it nourishes our souls. The way it confronts us and convicts us. The way it instructs us. Lord, You know what our needs are. And we thank You that You use Your Word to edify us. But You also use it to point us back to Christ over and over. And so once again we come to you and we thank you for the way that your Word works in us, sanctifying us, growing us in Christ's likeness. We pray, O Lord, that you would give us the same courage that you gave to Mary Magdalene on that morning to go and tell of the risen Christ to those who have not heard, to those who do not know. Give us courage, give us wisdom, and we pray, O Lord, that you would give us confident trust and hope that your word is sovereign and that you will call your sheep by name when your word is preached. Your purposes will not be thwarted, All that you have elected from eternity past will come to Christ through the preaching of your word. So teach us to walk in obedience, to not worry about the results, but to leave them in your hands, knowing that you are sovereign, and that you are good, and that you love to save even the vilest of sinners. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.