with the gospel all throughout the year because of this ministry. And we need someone just once a month to go there. You'll still be able to hear the sermon and actually see everything that's happening out here. You'll be fully trained on how to record and stream our services, and it's a great ministry that we need help with. Anyone who would like to help out with that, just see our deacon, Rob Parchman, for more information. And then we are, beginning this year, the second Wednesday testimony series. It's been a great blessing so far. We've heard two testimonies, and we look forward to hearing 10 more this year, and then more into the next year. This past Wednesday evening was such an incredible time of glorifying God and His redemptive work in the life of our sister Candice. It was a very well-attended and intimate evening. I encourage you to come next month and every one of these second Wednesday nights to hear these marvelous testimonies. And if you want to share your testimony, you haven't yet signed up, just come see me and I will add you to the schedule for next year. Also notice that this Saturday, ladies are hosting a wedding shower tea party for Leslie Mercado. It'll take place in the Fellowship Hall at 11 a.m., and the wedding will take place right here in this room on Saturday, March the 15th, so it's coming up. right here in the chapel. You're all invited to attend the joyous wedding of Rob and Leslie. And then next week in the evening, we're gonna come back into this room at 6 p.m. for our annual business meeting. Many churches have a business meeting like once a month to conduct their church business. We just do it once a year, and it's important that you are here so you know what to be praying for and the direction that we need to be headed in and how to be good stewards of the ministry that God has given us here as Dayspringers. So I encourage everyone to please be here for that. Also, if you haven't yet submitted your planning card, you can do that by just putting it in the offering plate in the back today or at the latest by the end of the morning service next week. I'm excited about this upcoming women's conference, Rest in a Weary World, Journey Bible Fellowship in Leander. It's a very like-minded sister church of ours. I am friends with their lead pastor, Kurt Romick. His wife is going to be the main speaker at this two-day conference, women's conference. It's going to kick off on Friday evening, March the 7th. and then go into Saturday the 8th. Food is provided. To register or to get more information, you can visit the link there in the bulletin. There's also a flyer out on the bulletin board out there in the hallway that you can have a look at as well. And then finally, our Providence Theological Institute's New Covenant Theologies John Bunyan Conference is a free conference that takes place every year. It's going to take place at Grace Church in Franklin, Tennessee, June 22nd through the 25th. This is a ministry that Day Spring has deeply been involved in from the very beginning. Our founding pastor served on the board of trustees. I serve on the board as well. Speakers this year will include Dr. Joshua Griever, our missionary to South Africa, Paul Carstens, Pastor Blake White, Pastor Gary George, myself, and Several others. It's going to be a great time, and I encourage you to, as you make your summer vacation plans, to come out to Tennessee and enjoy this time together. Well, as we begin worship together, I want to ask you to turn in the red hymnal to hymn number 629, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, 629 in the red. And please hold your place there and stand together for our call to worship. Our call to worship this morning, it comes from the great eighth chapter of the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword, know in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am certain that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Let us sing together. ♪ All the faith we have in Jesus ♪ All our sins and griefs to bear What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer Oh, what peace we often forfeit Oh, what needless pains we bear All because we do not carry ♪ Everything to God in prayer ♪ ♪ Have we trials and temptation ♪ ♪ Is there trouble anywhere ♪ ♪ We should never be discouraged ♪ ♪ Take it to the Lord in prayer ♪ ♪ On a friend so faithful ♪ Who will all our sorrows share ♪ Jesus, know our every weakness ♪ Take it to the Lord in prayer ♪ Are we weak and heavy laden ♪ Clumbered with the load ♪ Precious Savior, still our refuge ♪ ♪ Take heed to the Lord in prayer ♪ ♪ Do thy friends despise, forsake thee ♪ ♪ Take heed to the Lord in prayer ♪ ♪ In his arms you'll take and shield thee ♪ ♪ Thou wilt find us on the way ♪ Let us pray together. Our blessed Father and our God, you who have given us our dearest friend in Christ Jesus, and you who are so worthy of all our worship, who dwells in perfect righteousness, who created us, and who redeemed us by the blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus, we come before you in the name of our victorious King Jesus, asking you to assist us to do all that we do here for the sake of your holy name. Help us to remember who you are and to remember our own wretchedness before you. Help us to remember. that we don't even deserve to know you because of all of our sins against you, and so help us, Lord, to recall the great grace that you have shown to us in your full redemption and pardon. We thank you that you have made us alive together in Christ Jesus. We thank you that we can come before you in his name, and we thank you for the remarkable freedom that we have to gather together to worship you openly in spirit and in truth. We ask you, Lord God, that you would bring all of us into close communion with you today. We pray that you would speak comfort to hearts that are needy or troubled or weary. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would give strength to the weary and that you would convict those who need conviction of their sins. We pray that you would build up all of your children Bless them today by your holy presence. We ask, Lord God, that you would help us to commune with you as we partake of the Lord's Supper, that you would hear our prayers, that you would enliven our singing of these hymns and psalms and spiritual songs, and that above all, it would be you, our Good Shepherd, who speaks to us your sheep through the reading and the proclamation of your holy food for us today, your inerrant, life-sustaining word. We ask that you would create within us hearts of praise, that we would be true worshipers of you today, that you would be glorified in our midst, that your name would be exalted high, and that you would get all the glory, laud, and honor for yourself in this place. through Jesus Christ, our Lord, in whose precious name we pray, amen. You may be seated for our scripture reading. Good morning. Our reading today is from Acts chapter 9 verse 31. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Well, every Lord's Day here, we celebrate the Lord's Supper together. It's a central and integral part of our worship, and we want to invite those who are not members of this church to feel comfortable partaking of the Lord's Supper with us, because this is the Lord's table and not Dayspring's table, and so all who Belong to the Lord are invited to partake of it. We want to make that very clear as to who belongs to the Lord by asking three things of you. We require that you are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. So you're not thinking of yourself as some good person who has commended their life and to God, that He's pleased with you. You know that you are desperately wicked, you have cast your soul on Jesus alone for your substitute and as your Savior, and so you are looking to Jesus alone as the one who has lived the life of obedience that you've utterly failed to live before God, and you're trusting in His death upon the cross to pay the penalty and take the wrath of God for all of your sins, and so you are one who has been radically saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to His glory alone. And then secondly, we ask that you be a baptized believer, so you've been obedient to your king in baptism. We leave the details of your baptism up to your own individual conscience. And then finally, we ask that you not be under church discipline from the local congregation where your membership resides so that we might respect the work of our Lord as he builds his church here in this world. As we prepare our hearts to partake of the Lord's Supper, let's turn in the Red Hymnal to hymn number 598 as we remember together that Jesus truly is the bread of life, number 598 in the red. Let us sing together. Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak, but Thou art mighty. Hold me with Thy powerful hand. Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me, Thou wonder-born. me till I want no more. Open now the crystal fountain whence the healing stream doth flow. Let the fire and cloudy pillar lead me all my journey through. Strong deliverer, strong Be thou still my strength and shield. Be thou still my strength and shield. When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside. Death of death and hell's destruction, let me sleep on Canaan's side. Songs of praises, songs of praises I will ever give to thee, I will ever give to thee. Well, Jesus, throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament, is described as a king. From his promise, to his birth as a king, his life, his teaching, to his death, his resurrection, ascension, reign, his second coming. Jesus, in all of those, is described with royal, kingly language and titles. But he's not just simply described as a king, he's described as a warrior king, a king who wages war against his enemies, and a victorious king who conquers and vanquishes for his people, he vanquishes all his enemies. In Revelation chapter 19, Jesus there is portrayed as a warrior king, riding on a white horse, making war against all the nations, striking them down. And upon his blood-dipped robe and on his thigh, he has this name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And he establishes his absolute sovereign rule by bringing the old age to an end. Every person is resurrected bodily and the devil and all of his angels and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life are all thrown into the lake of eternal fire that he created for them. And then how does Revelation end? Well, not with the church in a disembodied state in heaven floating on clouds and playing harps, right? Our hope is not hope in some disembodied existence in heaven. It's the hope of a new creation on earth. And what we see in scripture is that the point of our warrior king's victorious physical resurrection is that we too will all be resurrected like him into physical bodies, right? When we see him, we will be like him. And we will rally to our king at the sound of the last trumpet. to join in his triumphant victorious procession. We will touch our triumphant warrior king with our own hands. We will look this man, our king, in the eye in a physical new creation. And then how does the book of Revelation end? It actually ends with the end of heaven, right? With its descending and recreating the earth with this image of the New Jerusalem in chapters 21 and 22 with the combination of these two great images of scripture, right? The New Jerusalem is both a garden of Eden, repristinated, and it is Jerusalem perfected as well, Jerusalem the golden. There's this combination of images combining these two great themes of that pristine garden of Eden, where mankind walked with God in the cool of the day, and the city of Jerusalem put together in the shape of a temple, which symbolizes the consummation of the recreation of all of heaven and earth that was inaugurated at the resurrection, right? The cross and resurrection is the very beginning of the recreation of the world. This is so essential. It's the beginning of the recreation of the world with the last Adam who rises from the grave and then the light of life begins to spread over the earth through him and through us, through his witnesses. That's the recreation of the world. In the beginning, God started with the world and then that culminated on the sixth day with a man, a king, And then the recreation of the world starts with a man, a king, and will culminate with a world, with the whole earth being recreated, redeemed, right? The whole creation is crying out and longing for its redemption. So the everlasting kingdom that was promised to David in 2 Samuel 7, the kingdom that we proclaim now and look forward to in the future, That kingdom is ultimately the new creation. But what I want to remind you of here today, this morning, is that the great victory of our warrior king that he fights for and that he wins is not just seen in Revelation 19 at his second coming in invincible might. It's surprisingly seen long before that as he hangs upon a cross wearing his crown of thorns. It's there at the cross that our warrior king ultimately defeats all of his enemies, which is why the Apostle Paul writes this in Colossians 2. You who were dead in your trespasses, God made alive together with Christ Jesus, having forgiven us all our sins, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside by nailing it to the cross, thus disarming the rulers and authorities and putting them to open shame by triumphing over them in Christ. And so I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, We are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. Brothers and sisters, let's take a moment of silence before the Lord to examine ourselves before we partake of the supper. Our Heavenly Father, how we thank you that your people can be fully assured of our salvation, not by our own strength or our own goodness, but because our warrior king has conquered for us all enemies, triumphing over sin and death and Satan, triumphing over our own rebellious hearts, putting all of his enemies to open shame, by nailing our unpayable debt, all of our sins, to the cross. So we thank you that we have such a king ruling today upon the throne of the universe in whom we can be confident, trusting in his finished work in our place on the cross, the body he gave for us, the blood that he shed for every last one of our sins. And so we ask you, Lord, to bless this bread and this cup set them apart for their holy use. Bless us in partaking of them, to do so by faith alone, in Christ alone, to his glory alone, and so in a worthy manner. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, he took bread, And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. This is the body of our Lord crushed for our iniquities. This cup is the new covenant in Christ's blood, shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. The new covenant in Christ's blood. blood of the Lamb shed for your sins. Good morning. All right, if you will turn with us in your red hymnal to number 86, the Lord's my shepherd, I shall not want. He leads with me, He leads with me, the quiet waters flow. My soul, He does restore again, and makes me walk, does make. for his own name's sake. Within the paths of righteousness, yearning for his own name's sake. Yea, though I walk in desperate vain, yet will I care no ill. For the Lord moved me in the world, and staffed me comfort. Lord, with me am I wrought, hence let me come through still. Table, I'll rise from my shoe, in the presence of my foes. My head, thou dost know, O Lord, bend like a boulder flows. My head, thou dost know, O Lord, bend like a boulder flows. Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely follow me. And in God's house forevermore my dwelling place shall be. And in God's house forevermore my dwelling place shall be. Now if you would turn in the back of your red hymnal to page 803, 803 in the back of the red. We're gonna read responsibly together Psalm 47. Please stand together. Clap your hands all you nations. Shout to God with cries of joy. He subdued nations under us, peoples under our feet. God has ascended amid shouts of joy, the Lord amid the sounding of trumpets. For God is the king of all the earth. Sing to him a psalm of praise. God reigns over the nations. God is seated on his holy throne. The nobles of the nations assemble as the people of the God of Abraham. For the kings of the earth belong to God. He is greatly exalted. Let us pray together. Almighty God and glorious Father, we worship and adore you and we come before you with awe and reverence. We come before you with joy and with celebration to delight ourselves in you, to thank you, Lord God, for your mighty work in all the nations of the world. We thank you, Heavenly Father, that you are at work by your Spirit in our own hearts to conquer indwelling sin. to work in us, both to will and to work for your good pleasure. We thank you, Lord God, for your mercy in providing us a nation in which we can gather together and worship you openly. We pray, Lord God, for the millions of people in this country who don't know you, for our own city here and our nation and its wickedness and rebellion and selfishness, that your gospel of peace would go forth in power by your Spirit to bring repentance and faith here in our land and throughout this whole dark and fallen world. Our God and Father, we lift up those who are absent from us today. We pray that you would be with all of those who are streaming from home, strengthening them through your Word. We pray that you would especially be with our sister Sarah in the hospital there in the ICU, Laura, that you would allow her to get off the ventilator to breathe on her own and to be able to go to a regular hospital room and then to a rehab center. We pray for your strengthening of her body. We pray for our neighbors, for this city. We pray for those to whom Dayspringers shared the glorious gospel this week, that they would see their need of you, that they would turn from their sinful ways, and that they would turn to you in faith. We pray for all of the ministries that go out from this congregation, and especially for this AV ministry, that you would bless it for the spread of your kingdom. We thank you that we get to take part in the spread of the gospel going forth and bringing new life where there was only spiritual death. We pray for Pastor Samuel Klintock this morning as he guest preaches today at Kenny Avenue Baptist Church. And we ask that you would enliven their worship of you there this morning, that you would be with Josh Hayward's wife as she recovers from her surgery. our country in which we sojourn, Lord, for blessing upon President Trump and the Supreme Court and the Congress and all the leaders in our government that you would lead them in your ways and restrain them from evil for the good and the spread of your kingdom. We pray, Lord God, that you would be with all of our missionaries, that you would work to do your sovereign will through them throughout the world, that your gospel would go forth great power to all the nations, that all Israel might be saved. And we pray finally, O God, that the earth might be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In Jesus' name and for his sake we pray, amen. You may be seated and our children can go out to Children's Church at this time. And as they go out, please turn with me and your copy of God's precious living and active word to the Gospel of John, and back to chapter 20. John chapter 20. The risen Lord Jesus has finally appeared to his first disciple, to Mary, and now in our passage today to the other disciples, beginning 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. 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 a short little passage, but it's a short little passage that raises a number of questions. You may have had questions raised in your own mind this week as you reflected on it in preparation for our worship today. It may have just raised some questions for you as I read it, and hopefully we will answer those questions for you. But just in the midst of all the questions and all the exegetical difficulties that we get to talk about today, 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 risen. Mary had seen him. Peter and John have seen the inside of the empty tomb and the grave clothes neatly there, but they haven't seen Jesus. And I don't want you to miss the reason that John wrote down this story for us in the first place. He wants you to see that just like the disciples, just like Mary from last time, when you come face to face with Jesus, that is not something that you just turn away from, right? Sort of give a quiet yawn and then carry on with your life. No, no, it's something that changes and reorients and redirects the entire purpose of your life. So here's the main idea. The main idea of our passage is this, to be a Christian, to be a Christian is to accept a mission, right? It's a mission of offering forgiveness to a fallen world in the name of the King. So to be a Christian is to accept a mission. assignment. It's to accept a mission of offering forgiveness to this fallen world in the name of the king. That's the first part. And then the second part is, and the mission is empowered and authorized by the king himself. The mission is empowered and authorized by the king himself. In other words, he doesn't just leave us to do it alone. We're gonna look at this passage this morning, these five verses, in three points, which I think you'll see just kind of trace out the progression of what Jesus does with his disciples here. So point number one, this is gonna be verses 19 and 20. Point number one, he settles them. He settles them. Verse 21, he sends them. He sends them. And then final point, point number three, he sanctions them, 22 and 23. He sanctions them. That's what John shows us this morning. Jesus settles sins and sanctions his disciples. 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. Remember, Mary was sunk in grief. She was just sunk in a state of 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. It's also our story as Christians. Same thing is going to happen here in our passage this morning. The disciples' story in these five verses is also our story. See, once we encounter, once we really encounter the risen Jesus in a saving way and finally know true peace, Right? It's what everyone in the world is looking for, is peace. And when we finally experience that peace that we were created for, what happens next? He calls us. He sends us immediately to hold him and his gospel out to this unbelieving, fallen world. And when we do that, when we tell other people about this King, Jesus, when we proclaim the good news of the kingdom of Jesus, right, in a fallen world, we are doing so with all the authority of heaven behind us. It's an incredible thing to think about and to realize, and so that's what we're talking about this morning. So point number one, Jesus settles them, and boy did they need some settling here. I mean, it had been a rough few days for the disciples. I mean, it's been a really long time for us, right? We've spent months and months stretching way back into last year looking at all of this. But for the disciples, it's only been a week, right? I mean, just seven days earlier than this day, 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 everyone came out flooding into the streets, these great crowds calling after Jesus, proclaiming him as David's son, the king, the promised king, right? They're laying palm fronds down in front of him, and they're taking their own cloaks off of their backs and laying it down in front of his donkey, because in their minds, the Messiah is here, right? The Davidic king was coming back to take his rightful throne away from the usurpers and to sit on it himself. That was just seven days ago. But things Remember, 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 trap him, tried to get him in trouble with the Roman authorities. But attack after attack, blow after blow, Jesus met them until finally they conspired with the Romans and with the Jewish leaders and with Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, in order to have Jesus killed. And so before they even knew exactly what was happening, these disciples, they were in this garden, this Garden of Gethsemane, outside the wall of the city, watching in the middle of the night a line of ominous torches make its way across the Kidron Valley from the city into the garden, and then watch their friend, their companion, Judas, open the gate, walk up to their teacher, and place a kiss upon his cheek. And then it was only a few hours before they saw their master being hoisted up on a Roman instrument of torture and death, we call the cross. So 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, right? What happened between 3 p.m. Friday and then early in the morning on Sunday? I'll tell you what happens because the Bible tells us what happened. For all of the high hopes that they had, for all the promised courage that they were going to show to their king and their loyalty to him, for all of this cocky talk about who's going to sit on his right and who's going to sit on his left when he came into his kingdom, for all of that, At 3 p.m. on Friday, what happened was that when their hope collapsed, their courage collapsed. Everything they had thought about, everything they had hoped for, everything they dreamed of, was suddenly as dead as their teacher. And what took its place, according to the Bible, was fear. Fear. And there was a good reason for that, right? There was a good reason for fear to enter in now and to wrap its icy cold fingers around the disciples' hearts. Everybody knew that there was a 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 the peace of the empire, they didn't just kill the pretend messiah himself, they ripped out his influence root and stem, right? They would track down his followers, they would crucify them too as accomplices, If they were Roman citizens, they would cut off their heads. This happened over and over again. So the disciples, they were not unreasonable in locking themselves into this room. Nobody would have accused them of being ridiculous for locking themselves inside a home and hiding and cowering. They weren't wrong. They were not wrong about the ruthlessness of Rome. They were just wrong about the deadness of Jesus. Look first at verse 19 there. John chapter 20, verse 19. It begins with a couple of just sort of unremarkable details when you first look at it. So first of all, notice this is on the evening of Sunday, on the evening of that day, first day of the week. Also notice there that John tells us that the doors of the house were locked. Why? Well, of course the doors were locked because the disciples were afraid of the Jews. They were afraid, two days after the crucifixion, they were afraid that the Jewish leaders were gonna do to them what they'd done to Jesus, hand them over to the Roman authorities to be killed and crucified somewhere outside the city. So there they are. hold up in this locked room, grieving for Jesus, fearing for their own lives. These are devastated men. And then John, John who was there, who was experiencing the devastation, experiencing the grief, experiencing the fear, John tells us what happens next. He writes, very matter-of-factly, Jesus came and stood among them. And then notice what Jesus says to them. Peace be with you. Now, on the surface, that's just a very common Jewish and Hebrew way of greeting people, right? I'm sure he simply said, shalom, which John translates to Greek here as reine humim, peace to y'all. It sort of functioned a little bit like our word, hello, does in English. But for the Jews, that greeting refers to the peace that comes to a person, or even to an entire world, that is right with God. It's a greeting with theological meaning and import. Like when I begin every Lord's Day service here, not by saying, hi everybody, but rather, grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. So what did Jesus mean here by this greeting? I mean, you can imagine, You know, all of the disciples fearfully huddled around the fire, or around the table, and Jesus just, you know, he just appears, and just in a kind of friendly way, he says, shalom, and they all jump, right? You can imagine him doing that, just as kind of a happy way of startling his disciples, and even being a little bit, you know, funny in that. But Jesus, obviously, here's what I want you to see, and he obviously, wanted, and John wants us as his readers, to give this greeting a second glance, right? A second thought. Now, why do I say that? Well, because Jesus says this in verse 19 as if it was just a greeting, and John writes it down for us, which in itself flags to us that he wants us to think about it deeply. But then he says it all over again in verse 21. He repeats himself. So what do you think of when the resurrected Jesus Christ stands in the midst of his beloved disciples and says, peace be to you. What do you think of? Well, what John wants you to think of. is that Jesus had promised his disciples days before his crucifixion. He had promised his disciples that it was through his very crucifixion and resurrection that he would give to them true and lasting peace. So remember back to chapter 14, verse 27. It's been a while. He says, peace I leave with you. And then he says it again right away, my peace I give to you. And then chapter 16 verse 33, I've 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 this to them as his first words as the risen Lord. He didn't just want them to be thinking of, you know, hello or hi. He wanted them to think back and realize He told us. He told us that it is through His death, through His crucifixion, through His coming back on the third day to life again that we would be given peace. what he wanted them to realize. For the rest of history, he wanted them to remember that in the very first moment that they saw him risen after his resurrection, what he offered them, what he brought to them, was true peace. Now there's a couple of layers to that piece, theologically speaking. And first, and most important, is just the objective reality that through his death and resurrection, Jesus makes peace between God and sinners. You remember the proclamation of the angels out in the shepherd's field on the night that he was born. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace. That's what he came for. And the fact is, we as human beings, we come into the world at war. We come into the world at war with God. When King Adam took the fruit of the tree from his wife Eve and bit into it, 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. For the whole human race, our King Adam declared war for us against God. We don't enter this world in a neutral state. We come as enemies of God, who are hostile to his authority, at war against him. And if you're not yet a Christian today, you are right now, you are at war with the living God. One of the most poignant verses in the entire book of Isaiah is that your sins, Isaiah says, your sins have made a separation between you and your God. Your iniquities, he says, have caused him to hide his face from you. And if you're here this morning, and you're not a Christian, that is your state. That's where you are, right? You're at war with the true and living God, the glorious God. And a separation between you and the source of all joy and all life in the universe, the source of all flourishing, is, is between you and him, and his face is hidden from you. Every day that you march through this life, every time that you sit under a sermon that names the name of Jesus, right? Every time you come into this room and sit among this little church and you are called upon to turn from your sins, to believe on Jesus, you are re-upping your declaration of war against God. Friend, it's time. It's time to put the weapons down. It's time to disarm. It's time to stop declaring war against your God who created you and offers you forgiveness, right? Let King Jesus declare peace between you and God. That's what happens when you come to Him in simple faith. You repent of your sins. You trust in Him, in His death and resurrection for you. Rely on Him as your Lord and Savior. Heaven will declare peace with you, and your warfare will be ended. Don't go on fighting. Lay down the weapons and let there be peace. Let there be peace in your heart, peace to you. And if you're a Christian here today, Your warfare with God has ended, right? That separation that was there between you and God, that gap 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. So first, there's that objective peace between you and God. You're declared righteous. You're justified. You're forgiven. It's done. Paul says, you know, Romans 5.1, therefore, because we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, right? The separation is closed, and now there's peace. There's peace between you, Christian, and God. But there's also a second sense, and it's more intimate and personal and even a subjective sense of peace. In other words, you experience that objective relational peace that Jesus brings to you. There's suddenly a calm heart, right? There's a steady sense of purpose and direction and understanding that you now have in this life. despite everything that life might throw at you. You're headed somewhere, and it is somewhere good. It is an upward call. And so you, as a Christian, you are this non-anxious presence in the midst of a very anxious world. And in so much of this life that we live, it's just a bunch of chaos, isn't it? 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 divisions, and power grabs, and earthquakes, and wildfires, and demands, and expectations. And most of life is just this never-ending loop of chaos. But then you know that feeling when you go out to a place like Big Bend, where there's no cell phone signal, and you just get to spend hours just looking at a mountain, or maybe when the electricity goes out and you just get to spend a few minutes just kind of staring off into a Texas thunderstorm. It's wonderful, isn't it? Well, multiply that times infinity, and that's the kind of peace that Jesus gives, only infinitely greater. It's when, for everything that's happening in the world, for everything that's happening in life, for all the events, all the circumstances, all the social media posts and the noise and all that the world is trying to get you to pay attention to. It just stops. The buzzing stops. And you can remember that you have been saved, redeemed by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, not by any works that you have to do, and just stare off for a while into the high mountain ranges of the new heavens and the newer, right there on the horizon. Right, that is our redemptive horizon. So let your heart, let it be calm. Brothers and sisters, no matter what's happening, it is the call of the Christian for our hearts to be non-anxious, calm, because we know, we know for certain that our sins are blotted out, that our King conquers, and that he's coming soon. We know that the warfare of this age, it's not going to last for long. And one day, very soon, one day very, very soon, heaven's mourning will break and earth's vain shadows will flee, and you'll be looking into the face of your beautiful King. So let your heart be calm, right? All your co-workers, your neighbors, family members around you are anxious and living in an anxious age. Be a non-anxious presence to them in the midst of an anxious world. What else do we see in these verses? Well, in verse 20, Jesus shows them his hands and his side, right? These wounds where the nails had been and the spear. And the point of all that here, of course, is to prove to them that it's really Him, right? Not a ghost. It's not a spirit. And it's to overcome their unbelief. The Gospel of Luke tells us this same story, but it gives us a little more detail about this appearance of Jesus to the disciples. In fact, in Luke's story, that's exactly what they're thinking. When Jesus first appears there, they think they're seeing a ghost. But Jesus shows them. No, see, these are the nail prints in my hands, and this is where the spear pierced me in my side. And just look at the results of that. The disciples' fear, right there in that very verse, it melts into joy. 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? They thought he was dead, but he's alive again? I think there's definitely more to it than just that. Because here's the thing, 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, what that means is that Jesus really is who he said he is. He's the Messiah, he's the Son of God, he's really the Savior of the world. He brings real peace, right? And that's why the resurrection of Jesus is the bedrock of the Christian faith. That's why Paul says, look, if the resurrection did not happen, then we Christians, we are of all people in the world most to be pitied and mocked. If it's not true, we are a complete 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 the true vine, right, the bread of life. I am the way, the truth, the life, this or that, the son of God, the savior of the world. Whatever it is that he was trying to show them, every I am this or that claim, And if I get up on the third day after being crucified, you will know that that is true. And if I don't give up, if I don't rise, if I don't get up, then you will know that it was false, that I was crazy or a liar, and that what I said and what I did made absolutely no difference, it made no sense. You know, for some mainstream Christians, so-called, to say that they want to be a Christian and follow the teachings of Jesus, yet they doubt that he bodily got up from the dead, that makes absolutely zero sense to do that. The whole of the Christian faith rests upon whether Jesus got up from the grave or not. The heart of Christianity is not what you think about the Sermon on the Mount. It's not what you make of the creation of the world in six days or longer than that. The heart of Christianity is not about obeying your parents or doing religious activities. The heart of Christianity is not about the sexual ethics of the church. The heart of Christianity is whether Jesus died and got up from the grave. And if he did, then everything else falls into place. that the whole Bible then becomes your authority in life. It becomes a life-giving word to you. But if not, never mind. We should all leave and go back to sleep. But if you want to know Christianity, you go straight to the bedrock of it. Did Jesus truly rise from the dead? So here's point number two. He sins them. So he settles them first, proves that he's resurrected. That settles their hearts. Point number two, he sins them. Well, by now it shouldn't be super surprising what happens next, because it happened with Mary in the last passage, right? As soon as she recognizes him, she tries to cling to him, embrace him, but Jesus immediately commissions her to do something. He sends her, go, tell my brothers. Go, Mary, tell my brothers. Now that you've recognized me for who I am, now that your soul has come alive, go tell somebody about me. Same thing here, as soon as they recognize Him, as soon as their fears melt into joy, it's time to roll up their sleeves and 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. 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, 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 and apply it, questions start to come up, right? This is the Apostle John's version here of the Great Commission. Every single one of the Gospel writers, all four Gospels, and again at the beginning of Acts as well, records in different ways, in different terminology, Jesus giving his kingly marching orders to his disciples. Every single one of them does it. So Matthew, right, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Mark, go into all the world proclaiming the gospel to the whole creation. Luke and Acts, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. All of them are pretty easy to understand. This one in John, though, is a little more mysterious, right? It's just a little more enigmatic. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. So the basic thing we can see there is that there's a parallel of some kind between the Father sending Jesus into 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 there's a tendency that people have to put way, way too much freight on this one verse, as if what it's asking us to do is just identify anything that we find interesting about what Jesus did or who Jesus was, and pretty much just directly apply that to ourselves. What's the problem? with that. The problem with that is that Jesus was saying and doing and claiming things that were unique to him or were just one-time things never to be repeated, right? So the point is that you can't just use this verse to say, well, okay, it's true of Jesus, therefore it's true of me, too, as one who was sent like he was sent. can't do that. 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 see that? You and I, as Christians, we're being sent by the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim forgiveness of sins. Once you realize that, it pulls it much more into view and into focus with these other great commission passages, doesn't it? I mean, it fits perfectly with what Jesus says here in verse 21. Similar to how Jesus was sent by the Father to win and then proclaim forgiveness, so we are sent into the world not to win it, that's already been done, finished, accomplished, right, paid in full. but to continue to proclaim forgiveness to the sinful world. That's our mission. So here's what I want you to see from this. What I want you to understand from this is to be a Christian, To be a Christian, it's not to join a club. It's not like joining a gym membership, or a friend group, or a social outfit. 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 the king's army, into a military unit that's fired up and driven by a singular mission, and it's a mission to conquer the world. That's what it means to be a Christian. I mean, of course, the weapons, the weapons of our warfare, as the Apostle Paul says, they're not physical. It's not the sword. Church doesn't have the sword. State has the sword. Church has the keys. We're going to talk about that in a moment. We're not interested in forced conversions, or making people bow the knee and proclaim Jesus as Lord, or forcing the Ten Commandments to be prominently displayed in every public classroom. That is not at all what we are interested in. We are not called to Christian nationalism, brothers and sisters. No, the Bible tells us that the arsenal by which we fight and wage this war against the principalities and the princes of darkness in dark places, the weapons by which we fight, are the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. That's the way the army of the king marches forward and conquers the enemy. That's how we push back against the forces of evil out there in this dark and fallen world. We stand and we hold out forgiveness to a fallen world, just like Jesus did. 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 have been caught up in a massive cosmic spiritual war, and that God has given you a critical special ops assignment of holding out forgiveness to wretched, undeserving sinners, just like me, just like you? I love what somebody said. We would be a whole lot more prayerful. 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. It's true. You've been caught up in a cosmic spiritual war. You've been drafted into the host of this conquering warrior king. Let that affect the way you live your daily life. He sins. That's the second thing. Now here's the third and the last thing. He sanctions them. So sanction in the sense of authorizes, right? He authorizes these disciples. 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 very thing that he is sending them into the world to do. which is a good thing because it's one thing to be sent out to carry some assignment out, to complete some important assignment, but not to be given the authority or the power to do it. So, I mean, you can imagine somebody last week being sent to the Super Bowl. I'm sending you into the game. You look back and say, well, OK, where's my ticket? I'm going to need a plane ticket to get there. I'm going to need a ticket to get in past the gates. And the guy says, well, I've got neither of those things. But you go, go to the game. That's not helpful at all. But if you're authorized and empowered to go to the game, then he's like, look, here are your plane tickets, here are your Super Bowl tickets, here is your spending money when you get there, now go to the game. Then you're like, okay, this is something I can do because I've been authorized and empowered to actually do it. 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 off of us. He also gives us power and authority to do the very thing he calls us to do, the very assignment that he has given us to do. And he does this in two ways. So look first at verse 22. When he said this, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. So it's in the power of the Spirit. But wait, hold up. What's going on there? He breathes on them, right? And he says, receive the Holy Spirit. Now, that verse, it's caused more than a little bit of confusion over the years because people think, Wait, is the Holy Spirit actually being given by Jesus right here? I thought that happened later at Pentecost, like 80 days from now. I thought that happened in Acts chapter 2 after Jesus had ascended, not right here while Jesus is still unascended. Well, lots of ways people try to explain this, most of which, to me, just overcomplicates the whole thing. I think it's not that complicated once you realize that Jesus, throughout this story that John has been telling, often does things right now. He shows us that Jesus does things right now that symbolize things that are going to happen in the future. Does that make sense? So he does things right now that symbolize stuff that's going to happen later. He does that all the time. I mean, when Jesus washes his disciples' feet, right? That's a good instance. He tells them there, if you don't let me cleanse you, then you can have no part with me. What does he mean? Does he mean that the cleansing that is happening right there at their feet, that that's gonna fit them for the presence of Jesus for all eternity and for having a part with him? Does he mean that that's happening right then as he washes their feet? 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 just a few hours from the foot washing. So it's a right now symbol of a thing that's going to happen in the future. Think about the cup of the Last Supper when he institutes the Lord's Supper. He says there, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. It does not mean that the red wine in that cup is really right then and there the blood of the new covenant, right? It's a symbol of what's gonna happen when he pours out his blood of the new covenant upon the cross. Well, the same thing here. Jesus' breathing on the disciples and commanding them, receive the Holy Spirit, is a symbol. It's an acted parable of what's going to happen at Pentecost. It's a symbolic promise of the Spirit who will empower this mission. And that promise is fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, some 80 days later. But look at verse 23, because there in 23, he also authorizes them to proclaim forgiveness to the world. He says, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. That's given people a lot of problems as well. What exactly is that saying? If you apostles forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, then it's withheld. Is that like the Roman Catholic idea of the priesthood? If the priest forgives your sins, then heaven will ratify that? Well, no, that's not it at all. You don't see that priestcraft kind of stuff anywhere in the Bible. You don't see the apostles claiming that kind of authority even. In fact, they specifically disavow it. It is God alone who can forgive sins. So that's not what it's saying. This is very technical, formal language that lines up almost perfectly with what Jesus tells his people in Matthew 16 and 18, when he's talking about the church that he's gonna build. And he gives them, he gives the church the keys of the kingdom. Remember earlier I said he gave the sword to the state? He gave the keys of the kingdom to the church. And it's the exact same ideas what's going on in our passage. He says there, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. A better translation would be, whatever you bind on earth will already have been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will have already been loosened in heaven. If you forgive their sins, they'll be forgiven. If you withhold it, it is withheld. exactly the same kind of formal language about giving someone authority to speak on your behalf if you're the king. So what Jesus is doing here is he's saying, just like he did in Matthew 16 and 18, he's saying, listen, I am giving you guys and all of those who will come after you, everyone to whom I, as king, give the keys of my kingdom to. That's the church, right? I'm giving you authority to go out into the world and to proclaim the gospel, to make disciples of all of the nations, and then to make a judgment about who in the world has received that forgiveness, genuinely. And when you make that judgment, I will be with you in your midst. That's the context of when two or three gather together, I will be in their midst. It's in the context of exercising the keys of the kingdom in church discipline. So don't rip that out of context. So he tells you, when you make this judgment, when you exercise the keys of the kingdom, I will be with you, and if you say that they're forgiven, if you say, if you declare they have a credible profession of faith and we are welcoming them as they are uniting into the church, then they are already forgiven in heaven. You're speaking in the name of the king. That's what he tells them. He's giving them a charter of authority to speak the gospel and to put before people the free offer of forgiveness from God in Jesus. That's a big calling, isn't it? I mean, this is the high view of the Lord's church and the authority that he has given. He hasn't given the keys to the elders of the church, right? I think that's important to note. He's given the keys to the church. That's why when we do practice church discipline, right, we tell it to the church, and it's the church that puts the person who we can no longer say, you have a credible profession of faith, right? And we put them out. It's a spiritual, it's not like canceling someone's gym membership, right? This is a spiritual reality that has eternal consequences. It's a big calling. for us as Christians. It's a big calling for us as a local church. So Christian If you're a member of Dayspring, right, you're united to this local church, we as a church, we have declared you have encountered the risen, resurrected Lord Jesus. He has spoken your name and your soul has come to life. And now guess what? Your life is no longer about just keeping your head down and fitting in with this world. just trying to suck as much good out of this life as you possibly can for yourself, right? Your life, your purpose, your drive is now to make the name of Jesus known. I mean, friends, we as Christians, we have the only true message of salvation that anyone in the world is ever going to hear. This is it. The church, every other local church of the Lord Jesus Christ scattered all around the globe, we are the only ones that have this precious, the true word of salvation. Nobody's gonna hear it from anybody else other than us. What are you gonna do with that? What are you doing with that? Because friend, if those lost, hurting, broken, Unforgiven people out there do not hear it from you. Who in the world are they going to hear it from? Let us pray. Our Lord Jesus, we praise you today as the resurrected and reigning King. 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 upon the cross so that we might be saved, so that we might have forgiveness of sins, so that we might be justified in your Father's sight. And so 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 Jesus, we pray that you would help us to see the amazing privilege that you have entrusted to 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, with love, with gentleness, with patience, faithfully until the day you come back. We ask that in your royal name and always to your honor and your glory. Amen. Well, please stand together. Remember, ladies, that you have a wonderful wedding shower to attend this Saturday, wedding shower brunch tea party at 11 o'clock in the Fellowship Hall. And then remember that a week from today is a very special day in the life of our church. You're going to want to be here for Second Samuel. chapter 7, Sunday School at 945, one of the grandest chapters in all the Bible. And then we are going to regather back here on Sunday night for our business meeting. It'll be a time that you'll want to be in attendance to know how to think ahead for our church and to be in prayer. And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.