March 31, 2002

Service Theme – "Our God Rose Again"

John 20:10-18

Finding the God of the Now

  1. Introduction
    1. Illustration – Howard Hanger ("Chutzpah!", Vision, January 24, 1997, 3) wrote, Bad news seems exempt from the laws of the universe. You can follow the rules, eat right, exercise daily, sleep well, love your neighbor, love yourself, go to church, be honest with the IRS, give blood, vote, attend PTA meetings, remember your mother's birthday, tell no ethnic jokes, write thank-you notes, recycle, clean your refrigerator, read the Bible, serve dinner at the shelter, wear clean underwear, get your teeth cleaned -- and still have bad news happen to you. Like an obnoxious relative, bad news just keeps showing up again and again.
    2. Context – A woman two thousand years ago was dealing with some bad news. That news kept her in the dark. Let’s read in John 20:10-18 how God brought her out of the dark and into His light.
  1. Scripture Passage
    1. John 20:10-18 – Then the disciples went back to their homes, 11 but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13 They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don’t know where they have put him." 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 15 "Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him." 16 Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’" 18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.
  1. Mary’s Problem
    1. Mary had a problem. She was so grieved by the death of her dear Friend that she forgot what He had taught His disciples. In her grief she was focused on the future – how can I properly embalm His body when it’s missing? How can I go on without Him? We ask similar questions – "How can I do what I need to do when the rules always seem to keep changing on me? How can I survive when people keep getting in the way? How can I go on into the future when I can’t even deal with the present?" Mary was focused on her past with Jesus and her future without Him. So focused she was blind to the present. Likewise, we become so focused on our pasts and futures that we become blind to the present.
    2. What was happening in Mary’s present? First, two angels appeared and talked to her, and their presence didn’t even faze her. She kept crying and didn’t comprehend what was unfolding right before her eyes. Likewise, when God intervenes in our lives, we aren’t even fazed. We don’t realize it’s God because we’re not looking for Him. The angels were trying to get Mary to see outside of her tunnel vision and into God’s wonderful vision and plan. God tries to get us to see out of the tunnel vision that we use to interpret our lives and see that He is working and has a vision and a plan for us.
    3. What happened next is astounding. Jesus Himself appeared and spoke to Mary. He didn’t disguise Himself – she didn’t allow herself to see who He really was. He spoke to her, and she still didn’t get it. She was so focused on the events of the past few days and her immediate future that she didn’t recognize Him in her present. She thought the Man who had delivered her from seven demons and transformed her life was the gardener. I probably would have been a bit amused by that if I were Jesus. But I believe that He felt her grief and pain so much and wanted so much for her to experience the joy He had waiting for her that He must have been almost bursting at the seams to get her to recognize who He was. I wonder how often God wants us to recognize His appearing in our lives so that we can experience the joy He has waiting for us. Mary had tunnel vision focused on her past and future. So do we.
    4. The ball was in Jesus’ court to help Mary overcome her focus. What did He do? He didn’t talk about Himself, using all the stuff He’d been teaching to prove who He was. He didn’t start quoting Scripture to prove that everything that had happened to Him was what God had planned all along, like He did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He spoke heart to heart. He called her by name. "Mary." One word that opened her heart and allowed her to see Him for who He really was. I wonder how often Jesus speaks to my heart with a simple whisper – "Brian" – and I miss it. We all have times when we miss it. But right now, right at this moment in time, Jesus is whispering our names to our hearts and waiting for us to truly see. One word brought Mary into the present. One word can bring each and every one of us into the present.
    5. Illustration – From Homiletics Online: A family was sightseeing in New York City and took the subway to Battery Park in lower Manhattan. They happened to be in the first car and the two boys peered in the mirror that separated them from the engineer's cabin. After a few moments, the older boy told his brother that he could see the tracks up ahead in the tunnel. The glass was a two-way mirror. The 7-year-old, admiring his beautiful self in the mirror could see nothing but himself. Where? he asked. I don't see anything. His mother spoke up. Spenser, look beyond yourself and you'll see it. He did, and he did, just as we do when we look beyond ourselves: We catch a glimpse of the track ahead and the world around us. When we allow ourselves to listen to God calling our name, His world will open up all around us and we will see Him in the now.
  1. Our Problem
    1. As I said earlier, all of us have a problem with our focus. We focus on our past pain and anguish so much that we lose sight of the now. Or we focus so much on what the future is going to be like that we likewise lose sight of the now. I’ve been struggling with that lately. Many of you know that my grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. I've been having a hard time giving myself permission to grieve – I’m just to busy and don’t have time to fall apart right now. Maybe after Easter. Maybe after we move. I keep trying to put my emotions on hold until I decide I have the time to deal with them. I’ve lost sight of the fact that God is here in the now with me. He’s wanting me to allow Him to bring the pain of losing her, of not spending enough time with her, of not seeing what I thought should have happened as a result of her moving here – He’s wanting me to allow Him to bring that pain to the surface so He can use it to help me grow. If I keep bottling it up inside, I will become a very emotionally unhealthy person. I need to let Him help me through the process of grieving. But when He’s brought me through that process, I’ve got to leave the pain in the past. Will it still hurt? Of course. But I won’t keep using it like a bludgeon to try to keep from being hurt again. I’ve been known to do that. All of us have been know to do that. But with His help, I’ll use that pain and the process of working through it to help other people work through their pain. That’s what the God of the now wants to help all of us to do. He wants to bring us out of our past by helping us through our pain and then using it to help others through their pain. Jesus spoke to Mary to help her through the pain of her past, and she in turn went to the disciples to help them through the pain of their pasts.
    2. But sometimes the opposite is true. We don’t like our present circumstances so much that we’re always looking to the future. "If only…" becomes our motto for life. "If only I was living someplace else." "If only I had a different job." "If only so and so would treat me like I feel I deserve." "If only the car hadn’t broke down." "If only I was healthy." There are times when God works to create a dissatisfaction in our hearts and minds because He wants us to move on to something else. But much of the time He is simply waiting for us to realize that, with Him, the best is now. Before you tune me out, let me explain.
    3. God is sufficient for the now, whatever that now may look like. God is more than able to help us through any circumstance, no matter how bleak it may appear. I’d like to share a story from my own life. Our denomination has pretty strict educational requirements for those who want to become pastors. Unless you’re past a certain age, you’ve got to have a bachelor’s degree to start the process. Many of you know that God first called me to be a pastor when I was seventeen. I didn’t think I could ever be worthy enough or have my act together enough to make it. I eventually came to realize that I never can, but that’s another story. So in the winter of 1996 I finally got tired of running from God and decided that maybe I should go along with Him. One problem – because of my own stupidity I had never completed one requirement for my music education degree. And with my inability to complete that requirement I wrote to my college that winter to see if they would wave the requirement. I explained that I needed the degree to go to seminary and become a pastor. After writing back and forth for a couple of months, the final reply came in. The music department dean would absolutely not wave the requirement. I was crushed. I said to God, "Okay, if You want me to go ahead with serving You as a pastor in this church, You’re going to have to do something. But if I’ve been misreading You, please reveal that to me and I’ll do whatever You want." A couple of weeks later I got a phone call from the registrar. "We’ve been looking over your transcripts and we think we have a solution. We can reconfigure your credits and grant you a degree in education, but not music ed." I jumped at it, and spent a lot of time crying in disbelief. God didn’t change my circumstances. He just waited until I stopped trying to change my circumstances in my own strength and then He stepped in and met my need. God provides for our needs in any circumstance if we choose to let Him. God is sufficient for our now no matter what it looks like.
    4. But God is more than sufficient in the now – His best is now. You see, you cannot ask God for better things, because His best is now. We think, "How can that be with so many things that are wrong in our lives?" But the truth is that God’s best doesn’t rest in things or in circumstances. God’s best rests in relationship. Relationship with Him. Paul wrote in Philippians 4:12-13, I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Personal relationship with God gives us the ability to have His best in every circumstance. Personal relationship with God is His best for us in the now. Personal relationship with Him gives us the ability to cope with the past, be fully alive in the present, and hope for the future. That’s what Mary found out. When Jesus spoke to her heart and she listened, she found God in the now. We can find Him in the now, too. We just need to allow Him to speak to our hearts through personal relationship with Him. Then our now will be God’s best.
  1. Conclusion
    1. Are you seeing God in your now? Or is your focus on the pain of the past or the longing for the future? How is your relationship with the God of the now?
    2. I’m opening up the altars if you’d like to come forward and pray. If you haven’t been seeing the God of the now because you don’t have a personal relationship with Him, God is waiting for you. We’d like to help you get that relationship started. Come forward now and we’ll help you know where to begin and we’ll pray with you. If you have a personal relationship with God through Jesus but you haven’t been allowing Him to speak to you in the now, you can change that. Come forward now and we’ll pray with you and help you get back on the right track with Him. Come forward and meet with the God of the now.
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