The Power of the Resurrection | John 20:1-18
Brian Hedges | April 17, 2022
Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to John 20.
John Stott said, “Christianity is in its essence a resurrection religion. The concept of resurrection lies at its heart; if you remove it, Christianity is destroyed.”
We cannot overstate the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to Christianity. If Jesus of Nazareth didn’t rise from the dead, then there is no Christianity. Jesus is alive. What we mean by that is not merely that the spirit of Jesus lived on or that there is life after death; we mean that the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the same body that had been crucified and nailed to the cross, that body came out of the grave on the third day. Jesus defeated death once and for all.
If there is no Easter, then Advent and Christmas and Good Friday and all the rest are irrelevant. This is the most central event, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Today we’re going to consider the first part of John’s resurrection narrative in the Gospel of John, John 20, and really, we’re coming to the climax of a multi-year series through the Gospel of John. We’ve just taken a segment at a time, a few chapters at a time, beginning I think it was in 2016, so a number of years through this Gospel. In the last few weeks we’ve been looking at the passion narratives in John 18-19; today we turn a corner to John 20. Just as we’ve been, in a sense, observing Good Friday for the last six weeks, talking about the trials and the crucifixion of Jesus leading up into Good Friday, now we’re going to celebrate Easter for the next four weeks, alright? We’re going to be looking at these resurrection narratives in detail over the next four Sundays or so.
Today we begin with John 20:1-18. It’s page 906 if you’re using one of our Bibles provided in the chairs in front of you, or you can read along on the screen or in your own copy of God’s word.
“Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes.
“But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and said to him in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’—and that he had said these things to her.”
This is God’s word.
You can feel the energy, the excitement, the emotion in this passage, which gives us the eyewitness testimony of those who saw the Lord.
The first thing I want you to see is this emphasis on the eyewitness testimony. You can see how many times it’s spoken of here in the text. Beginning in the dark, when Mary comes to the tomb and she saw that the stone had been taken away. Mary was the first one to realize that the body was missing, that the tomb was empty. She goes back and she tells Peter and the other disciple, whom we believe was John, the beloved disciples. She runs back, in fact, and when they hear it, they run to the tomb. It had to be the greatest footrace in history. John gets the better of Peter; he’s probably younger. He gets to the tomb first. So when he arrives, the other disciple, he saw the linen cloths.
Then Peter arrives, and John is the contemplative, quiet, reflective disciples; he got to the tomb and he held back. He looked in but he didn’t go in. Peter, impetuous, act first, think later, he goes right in. He’s in the tomb, and he’s the first one to enter in, and he sees everything that’s there. Then the other disciple stepped in as well, and he saw and believed, verse 8 says. He is the first person to believe in the resurrected Christ.
After they leave, Mary stoops to look inside the tomb, and she saw two angels in white, and then she saw Jesus standing in verse 14. She is the first witness of Christ himself risen from the dead. Her testimony is given then in verse 18, when she finally goes to the disciples and she says, “I have seen the Lord.”
Don’t miss this. We believe in the resurrection of Christ because of the eyewitness testimony of women and of men who saw the empty tomb, they saw Jesus, they saw the same body that had been crucified now alive. They saw him, and they told others, and they wrote it down.
As we saw on Friday night in our Good Friday service, our faith is founded on facts. It’s based on history. This is not speculation. It was recorded by those who saw it. Most of them gave their lives eventually for their testimony to the risen Christ. Our faith is rooted in this.
We could spend the entire message today looking at evidences for the resurrection, and that’s a good thing to do. I’ve talked about those evidences many, many times in past years and other Easter sermons. But today I want to focus not so much on the evidence for the resurrection as on the power of the resurrection. I want us to look at three things that we see in the text this morning, three things about the power of the resurrection.
I want you to see:
1. The Resurrection Ushers Us into New Creation
2. The Resurrection Welcomes Us into the New Temple
3. The Resurrection Invites Us into a New Family
1. The Resurrection Ushers Us into New Creation
We can’t even talk about resurrection without talking about new life. The one who was dead is now alive; it is new life! As we saw from that reading in 1 Corinthians 15 a few minutes ago, Jesus is very clearly seen in Scripture to be the second Adam, and as in one man all died, so now in a man the resurrection comes; Jesus, who is the second man, the second Adam, and the last Adam.
Those motifs are all through the Gospel of John—Genesis motifs—beginning in the very first verse: “In the beginning was the Word,” echoing Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Then, as we’ve seen throughout this series the last few weeks, there are these motifs repeated again and again. When Pilate says, “Behold the man,” they’re words directly from Genesis 3, when God said of Adam, “Behold the man.”
Then this chapter begins with the first day of the week, it’s the first day of new creation, and where are they? They are in a garden, the garden tomb (John 19:44). Even Mary, when she mistakes Jesus for the gardener, there is a sense in which Jesus is the gardener. He is the new Adam, and just as Adam’s commission in the garden was to tend it and to keep it and to make it fruitful, to be the steward of the old creation, so Jesus as the second Adam is the Lord of new creation.
We didn’t read this, but we’ll see it next week. Just a few verses later, in John 20:22, when Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, “Receive the Spirit,” it’s an echo of Genesis 2:7, when God had made the first man and he breathed upon him the breath of life and he became a living being. Here is Jesus, breathing new life, his Spirit, into his people.
Even the grave clothes, kind of mysterious details that John includes, even the grave clothes I think are suggestive of an image of new creation. John Stott observes that “the grave clothes had been neither touched nor folded nor manipulated by any human being.”
One reason this is important is that it shows the tomb had not been robbed; the body had not been stolen. No one would have left those grave clothes behind if they’d stolen the body. But Stott says they were “like a discarded chrysalis from which the butterfly has emerged.” Probably what happened is Jesus just emerged, he just came straight through those grave clothes. Jesus’ resurrection body had properties where he could enter into a room through a closed door. This is a supernatural, glorified body; it’s physical, but it’s supernatural. It is a glorified resurrection body. This is new creation.
Nobody said this better than C.S. Lewis. This is from his book Miracles. He said, “The New Testament writers speak as if Christ’s achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the firstfruit, the pioneer of life. He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the king of death. Everything is different because he has done so. This is the beginning of the new creation. A new chapter in cosmic history has been opened.”
Lewis, in fact, probably gives us the best illustration of this as well. Don’t you remember Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Narnia is under the curse of the White Witch, where it’s always winter, it’s never Christmas. You remember that Aslan is this Christ-like figure; he is the lion, and he’s a Christ-like figure. You remember Edmund, one of these children, who had committed treachery. He had betrayed his brother and his sisters for Turkish delight; he’s a slave to his appetites. And now the White Witch has claim on his life, and what does Aslan do? He pays the ransom, he lays down his life, he dies on the Stone Table in order to ransom Edmund, and the next day he rises from the dead, and he says to the children, “The White Witch did not realize that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, death itself would start working backwards.”
Do you remember the end of the book? After the Witch is finally defeated, spring is on the way, and Aslan goes to the Witch’s old castle, storms the castle, and it’s filled with all of these statues of animals, stone statues of animals. They had been the talking animals in Narnia, and under the spell of the White Witch they’d been turned to stone. What does Aslan do? He runs through the castle and breathes on the statues, and one by one they come back to life.
What a wonderful picture of the power of the resurrection, the resurrected Christ, who is a pioneer of new life, the firstfruits of the new creation, and then who breathes his Spirit on his people and resurrects them. He gives them new life.
Here’s the application. This means that the resurrection changes our lives in the here and now as we live in the power of the resurrection and we walk in newness of life.
The Scriptures are full of this. Peter says we’ve been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). He says that his ambition was “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). In Ephesians 1 he prays that we would all know “the immeasurable greatness of the power of God,” that power that raised Jesus from the dead and now works in us who believe (Ephesians 1:20). In Romans 6 he says that we are buried with Christ through baptism and raised to walk in newness of life.
New creation—what does this mean? It means a transition. What once was dead is now alive, darkness replaced by light, sin overcome by righteousness, the old gives place to the new. You see it even in Mary. Here she is weeping; she’s weeping throughout this narrative, until she meets Jesus, and then the weeping is turned to joy, she’s given a mission to go share the gospel, the good news with others.
The resurrection changes us. The resurrection brings us into new creation; it ushers us in, gives us new life, transforms us in the here and now.
A woman whose book I just love, Becky Pippert (Rebecca Manley Pippert is her name when she publishes or writes), has written a wonderful book called Hope Has Its Reasons. I recommend it; I think it’s on our table. It’s a very good book.
She says, “The same power that raised Jesus from the dead, that made the amino acids rekindle and the corpse sit up, that revitalized dead cells and restored breath to empty lungs, is the power that is given to us when we receive Christ. Everything about the resurrection speaks of empowered newness.”
Have you experienced that? In your own life, have you experienced that? Have you been resurrected out of death? You were dead in your trespasses and your sins; have you been made alive in Christ? Have the old things passed away? Do you know the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to transform you, to change you, to set you free from sin, to change the old thoughts, the old desires, ambitions, the old loves, the habits, the sins, to change it all so that you’re a new person in Jesus Christ? That’s what the resurrection does.
We sang about it this morning. Did you notice the words?
I was buried beneath my shame;
Who could carry that kind of weight?
It was my tomb ’til I met you.
I was breathing but not alive;
All my failures I tried to hide;
It was my tomb ’til I met you.
You called my name,
And I ran out of that grave;
Out of the darkness,
Into your glorious day.
Is that your testimony? Is that your story? Where once there is darkness, is there now light? Where once there was shame, is there now peace and joy? If it’s not, it can be. Today can be the day to bend your knee, to confess your sins, to look to Christ, to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and to confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord. Do that and you will be saved. The resurrection ushers us into the new creation.
2. The Resurrection Welcomes Us into the New Temple
Secondly, the resurrection welcomes us to the new temple. This maybe takes a little more explaining, but I think all the connections are here.
There was a connection, first of all, just between the temple and the tabernacle in the Old Testament and the Garden of Eden. When you read the descriptions of the temple and the tabernacle, they’re filled with Eden imagery. That’s why there are all of these carvings of fruit and of flowers and of cherubim, angels. You remember the cherubim were the guardians of the garden; when Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, there was a cherubim with a flaming sword keeping them from coming back in. So there are cherubim over the ark of the covenant and cherubim are woven into the thick veil of the Holy of Holies. There’s all this Eden imagery for the temple.
John begins his Gospel evoking the ideas of tabernacle and temple. John 1:14: “The word became flesh and dwelt among us,” but the word “dwelt” is literally “tabernacled” among us. He tabernacled among us, “and we beheld his glory . . .”
Then, the very first mention of the resurrection in the Gospel of John is in John 2:18-22. When Jesus goes to the temple, he cleanses the temple, and he has this conversation with the Jewish leaders there. “The Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken 46 years to build this temple; will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”
The resurrection is the body of Jesus, the new temple, which replaces the old temple and the whole old order.
N.T. Wright has written (I think) the greatest book on the resurrection—800 pages—The Resurrection of the Son of God. He has a marvelous chapter on John. In that chapter he’s commenting on this connection between John 2 and John 20, and he says, “The sign, believing, the resurrection, the temple. Take away chapter 20, and this whole incident, and its explanation, lose their point. Put it back, and the reader will understand that, with Jesus’ resurrection, judgment has been passed over the temple, and that Jesus himself is now the place where and the means by which the Father’s presence and forgiving love are to be known.”
Even the angels in the tomb—when Mary peers into the tomb and she sees the two angels sitting, one at the head and one at the foot of this ledge where Jesus’ body had lain, and now there are just the grave clothes—commentators for years have been pointing out that the position of those two angels mirrors the cherubim on the ark of the covenant. One commentator, Edward Klink, actually calls this “the ark of the new covenant.”
Then there’s one more connection. When Jesus gives the Spirit to his disciples, it’s fulfilling what Jesus had said in John 7 when he had said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his mouth will flow rivers of living water.’” He said this about the Spirit. The disciples hadn’t received the Spirit yet, but when Jesus was glorified he gave them the Spirit.
All of the imagery—the imagery of water, rivers of water, as the Spirit—that goes all the way back to Ezekiel 47, where there’s this vision of a new temple, and out of the temple these rivers of water will flow, and they flow outside of Jerusalem into the Dead Sea. They make the Dead Sea fertile, bring it to life; they flow over the world, bringing life to the world. This new temple is a picture of Jesus, the resurrected Christ. He is the new temple who gives the Spirit to his people.
Do you remember that old movie Raiders of the Lost Ark? That’s one of my favorite movies of all time. There’s a scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones, is talking with the bad guy, Belloc, and they’re talking about the ark, and you remember what Belloc said? He said, “It’s a transmitter; it’s a radio to talk to God.” That’s why he wants the ark. They’re looking for a connection with God. This is a secular movie! People looking for a connection with God.
I’ll tell you where the real connection with God is. It’s in Jesus. He is the new temple, he is the way to the Father, the dwelling place of God’s glory. He is the one in whom heaven and earth intersect. It’s how we engage God.
Here’s the application: the resurrection changes not just our lives, but it changes our very relationship with God himself, as the risen Christ, through his Spirit, gives us direct access to the Father. Jesus had told the woman of Samaria that there will come a day when you won’t worship in a temple, but you will worship in spirit and in truth. We don’t need a temple! Actually, this was one of the remarkable things about the Christian movement. These Jewish monotheists became Christians. They were monotheists, which means they only worshiped one God. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God…is one!” Then, when Jesus is raised from the dead, they start praising his name, they start worshiping Jesus. They’re still monotheists, but they see Jesus as one with God.
Then, when the Gentiles start becoming Christians, they don’t build temples. They don’t start offering sacrifices. What do they do? They meet around a table, they break bread and they drink wine together, they tell stories about Jesus, and they sing and praise Jesus’ name. Jesus of Nazareth!
It was so remarkable in the ancient world that all the pagans, the polytheists who worshiped many gods, the Greeks and the Romans, they actually called the Christians atheists, because they were going to temples, they were offering sacrifices, they were going through all these kinds of rites and rituals, trying to get the attention of the gods; the Christians were just talking about this man Jesus.
Listen, that never would have happened if Jesus had not risen from the dead. For this new movement to be borne out of Judaism, for Christianity to come into being so that there is a worshiping community centered around Jesus, the only explanation is that Christ rose.
What does this look like in our lives? Let’s make it practical for a minute. What does it look like to build your life around Jesus so that you’re worshiping Jesus? One thing it means is that you’re connected to a community of people who do that together. You’re meeting, you’re gathering with others to worship and praise Jesus. As soon as Jesus is risen from the dead, people are coming together to talk about Jesus. Then in Acts 2 you have thousands added into the church and the church coming together to worship and to praise the name of Christ. There’s that corporate dimension.
There’s also the personal dimension. If Jesus is the new temple, it means you have direct access to God through Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit! You have direct access! You can go to him. You can speak to him. You can have a personal relationship with God.
What does that look like? Just think about Mary here with Jesus. What happens? Jesus speaks her name and he tells her what she needs to do, and she obeys him. While we don’t see the risen Christ now with our physical eyes, that’s still how it works, as we open the word of God, as we listen for the voice of Jesus by the Spirit speaking to us through the pages of Scripture, as he reveals himself to us, and as he changes our lives as we listen to and obey his word. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” That’s what a relationship with God looks like.
If you’ve never had that, here’s a way to start. Take a Gospel—take John, take Mark, take any of the Gospels—take a Gospel and read a chapter a day. Take some time to do it. Read the chapter, read it reflectively, read it prayerfully, and ask Jesus to meet you there. Let him speak to you, and then respond to what he shows you from his word. You do that day after day after day, and he’ll change your life.
The resurrection ushers us into new creation, welcomes us into a new temple, direct relationship with God; it changes our lives, it changes our relationship with God.
3. The Resurrection Invites Us into a New Family
One more thing, number three: the resurrection also invites us into a new family.
Look at verses 17-18. This is when Mary meets Jesus face to face, and what does Jesus say? He said, “Do not cling to me,” which is better than, “Do not touch me,” as some translations have it. He’s not saying he can’t be touched; he’s saying, “Don’t hold onto me. Don’t cling to me.” He has a task for her. “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
One of the significant things about that verse is that, in the Gospel of John, this is the first time where Jesus calls the disciples his brothers. In John’s Gospel, as John is unfolding his theology, his message, in John 1 he had said, “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave them the right to become the children of God.” He welcomes them into the family. But here it is! Up to this moment he’s called them friends, he’s called them servants, but now he calls them brothers, and he says, “I’m ascending to my Father and your Father.” We’re part of the same family, you see?
They’re welcomed into the family, and then they are given a mission, they are given a commission. We’ll see more about that next week.
But here’s the basic application: if you’re part of the new family of God, it means that the resurrection changes our relationships with one another and the world. It means we are now children of God; we are brothers and sisters of Jesus and of one another. We are heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, and we are ambassadors to the world. You become a part of this new family and this new family isn’t just an inclusive, self-centered, always-looking-inward family, it’s a family with a mission! It’s a community, it’s a new society. It’s what Paul calls a “colony of heaven” in Philippians 3:20. We have a mission to be ambassadors for Jesus in the world, little colonies of heaven on earth. That’s the idea.
Just as Mary is sent with this message, “Go to the disciples and tell them,” so you and I are sent with a message: Go, tell, share the good news.
We do that as we inhabit this space together as the church, as the family, and then in partnership with one another as we go and share it with others. That starts right here in our own families, workplaces, neighborhoods, communities. When this happens, Christianity spreads, the gospel takes root.
There’s a sociologist named Rodney Stark who has studied the sociological factors that accounted for the spread of Christianity in the first centuries of the church. It’s a remarkable book, The Rise of Christianity. I want to read something from it.
He said, “Christianity served as a revitalization movement that arose in response to the misery, chaos, fear, and brutality in the urban Greco-Roman world. Christianity revitalized life in cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and the impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope; to cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of families. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective services.”
Many of the problems we face in our world today are problems that would be less urgent if the church was doing its job. The real answer to these problems—racial strife, poverty, the plight of widows, orphans, children, unborn children—it’s the church’s job to jump in, to serve, to minister, to offer hope, to offer help. When Christians do that, that’s when the gospel takes root in communities.
Let me give you one other example. This is an example of a little group of people in the late 18th, early 19th century in the village of Clapham in England. You can see a crude sketch of some of the figures.
You’ll recognize some of these names. You won’t recognize all of them, but you’ll recognize some of these names: Henry Vinn (he was a great Anglican pastor, he was kind of the leader); Charles Simeon (one of the greatest preachers of that century, his books are still read today); Hannah More was a playwright, a writer; and then William Wilberforce. You probably know that name. He was in Parliament in England, and this little group of people in Clapham—educators, politicians, teachers, preachers, artisans, craftsmen—were bonded together by their faith in Christ, and they were seeking to do good in the world in all kinds of ways—prison reform, ministry to children, ministry to the homeless. They were trying to outlaw cruelty to animals; they were trying to do all kinds of things. But the one big thing that they are especially known for now is the abolition of the slave trade in England, as William Wilberforce led the charge, and for 25 years labored with all the influence he could to abolish slavery once and for all. And he did in England.
I love the way the story goes, that the next day he came into Parliament and he said, “Gentlemen, what shall we abolish next?”
That’s the right heart: doing good in Jesus’ name. Outposts of heaven, colonies of heaven—the resurrection leads you into that. The resurrection leads you into a new family, a new community, a new society, with a new mission. What might that look like, brothers and sisters, here at Redeemer, in Niles and Buchanan and South Bend and Granger? What kinds of partnerships, what kinds of friendships, what kinds of endeavors to do good in Jesus’ name, what would that look like in our neighborhoods, in our lives, in our workplaces? To think of ourselves as ambassadors of the new creation, emissaries of King Jesus, spreading the good news of what he has done, and in the power of the resurrection and the name of Christ seeking to do good in the world? That’s what the resurrection calls us to; it calls us into a new family. It welcomes us into a new temple. It ushers us into new creation.
Do you see the power of the resurrection? This will change your life. Do you believe that he is risen? He’s really risen; he’s not dead anymore, he’s not in the tomb; he’s alive, and by his Spirit alive in our hearts and in our lives today. If you believe that, let’s live together in the power of that, and if you’ve never believed, let today be the day. Turn from sin, trust in Christ, confess Jesus as Lord, and you will be saved. Let’s pray.
Gracious Father, thank you for the good news of the gospel. Thank you for the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank you that death is defeated, that the work is finished, that atonement is accomplished. Thank you that Christ is alive, alive in history and alive in our hearts through the Spirit indwelling us. My prayer, Lord, is that we would live in and know in deep, personal experience the power of the resurrected Christ. May the power of Christ be evident in our lives, in our character, in our words, in our behavior, in our relationships with one another, in our homes and families, in our church and community, at the workplace. Everywhere we go, may we go carrying about with us the fragrance, the aroma of Jesus Christ crucified and risen.
Father, I pray that for those who do not know Christ in saving faith, that today would initiate a process of coming to know you. My prayer is that today would be the decisive day, the day of salvation, that it would begin a new relationship with you through Christ; a new relationship with your word and with your people, changes that would last for a lifetime and into eternity.
For all of us who are Christians, Lord, may we take these truths to heart and live in the reality of what we say we believe.
As we come to the Lord’s table this morning, would you help us to come with our hearts full of repentant faith, joyful worship, deep trust? Help us look to Christ, help us enter into real fellowship with him in these moments, and may you be glorified in our hearts. We pray in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
