Thanks to our musicians, scripture readers & to the 20+ folks who got up at the end of this message in response to a sort of "reverse altar call." Those "Crossroads elders" are ready to pray with you and walk beside you as you respond to God's call to examine the source of your faith, on the question of "fact vs. feeling." Go to crossroadscokato.com/worship.
Thanks to our audio visual crew, Easter worship was recorded and posted online. If there was lots of time I'd go through and edit this so it would match the recording... and I'd fix the formatting. If anyone would like to help with either of those issues, just let me know!
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John 20:1-8
1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.” 3 So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. 4 The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; 5 and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. 6 And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed.
1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.” 3 So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. 4 The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; 5 and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. 6 And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed.
"Jesus Christ is Risen Today" (song)
Welcome! and church family time
Time for Children – like to read? like stories? 2 kinds, true &
not - The Jesus story is true!
Offering with "Festive Alleluia"
Praise & Worship
"For All You've Done" (song)
"Stronger" (song)
"For All You've Done" (song)
"Stronger" (song)
24 Now Thomas, called the
Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 The
other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
So he
said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my
finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not
believe.”
26 After eight days His
disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being
shut, and stood in the midst, and said,
“Peace to you!” 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My
hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be
unbelieving, but believing.”
28 And Thomas answered
and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Jesus said to him, “Because
you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and
yet have believed.”
30 …Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His
disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His
name.
“My
Lord and My God"
(Every 'faith' is not the same)
(Every 'faith' is not the same)
There are lots of reasons why a person could complain about
unbelieving Thomas, but there are a few things I will always admire him for.
One, is that he doesn’t keep his unbelief to himself. He dares to speak it, out loud, among people
who are all convinced that Jesus rose from the dead. If you are an unbeliever today, if there is
any corner of your mind that is not convinced about the resurrection of Jesus,
I hope you will speak your questions out loud.
I’m hoping you’ll do that in the days to come. It could be that Jesus met Thomas and gave
him what he needed to believe because he was brave enough, or desperate enough,
to bring his stubborn unbelief out into the open. I will always admire him for that.
Another thing I admire about him was his ability to stand strong
in the face of peer pressure. Sure, in
this case, it was positive peer
pressure because Jesus actually was risen from the dead, but I admire Thomas
for not just giving into the crowd. I
think we all should admire him for that.
Third, Thomas did come
up with criteria that he would accept in order to believe that Jesus had
risen. They were extreme criteria and
Thomas was being unreasonable… for him seeing
Jesus risen in the flesh would not be enough… he said he need to touch him
in the most extreme way… In the end, he
didn’t need to do that, but I admire him for saying what he thought it would
take to convince him and change him from from an unbeliever to someone who
would believe.
Fourth, when the evidence Thomas asked for is finally
offered to him, when Jesus comes in FULLY KNOWING just what it was that Thomas
had said when Jesus wasn’t even there to hear it… When Jesus comes in and said
“Reach out that finger… look at my hands and take your hand and put it right
here in my wounded side…” … When Jesus offered the evidence, he came from
darkness into light, saying “MY LORD AND MY GOD!”
But the main reason I appreciate Thomas is that he knows the difference between truth and
fiction and he cares about it. He’s
not going to give his life to something that is not true. He’s not going to pretend to follow someone
who is not real. His Lord, His God – His
Jesus – Thomas is not going to trust just anyone. He needs to know.
Thomas frankly does a better job than many believers at just
wanting to know the facts. There are many
believers, even famous ones, who are willing to settle for much less. And it’s very sad.
How many of you are familiar with the booklet “Our Daily
Bread”? We got an offer from the “Our
Daily Bread” people to provide for us, for free, as many Easter booklets as we
wanted. The author of the booklet is
Philip Yancey.
Do you know him? He
wrote some bestselling books including What’s
So Amazing About Grace, Where is God
When it Hurts, and The Jesus I Never
Knew.
I can’t say I’m really familiar with him but I’ve heard his
name so, when the Daily Bread people
offered us his booklets, I said sure… and we got them in plenty of time and I
thought we’d hand them out here at church today.
I thought I might even use them as a part of today’s
message. – And there is a lot good in
this booklet. In it Yancey presents the
overwhelming evidence for Christ’s resurrection. He writes about the first Christians, who
staked everything on the resurrection of Jesus.
He writes about the evidence that stands against the idea that the
resurrection was some sort of elaborate conspiracy theory cooked up by the
disciples or the Gospel writers. He
writes about how hard it was for the disciples to believe that Jesus actually
had been raised… there are lots of good things about this book.
But then he says this:
I have weighed the arguments in
favor of the resurrection, and they are indeed impressive. The English journalist Frank Morison dealt
with most of these arguments in the classic Who Moved the Stone? Although
Morison had set out to discount the resurrection as a myth, the evidence
convinced him otherwise. Yet I also know
that many intelligent people have looked at the same evidence and have found it
impossible to believe. Although much
about the resurrection invites belief, nothing compels it. Faith requires the possibility of rejection,
or it is not faith. What, then, gives me
Easter faith?
And at this point, as I was reading, I was saying to my
self, YES! He’s going to witness
now to the power of God in his life, to the work of the Holy Spirit in him and
through him and in the lives of others.
He’s going to say what a difference it made in his life when he finally
gave in to the TRUTH and, like Thomas, stopped living as an unbeliever and
finally said, “MY LORD AND MY GOD!”
I was sorely
disappointed. Not only did he fail to
say anything about the glorious power of the Holy Spirit that comes alive in
believers… such as in the book of Acts and in Christian believers all over the
world today… the power of the Holy Spirit that brings healing and new life, sometimes literally and dramatically,
sometimes more slowly… He finally gets
there, sort of, you can read the booklet for yourself and see what you think,
but the sad part for me is that at the critical moment in his book, when he
could have powerfully witnessed to Jesus, it looks to me like he fall back on
“feelings” and “wishes.”
He writes: One reason
I am open to belief, I admit, is that at a very deep level I want the Easter
story to be true. And then, skipping
down a bit, he writes: Above all else, I
want Easter to be true because of its promise that someday I will get my
friends back… At the beginning of the booklet he spoke about the loss of
three of his friends.
Now you may not react as strongly as I did when you read
this, and eventually Philip Yancey does get past feelings, but there is such
danger in making feelings and wishful thinking the basis of our faith.
Every faith is not
the same. Some believers honestly
never get past the sense of “feeling” that they “want” Easter to be true. But that sort of faith will not have
power. That sort of faith will not witness
to others. And that sort of faith will
not stand in hard and painful times.
My friends, we live in a day when so many people’s lives are
driven by feelings, by emotions, by the need to escape from painful
reality. Even Christians bury themselves
in entertainment and distractions.
Addictions and sinful, unhealthy and dishonest words, attitudes and
habits come upon us, often just as much as they afflict unbelievers. Statistics and surveys show this to be true.
Wishing and hoping cannot save you from sin, death or
from the devil’s tricks. Only the
One True God can do that, and it is strong, unshakable, proven-under-fire
faith, the kind of faith that many believers have experienced, it is
TRUE faith NOT based on feelings that brings salvation and sanctification and
restoration and resurrection power to you and to me, resurrection power and
Holy Spirit power—faith-filled power to bring real life to this broken world
through miraculous signs and wonderful acts of love. [pause]
So what do you do if, upon examining the basis of your
faith, you discover that your faith is based on wishful thinking?
If you think your faith may be based more on feelings than
on facts, I suggest you do what Thomas
did. First,
don’t keep your questions to yourself.
Share with someone you trust. Second, don’t just give in to peer
pressure. The power of God does not come
from your friends. Third, lay out the evidence that you would need to move past
feelings to a faith based on fact. Don’t
be lazy about this. Acts 4:12 “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under
heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” You must come to Jesus, and Jesus must come
to you. Repent and be baptized. You will be saved.
Don’t be satisfied with fairy tales. Don’t be satisfied with lies. In First Corinthians 11, where the
Lord is teaching us about communion, He says this:
28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the
bread and drink of the cup. 29 For
anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment
on himself. 30 That is why
many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be
judged. 32 But when we are
judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along
with the world.
That passage applies, not only to communion, but to every
aspect of the Christian faith. Examine your faith.
Where does it rest?
Does it rest on
truth? For this is the truth, the
literal truth, the factual truth, the unshakable truth – Christ Is Risen! You can trust him. 2 Peter 1:3 gives us a promise. He is able to provide everything you need
for a life of joyful and powerful faith.
You can trust him-now.
Can you be honest today?
Can you be truthful?
If you know your faith
is based MORE on feelings and wishful thinking than it is on facts, we want to
walk beside you to a place of strength.
If you know this message has been for you today, I’m
going to ask you to take a step, to come out into the open with all of us so we
can pray for you and love you and walk with you. Maybe we’ll need to provide a class. Maybe we’ll need to sit down with you
personally…
First, are there some who have made this journey already,
this journey from feelings to facts, and who could volunteer to pray for
others? You may not have perfect faith,
but you have seen enough evidence to convince you that it is factually,
literally true. Will you come up and
join me here.
Now, to those honest, admirable souls who have questions - Here
are some men and women you can be honest with.
They won’t reject you. They will
love you and care for you. There are
others at this church too who aren’t here today who can walk beside you. They will help you find the answers you need.
I want to ask you to connect with us this week. Will you do that? Connect with us in whatever way is works for
you. Don’t let this chance pass you
by. Let’s
pray…
"Thine Is the Glory" (song)
1 Peter 1:3–9
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