See & Hear

Thank you SG kids. It’s always incredible to listen to them recount and retell the greatest story that’s ever been told. And I always love following the kids video because I know if I screw up the message, they have the entire gospel story handled. Amen. Can we give them a hand again? Well, happy Easter, it is so good to see all of you here this morning. We know some of you were in the nosebleed seats, so thank you for being here with us today. We know some of you are streaming in online. My name is Tim. I get the privilege of being one of the pastors. And as, Pastor Ben said, there’s really nothing that we want from you today. We simply want Jesus for you. We know how much he has done for us, the way that he has transformed our lives through his death and resurrection. And we can’t help but to tell you the incredible story of Jesus. And that’s what we’ve been doing all week here at Shepherd’s Gate. And so one of the things that we like to do every year is kind of come up with a theme that kind of carries us through.

And so our theme for for Holy Week 2025 has been engaging our senses, and we’ve been looking at the five senses since Palm Sunday. And we’ve been saying, is there a way to see Jesus and to hear Jesus and to taste Jesus and to touch Jesus, and yes, even to smell Jesus? And so we’ve had an opportunity to come together and to gather. And we keep going back to this question. We keep going back to the foundation of this. Do you see him? Maybe you haven’t been with us for our Holy Week services, and maybe this is your first time here. And so let me ask you that question. Do you see him? Do you believe in him? Do you know him?

Is he your Lord and Savior? Now? God has given us an incredible gift through his word, the Bible. And there’s four accounts Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And each one of them give us different details about what took place on that first Easter. And so today we’re going to go back to John’s account, and we’re going to look at what John is going to tell us the events that took place. And so let’s look at this together, starting in verse one of chapter 20, the last chapter of his book. He says early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark. So you just, you know, Jesus is an early riser. Okay. So as Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb and what does she do? She sees the stone has been removed from the entrance.

Did that force her to believe that all of a sudden, all the things that Jesus had said to them over the years of his ministry come flooding back into her mind? And she’s like, oh my gosh, Jesus has risen from the dead. No, that’s actually not her first response. So we get what it says. She goes running to Simon Peter and the other disciple. And by the way, the other disciple is John. And she says to them, they have taken the Lord, and we don’t know where they’ve put him. They’ve stolen Jesus. Her first response is doubt. Her first response is to come up with another narrative of what must be going on. And so when Peter and John hear this, they both start running.

They’re not walking, they’re running to the tomb. And wouldn’t you know, John outruns Peter. He gets there first. But he stopped short of going in and he can see into the tomb, and he sees there’s some linen there. There’s no body. He’s not sure these are the linens that were wrapped in Jesus’s body, or these just other linens that maybe somebody brought and placed in this tomb. Well, then Peter comes after that, and when he gets there, when he catches up to John, he doesn’t stop. He goes straight in, he sees the same exact thing. John sees. And both of these men are sitting there trying to process what is happening in this moment. And finally seeing that Peter’s inside the tomb, John goes into the tomb and look at the difference here.

Look at what it says. When John went into that tomb, he saw and he was. But what did he see? Let me ask you, how much do you need to see to believe? Because both these guys left the scene, they went back to tell the other disciples. And Mary’s still there, and she’s weeping because she’s convinced someone has stolen Jesus. And as she’s weeping, all of a sudden two angels appear and they ask her why are you crying? So now all of a sudden she’s getting a whole nother revelation. And in that moment, do you think that she believes? No. She asks them the same thing. Like where have they taken Jesus who stole his body? And while she’s having this exchange with the angels, the scriptures tell us she turns around and she can see Jesus now, but she doesn’t realize it’s him. Nothing in her head would ever make her think that maybe this could be the risen Savior.

Jesus asks her the same question that the angels ask for. Well, why are you crying? Who are you looking for and thinking? He was a gardener. She gardener? He she says the same thing. I just want to know where they laid his body. I want to bring it back here. I want to roll the stone back. I want to make sure that that everything’s put into place. And as she’s having this dialog with Jesus, Jesus utters one simple word. He says her name, Mary. And when she hears her name spoken by the Savior, that is the exact moment when she realizes that she is in the presence of Almighty God, that Jesus has, in fact risen from the dead. So let me ask it this way this morning.

What do you need to hear to believe now? I’ve been part of Easter services here at Shepherds Gate for a while, and I have preached most of the text one way or another, and from different angles and from different accounts. And I can tell you this, growing up in church and preaching this message, it really comes down to these two questions. These are the two fundamental questions you have to answer every single Easter number one is this did Jesus actually rise from the dead? Because there’s people that are atheists or agnostics or even of other faiths that will tell you there’s enough evidence? Now Jesus existed. He was a good teacher. He was a good moral leader. He did good things for the poor.

And yes, he even died on a cross. The predicament comes with the line in the sand comes when you ask people, what did he actually rise from the dead? What evidence do you have that this actually took place? And oftentimes what it does is it helps. It makes us reflect on our own lives. We have to ask this question, well, what happens when we die? Because the point of his resurrection is that when we die, we two are resurrected. Otherwise, everything that we do here on this earth is just for the here and now. And we should work hard. We should love our families. We should try to make life comfortable and do whatever we can to create kind of this environment or this utopia on earth.

And when we die, we die, and that’s it. And there isn’t anything after this life. Now, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but in our society especially, I would say in the last 4 or 5 years, coming out of coming out of what we’ve come out of as really a nation and really the world. There’s been a lot of focus on health and well-being. Have you have you noticed that there’s a lot of debate on it, but there’s a lot of focus on it. And if you follow on social media, there’s a doctor for everything now, and there’s really just a lot of experts that are trying to figure out how to extend human life. Has anybody else noticed that? All right. Maybe this will help you because I’m not seeing too many hands.

Does anybody know? And kids, you can chime in us on this as well if you have one of these in your backyard. Does anyone know what this is? Why would anyone in their right mind take an ice bath? Is this enjoyable or is this painful? Let me ask it again. Why in anyone in their right mind would they take an ice bath? If you want to know more about this, you can ask Pastor Ben because Pastor Ben takes ice baths. Okay, he told me it’s two reasons. Number one, it’s to feel alive because when you come out of this, your body is in such shock that you’re just like, oh. Number two, if you do this and you do it according to whatever they tell you to do it, guess what? It’s going to happen. You’re going to add like two or maybe three years on to the rest of your life. Okay, how about this one? Does anybody know what this is? Okay, it’s a sauna. But this isn’t just any sauna.

Oh, look at you. Health nuts. Now all of a sudden, we got some health nuts in here. This is a red light therapy sauna. And aren’t you glad I found a sauna of a picture of a guy? Looks like Jesus. Aren’t you thankful for the. I didn’t even have to use AI to create this image. And look at him. He’s so peaceful. Because you know what he’s thinking? I’m adding another 3 to 5 years of my life. I’m going to live longer than my siblings and my neighbors and my friends, because I’m so disciplined that I’m going to make this part of my routine. Let me give you one more. Does anybody know who this guy is? Some of you do. Some I can see some. Some of you may have seen this documentary on Netflix. This guy’s name is Brian Johnson, and he’s a young entrepreneur. He he did a lot of startup companies, and he was buying companies and merging them with his. And he acquired this one company. You might know it’s a small company called Venmo. Anybody? Venmo.

And so after he had Venmo added to his portfolio, when he had all these companies together, he ended up selling it and making millions and millions and millions of dollars. So he got to retire early, and now he can just spend the rest of his life doing whatever he wants. Doesn’t that sound awesome? Isn’t that the American dream? Isn’t that what you’re told to pursue? Work hard, work harder, make more investments, get more properties, do whatever you can. Play the stock market. Do this, this, this, this, this. Everything. Money, money, money, money, money for the here and now, on this earth. This guy right here spends $2 million a year on his body, $2 million a year having access to the best doctors, some of them all over the country.

He’s flown to different parts of the world to get different infusions because he’s literally trying to cheat death. He wants to become the longest living person that’s ever been recorded in human history. 80 supplements a day. Everything he does is tracked. Every breath that he takes, every even at night. They have all of these monitors on him and it’s insane. He lives to try to extend his life. How many of you think that sounds fun? Now think of this. He’s 33. When he dies, rises again, he starts showing up an appearance to different people. So we know now he’s appeared to Mary. And in another scripture, we find out that he appears to the disciples. And when he first appears to the disciples, one of them is missing, which is kind of odd, like you think Jesus would wait until they were all together, because Scripture also tells us that he revealed himself to just Peter.

So Jesus has the ability to appear to whomever he wants, whenever he wants. And so because he didn’t appear when Thomas was with the rest of the disciples, the disciples, of course, are trying to tell Thomas, you’re not going to believe this. We are all in this room. And all of a sudden Jesus appeared and it was unbelievable. And we got to see him with our eyes. And when Thomas was hearing him, hearing them say this, this is what his reply was, that unless I see the nail marks in his hands, unless I touch where his nails were and I touch his side, I will not believe. You imagine that. Imagine being one of the other disciples. Like dude, what gifts? Like you think? You think we’re all making this up? We just spent three years together. We saw Jesus perform miracle after miracle after miracle. He raised people that from the dead. If he can raise others from the dead, don’t you think he can raise himself from the dead? Trust us. We saw him. And this is the beautiful part about Jesus.

He knows every human heart and he knows exactly what each of us need. And this is one of my favorite parts of the Easter account. Jesus waits an entire week, an entire week, until the disciples are back together. And this time Thomas is with them and he comes into the room and he specifically addresses Thomas. And he says, here, Thomas, put your finger here, see my hands, reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. How do you think Thomas felt in that moment? If it was you, what would you have said to Jesus? How many people has God brought into your life to surround you, to encourage you, to speak into you, to tell you who Jesus is? And yet there’s still that doubt. And this moment, of course, Thomas responds the way that we would expect him to do in complete humility, not even really sure what to say. And then Jesus gives us an incredible lesson here because he says, because you have seen me, Thomas. You have believed blessed are those who have not seen. And yet have believed.

You know, Jesus said those words for us. We don’t see Jesus, at least not with our physical eyes. We see Jesus through the pages of Scripture. We see Jesus as the word is proclaimed and as we hear it in our ears, and as God is the one who is then responsible for producing faith in our hearts and our lives, it has to get from up here to down here for it to be real, for us to take hold of it. See, sometimes seeing is believing. And I bet you, you know, people, if there’s things in your life where you have pointed to where you have said there is no way that I would have survived this, there’s no way that this would have happened. There’s no way that all of these events would have lined up just perfectly if there wasn’t some type of divine intervention. And do any of you have that kind of a testimony to any of you? No circumstances. I mean, look at the hands. Well, Matthew gives us a little bit different. Take. He adds a little more detail to all of the eyewitnesses that were there on that first Easter Sunday. He tells us there’s a violent earthquake. And of course, there’s an angel of the Lord there.

But there’s also guards, guards that were told to be there by Pilate because they wanted to make sure that no one could create a narrative that the disciples stole Jesus’s body. And so the guards were actually eyewitnesses of the earthquake of the tomb being rolled back. And they were so in shock and all that, they stood there like dead men. You think this would have been enough to produce faith on their heart? You wouldn’t think being an eyewitness getting a front row seat to the first actual resurrection account would have been something that would have just compelled them to want to put their faith and their hope and trust in God. There was another soldier that watch de Jesus die on the cross and take his last breath. And isn’t it interesting that that soldier, when he looked at Jesus seeing a dead Jesus, say, surely this was the Son of God? How is it that faith was produced in his heart? And then look at what happens with some of these guards, because it says some of them went into the city and they found the religious leaders that were part of creating the narrative to put Jesus on the cross.

And so think of this, these religious leaders here, their story, we’re standing guard like we’re told to. There’s an earthquake, the stone is rolled away and there’s angels in our presence. And we were so in shock we didn’t know what to do. Okay, yeah, we’re just going to throw that narrative aside. We’re not going to believe that. We’re not going to actually question whether or not we just killed the Messiah. The Savior of the world. We’re so caught in our ways that we are going to go find money and we’re going to bribe you, and then we’re going to have you go and perpetuate this lie that we thought, may have happened anyways. Yeah. Interesting how powerful money is. The attraction of the things of this world. Isn’t it interesting that money is the very thing that led Judas to betray Jesus? Why does money have to have such a strong hold on us? Why is Americans especially, are we so obsessed with our material possessions? And yet there’s a life that Jesus invites us into that is far greater than any material thing or wealth that you could build on this earth.

See, sometimes seeing isn’t believing. They saw and they didn’t believe. They knew what was happening and purposely walked away and rejected what was right in front of their eyes. Last week, my son Henry and I were on our way home from his travel baseball practice. We live in McComb Township. His baseball team practices in Waterford. It’s 40 minutes from our house and some of you are wondering, why do you drive 40 minutes for a travel baseball team? Can I tell you why? It’s because we’re crazy. And I can tell you this as well. Every parent that has their kid in a sport where the word travel is in front of it is crazy to travel. Parents. That may have been a grandpa, but that’s okay. We know deep down none of them are making it to the majors, but we just like to pretend and live in that reality. Okay, so just let us have these few years with our kids.

But here we are on on 59, and I’m going 75 miles an hour in the left lane, which I know is not the speed limit. My has the year game on because he’s obsessed with baseball and we’re talking about, how they’re doing this year. And we’re so excited and we hope this is their year and they’re going to go all the way when all of a sudden the car that’s in the middle lane starts coming over into my lane. And thanks be to God, I wasn’t looking down on his cell phone or looking anywhere else that all of a sudden I see this happening and I move my car over into the shoulder of M-59, and I’m now going 75 miles an hour completely in the shoulder. As he and I are pacing together and I’m laying on my horn, I’m screaming at the top of my lungs. Henry drops his phone. He turns white as a ghost, and we both move back over and he’s over there going like this because I could tell it’s like he’s trying to say he’s sorry, sorry, sorry when all of a sudden we’re going and I’m like, what is happening? He starts pushing me back over and I’m back in the shoulder and in my head I’m thinking, if I stop now or I slow down, we’re going to get hit, just like we did last year when we were on the way home from his baseball practice, when all of a sudden I can finally see as he pulled up just a little bit, there’s a car that has

Actually come into his lane just just a smidgen. And so the guy that’s over in the right lane is the one who pushed him into my lane, who then pushed me into the shoulder. And the knucklehead that was over that it realized what he was doing, sped off at 150 miles an hour, because he knew that he was about to cause a major accident in both of us. Self adjusted our cars on the freeway. And Henry looked at me and he said, dad, we could have died. So that’s right, son. And where would we have gone? Do we go to heaven? Because I’m a pastor? Can we go to heaven because he’s a pastor’s kid? The only reason any of us ever receive eternal life is because of what Jesus has done for us, not because of anything that we do here on this earth. It is a free gift of salvation. Let me just tell you what happened last week across the street, right on 23 mile.

Some of you were here for it. We were in between services when all of a sudden there were fire trucks and police cars and first responders at the entrance of Walmart, literally right here. And we began to get word that there was an accident. And then you get the word that it’s a motorcycle accident. And the first thing that goes through your head is, oh my gosh, someone hit the motorcyclist. And so we said a prayer and we were thankful that the first responders were there. We had our third and final service that we had to do. So we all came back in here and we had the service and we went back out because we have big windows and you can see right across the street. And they were still there. But this time the tape was out and the tripods and the cameras and everyone just assumed this must be a fatality. I found out later it was was a man on his motorcycle that had a medical emergency. And as he was turning into Walmart, he went straight into the pole and his body laid on the ground. And one of our members who was leaving the second service saw the whole thing, went across the street, ran up to the man and held the man’s hand.

And he said, Tim, listen to me. I saw him take his last breath. I can’t explain it, but I literally saw his soul come out of his body. This was one week ago, Palm Sunday. It’s Holy Week. Everything is supposed to be great and cheery. We’re out here having service and God’s calling somebody home. Thanks be to God. We find out that he’s a believer in Jesus, that he that he goes to church. The terrible part is, is he’s a young dad. He’s got a wife and two young kids. And now this Tuesday, they got a burial. See, folks, Easter is so much more than we realize. It is a matter of life and death. You cannot have the resurrection without the cross. And what is it that he’s doing in those moments? Why did he die? To rise again? Because he wants us to rise again with him. Listen to me loud and clear this Easter 2025. Easter is for the unbeliever. Easter is for those that have doubts. Look at what we just read from Mary to Peter to Thomas, to some of the guards, to the religious leaders.

Your soul hangs in the balance every single day. There is a war for your soul, and Jesus wants you to be in eternity with him. All of the Holy Week, everything that he endured was because he loves you and he’s calling you to himself. You are here today or you’re listening online. You are not here by accident. Make no mistake, whoever invited you or whatever the series of events were, God use the person to bring you here so that you would hear this message. The greatest message the world has ever heard, that Jesus Christ is the risen Savior and Lord, and through faith in him, not by anything that you can do, but by faith through him you will receive eternal life. That’s our heart’s desire for every single one of you, that no man, woman or child within the sound of my voice leaves Easter 2025 with I would not knowing how much you are loved by God, and the faith that he freely gives you, you know there’s absolutely nothing you can do to earn your salvation.

There’s not some checklist of, well, if I go to church, go to church on Christmas and Easter, or if I do this, or I don’t do this, or I see this or I don’t say this, no, we’re all sinners. We all deserve eternal punishment. But thanks be to God, he did it all for us. Think of this. He didn’t need us to get on the donkey to go into Jerusalem with them. He didn’t need us to join them in the upper room. He hangs on the cross all by himself, and you better believe he took that step out of that empty tomb and rolled the stone away, not because he needed someone to roll the stone away. He can be anywhere, at any time, at any place. He rolled the stone away so that you and I can look in and see that it is in fact, empty. And then we can put our faith and our hope and our trust in him, and we can raise the next generation that you saw in that video to believe the same thing, so that all of us can experience life and life to the full. Amen. Because this is how John ends this chapter and ends his entire gospel. These are the words that are written that you may believe that he is the Messiah, the Son of God. And by believing you may have life in his name. Amen.

Will you bite your heads and close your eyes with me? Heavenly father, thank you for everyone that is gathered here today. God, we know that you’re with us. Your presence is here. God, thank you for what you did for us 2000 years ago. And thank you today that we can still gather and proclaim you as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. God, I pray for those who are far from you or don’t know you, or maybe have never put their faith and hope and trust in you. We know in this moment, God, you are doing your greatest work as you are awakening faith in hearts and minds right now. God help us to humble ourselves, to confess that we’re not the gods of our lives, that we need you and humble ourselves enough to recognize what it is that you have done for us. God, we love you. We thank you that now we get to turn our eyes and our voices toward you, and to worship you as the one true King, father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We pray all these things in your Son’s most holy and precious name, and we all say together.