In last week’s sermon, we said that the last section of chapter 20 taught five principles of the gospel. And one of them was the abiding presence of Christ. That is an essential doctrine of the gospel; that Jesus Christ is alive, that though He died on the cross, He arose from the dead, and ever lives to make intercession for us. That’s an important doctrine, because it reveals that Christ has procured two essential things for the Christian life. One; that the death of Jesus Christ provided the payment for the penalty of our sins. But two, His resurrection

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In today’s passage, we are continuing to look at the first day of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. He arose early in the morning on the first day of the week, that is, of course, Sunday. Last week we saw Mary Magdalene and John and Peter’s response to the resurrection. But in presenting the chronology of the events on this most important of days, John does so in such a way as to teach a lesson. He is teaching, in this last section of chapter 20, the gospel, and he does so by showcasing for us the first Sunday church

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The goal of the gospel is not just to provide us with an escape from hell. But to provide us with a new way of living, a new life. Jesus said, I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly. Before we can have the life that Christ wants for us, we must be first justified, our sins atoned for, made acceptable to God, and that is only possible through faith in the cross of Christ. But the ultimate purpose of that atonement is that we become sons of God. As Jesus said in vs.17 of our

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We live in a society today when death is portrayed in movies and television with all sorts of blood and gore and people are unmoved by it. But on the other hand, in reality, in our day to day lives, we go to great lengths to avoid seeing death. If the average person even saw a steer killed and butchered they would probably be so sickened that they would swear off meat forever. We have an unrealistic perception of death, and perhaps because of that, we have an unrealistic perception of life. Even in the death of a loved one,

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For many Christians, the passion, or the events surrounding the crucifixion of Christ, are very familiar. We’ve heard countless messages on the crucifixion and even possibly seen movies or plays depicting it. Not to mention, there are four gospel accounts in the New Testament. However, not all the gospels offer the exact same details. One might include some things which others leave out. In John’s gospel, he includes some details which others have not, but at the same time, he has left out some events that others included. So the tendency among preachers and expositors is to fill in the

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In the last few weeks we have been looking at the various aspects of apostasy. Apostasy, as you know, is the act of turning away from the truth. We started out examining the apostasy of the church in the example of the disciples at the arrest of Jesus. Peter’s denial of Christ exemplified the apostasy of the church. Then last week we looked at the apostasy of the world, particularly as evidenced by religion and politics. The Jewish religious leaders under Annas exemplified apostate religion, and Pilate illustrated apostasy in politics. Today we are going to look at one last

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Hillary Clinton achieved a great measure of notoriety during the Benghazi Hearings for her response to questioning regarding what really happened during the massacre, by asking her accusers, “What difference does it make?” Some would say that this statement of seeming indifference at the loss of the US Ambassador’s life and three embassy personnel’s lives was a key factor in her recent loss in the election. And while that incident has very little to do with today’s message, as I studied the text this last week, and considered the importance of the truth of Christ upon our lives, I found

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As I have previously pointed out, John isn’t presenting a blow by blow account of the arrest and trial of Christ. By the time he is writing this epistle, the other three gospels have already presented all of the chronological events in detail. Instead, what John is doing is specifically highlighting certain events in order to illustrate particular principles which he is attempting to teach. And as we have seen from our previous studies, John is very focused on presenting the gospel as the truth of God. He quotes Jesus reaffirming this principle again and again in statements such as

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My message today is titled, “Fight or Flight.” And I hope that the reason for that being so named would be evident from the content of the verses we just read. On the one hand we know from this text and the other gospels that all the disciples fled as a result of this incident, and on the other hand we see Simon Peter trying to put up a fight by taking out his sword and cutting of the ear of the high priest’s servant. Hence I have called it, Fight or Flight. Psychologists tell us that fight or flight

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For the last few weeks we have been studying the prayer of Jesus on the night before His crucifixion. And as we have noted, there are three levels to His prayer; He prays first for Himself, then for His disciples, and then for those who will be saved in the future (that is the church at large). But in addition to that purpose, there is an underlying application to His prayer, which is not only for our edification, but for our education. We can learn from Christ how to pray effectively in a way that will please God, and we

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