To Know His Peace

So grateful for the wonderful time of worship the Lord gave to us. I hope and pray that as you were sitting here singing these songs that you were also feeling the presence of God that was so real and tangible in this place. Thank you worship team for leading us into that time of worship where after a busy week for a lot of us where we are so engaged with so many cares and concerns of the world what a wonderful privilege it is to come in the presence of God weekend after weekend and to enjoy the presence of God.

I missed Encounter last weekend because I was in Houston. I know that you had a wonderful meeting here but it’s so good to be back with you this week. I know that last week was mentioned that you know it’s been seems like forever since we had an Encounter meeting but you all had it last week so it for me it was kind of a renewal today to be back here and worshiping the Lord with you.

While we are in this kind of a transition period as we are waiting for our next sermon series to start for Saturday nights we have these messages that are coming to you kind of a little bit of a random which we don’t usually do in our church but I kind of like the spontaneity of God’s word and different passages that are being preached to you last week. I know last week Justin talked to you about how do we know the will of God? How do we discern it? Today I’ll be preaching from a passage that came to me as we went to the leadership meeting that we had a couple of weeks ago. We went, a few of us did, to the advanced initiative meeting in Frisco and this was one of the passages that was read over there. No one preached from it. It was read at that meeting and as it was being read I realized that this was a passage that I have never studied before and it really spoke to me just hearing God’s word read. There is nothing on earth like God’s word. Just hearing God’s word read to you impacts you and that’s exactly what it did that day. In fact the person who read it, read it during our worship time. He didn’t really expound on it. He just read it but it spoke to me and so I went home and I studied it because I had never preached from it and I wanted to know more about it. I had never, I had read through the gospel of John quite a few number of times but I have never stopped and actually pondered these verses as I did in the last few weeks and as such I thought you know when, when you know I was going to speak tonight I thought I really want to share with the church what God taught me from this passage in John 20:19-23.

Let me read that for you. On the evening of that first day of the week when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. After he said this he showed them his hands and sighed. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

There’s been a lot of wrong teachings and even wrong understanding that has come up from this one particular passage that we read about in 19-23. So just to give you this context, that evening of that first day of the week is talking about the evening on that Sunday night. So it’s the day of resurrection, one of the most important days in all of our lives, when our Lord rose up again. It’s been already been a very busy day. Early on itself the women went to the tomb and they were worried about who was going to roll away that stone. They get there and as you know the stone is rolled away. They were kind of wondering as to what had happened, who rolled the stone away, who stole the body. They did not believe in resurrection at that time and suddenly two angels appear to them, communicate to them the fact that our Lord has risen from the dead. And so while they were just really marveling and a group of them run back to Galilee to tell the disciples, Mary stays behind. And we are kind of putting this all together by reading Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And Mary stays behind and she is still kind of hustled over everything that is happening. She still doesn’t fully believe what has happened. So she sees a man kind of standing around and we don’t know fully if God had intentionally hid his identity. Jesus had intentionally hid his identity to Mary or somehow in her sorrow and confusion, she did not recognize the person. She turns to him and says, are you the gardener? Are you the one who took away my Lord? If you just tell me where you put him, I will come and get him. And then he turns to her and says, Mary. And that one call of her name makes her realize this is the Lord. And she says, Rabboni. And she wants to hug him and says, no, no, no, don’t do it. I have yet not gone to the Father, but go ahead and tell them I will meet them with them in Galilee. So she runs back and she tells Peter and John and the disciples what had happened.

Now there is every indication to think that all the disciples were gathered in one place, but only Peter and John decided to run to the tomb. John being the younger one, the author of this gospel, makes it to the tomb first. He gets there. And as we talked about it actually just a few weeks ago about this, John goes inside the tomb. I’m sorry, Peter goes inside the tomb first, even though John got there first as his nature is. He goes inside, he kind of sees how the clothes are arranged and he comes out. John goes in after him, sees the way the clothes are arranged and the Bible says John believed. But Peter went away wondering what this all meant. The reason why John believed was because he saw the very unique way in which the clothes were left inside the tomb. It didn’t look like somebody had taken them off of himself. If you were to be, like when you get up in the morning and you’re getting out of bed, you have a blanket that’s covering you and you take it off, what does it look like? Neatly arranged in the shape of your head and your body? No, it’s all like thrown on the bed, right? And if, like most people, you would just kind of make the bed hopefully a little bit later. But it’s just like, it’s all over the place. There’s no rhyme or reason or kind of pattern or shape to the clothes that are being left behind. And that’s exactly what happened, depending upon how much of a sleeper you are. Some people stay in one place, some people are all over the place. So your clothes, whatever is left over, is dependent upon that. But what they saw inside the tomb was that there was a head, the one piece of clothing shaped of a head that was laying on the top. Another section that’s shaped like a body that contained about 75 pounds of spices just crushed in there. What was missing from it was just the body. But the clothes were lying there on the shape of a body. And so John saw that and believed and said, he did not just come out of here taking the clothes off, nor was his body taken away, because the clothes are still there, the linens are still there, and nor was it stolen, because anybody who is stealing the body will not make the time to make sure that the linen that is left over is the shape of a head and the shape of a body. And that’s why it’s so important. So John goes where he believes.

So they go there. And then you have this encounter of the two disciples who are traveling, and they are not among the inner group of the Lord, they’re two other men traveling the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. That’s where, by the way, where the seven mile road church got its name is the distance between Jerusalem to Emmaus is seven miles. And so they make this journey seven miles and suddenly a strange man comes walking along them. And he’s like, what are you guys talking about? And they kind of start telling him that aren’t you the only one in all of Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what has happened? And they start telling him about Jesus. Then this man who’s walking with them, that again they don’t recognize is Jesus, starts telling them how everything that has happened has already been foretold in the writings of Moses, which is the first five books, the writings of the prophets, and everything has been foretold. And they get to this point where they’re about to have a fork in the road, he’s about to go in one direction. Because they were so encouraged by everything they heard, what do they do? They ask him, can you please spend the night with us? How many of you ever had a situation where misery loves company, right? When you are in like really difficult times, you really want the company of, most people do, of other people to there to comfort you, to strengthen you. So they asked him to stay over and they have dinner together. At dinner, where Jesus takes the bread and starts breaking it, Bible says suddenly their eyes were open and they realized it was Jesus. Now what does Jesus tell them? Jesus basically tell them, go tell the disciples what you’ve seen and he leaves them. And the important thing is that, this is early on in the evening, they make the seven mile trip back to Jerusalem that evening itself. So by the time you come to John 20:19, it’s very important. You have a room here where 10 disciples, Judas is missing, Thomas is missing, but there’s also the two disciples that took the journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus who are now back. They’re all talking, but the Bible says they were all huddled together in a room. And the word that is used over there, with the door, the doors locked literally means they had the doors blocked and they were really afraid. Even in spite of everything they have seen that day, they are still not convinced of it. And they are locked in that room. On the evening of the first, they were afraid. And then look, what happens is that when you look at Luke 24:30-35, it tells you who all were there in that room. They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. It’s talking about the two disciples who traveled from Jerusalem to Emmaus. There they found the 11 and those with them assembled together and saying, it is true. The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon. Then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

And now you come back to the room and in the room, in spite of all the evidence, they are very, very afraid because they’re thinking they killed the Lord. And in their mind, they’re thinking, yeah, people have seen Jesus, but is it really him? Or is it just his spirit that has appeared to them? Because they know that Jesus died. They saw him being buried. They know that he is missing from the tomb, but in their mind, they still hasn’t fully grasped the gravity of what happened that morning. In their mind, Jesus has appeared to them many times, but in their mind, Jesus is still what? A man who is a dead man, who has now come back to them and somehow offered them some kind of consolation by reappearing to them and showing them real life. And they have no problem believing any of that, but they still don’t understand the way he has risen from the dead. So they are here in a fear because what they’re afraid of is that the same thing that happened to their leader, Jesus, is going to happen to them as well. So they are in absolute fear in the midst of it. And the Lord comes to them and look what he says to them. He says, peace be with you. This greeting, peace be with you, or peace, shalom, is a very common introductory greeting among the Hebrew Jewish people. When they see each other, that’s what they say, shalom, peace be with you. But when our Lord is appearing to them in the middle of the locked room and saying, peace be with you, it is not just a greeting. It’s something more than that. It is basically saying, in the midst of the fear, the confusion, and the uncertainties and the questions of your life, I have come to give you the peace that passeth all understanding. And this is something so startling. Imagine you are in a room that is locked. Every door and window is locked and barred. And suddenly you are talking about this man, and he is standing right in front of you. And their reaction immediately as we read in the book of Luke is startling and fear. And the Lord says to them, peace be with you. This is something that we see so much in God’s word. It’s the fact that our Lord is the only one who can truly give peace in our lives. I don’t know what kind of situation you find yourself in. Maybe there are a lot of questions in your heart that are still unanswered, and you have doubts and fear about the future, uncertainties in your mind. But I want to remind you even tonight, our Lord appeared to them that night because he’s so concerned about granting them the peace that only he can bring. The Bible calls it the peace that passeth all understanding. And we see that the disciples in the book of Acts, as we’ve been going through, and even you will see later on in the book of Acts as well. When they’re being persecuted, there’s a tremendous peace in their life. And that doesn’t come naturally. That’s why the Bible calls it peace that passeth beyond our understanding. Because in understanding in our common way, you should not be having the peace. But our Lord is able to give you that peace.

We’re about to see something, and I’m going to show you a video here in a minute. But before that, I want to kind of introduce this video to you. You hear me often preach about this man quite a bit, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was tremendously used by the Lord in Nazi Germany. And he was somebody who stood against an entire nation. A nation that had basically bought even allegiance among the leaders of that time. Even though they were killing so many Jews and persecuting the innocent and so many things, the church was kind of blind or turning the other eye to what was happening in Nazi Germany. But Bonhoeffer, along with a group of pastors, started to speak out against the atrocities of the Nazis. That was almost like asking for it, basically. Because anyone who stood against Hitler was arrested and thrown in jail. And that’s exactly what happened to Bonhoeffer as well. He could have kept silent and just continued being a pastor and his calling and his preaching. And he was a gifted man of God, but he knew that he had to speak out against the atrocities of the Nazis. And he would do so. In fact, we talk about his book quite a bit, The Cost of Discipleship. And in it, he talks about the fact that if anyone wants to be a follower of the Lord, he must deny himself exactly what he did. You have to be willing to follow the Lord, even if it means death. So in this, there was a made-for-TV film, I think at one point we saw an excerpt from it, called Agent of Grace, that talks about the life and the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In it, there is a very, very powerful scene. I’m going to show you that here in a minute. This is thought to be a true story that happened. Bonhoeffer is in prison and he is in isolation in prison, awaiting probably his own execution. And he suddenly hears a boy on the other side of the prison wall. And the boy is crying and he’s weeping. And often at night, he seems so tormented because he’s so afraid of what is about to happen to him. The story, the movie doesn’t tell us exactly why this boy is in the prison. So let’s watch it and we’ll see it.

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Maybe the accent made it a little bit difficult to understand all the dialogue. I understand that. Basically, he was trying to get him to respond. And so he says, if you can hear me, place your hands on the other side of the wall as if we are praying. I’m a minister. The guard appears at the door and he says, Kirchner, it won’t do any good. He is going to be shot any day now. He got mixed up with the wrong crowd. But he continues. And I love the prayer that he prays as he holds his hand there. Lord, it’s dark in me. In you is day. I am alone, but you will stay. I am afraid you never cease. I am at war. In you is peace. Slowly, as you saw, you see a pair of hands reaching up and touch the wall from the other side of the prison wall where Bonhoeffer’s hands were. As dawn breaks, you heard and saw a single rifle shot shatters the morning calm. The same German guard who had told Bonhoeffer it is no use praying with this boy. He is going to be shot any day comes back and says, I thought you might like to know the boy from the next cell. He was very calm. It surprised everyone. He was shot this morning. See, that is the kind of peace that the Bible is talking about. A peace that is able to allow you to even face death with calmness when God is in your heart, when God’s peace is there, that allows you to face the most difficult moments of your life still with confidence because he gives us that peace.

Now, why did Jesus say to them, peace be with you? And it is not only has to do with that fear and anxiety that they had in that room. Remember, and that’s what I wanted to see in this passage. Every single one of these words, he spoke because he’s about to send them out into the world. And if you really want to be used for the Lord, and if you want really want your life to be something meaningful, were you able to do something for the Lord? You have to have the peace of God reigning in your hearts. I love what Alexander McLaren once said, however profound and real that divine peace is, it is to be enjoyed in the midst of warfare. See in the life of the believer, what motivates him to go to war for the Lord is the peace of the Lord gives that says that we are never alone, that he is with us, that he is always going to be there to comfort us and strengthen us in the midst of the stripes of our life. He continues, the highest energy of action is the result of the deepest calmness of the heart. That peace of God is peace militant. It is exactly what motivates Christians to go to the ends of the earth. It is exactly what should motivate you to take risk for the Lord in your life. You know what that is? The Lord who will come and give you peace in the midst of every questions and doubts and stripes in your life. A lot of times we are so hesitant to take the step of faith to do something for the Lord because we are afraid of failures. We’re afraid of what will happen when things don’t turn out the way I want it to be. And in the midst of it, you know what Jesus says, peace be with you. And I give you the peace not like the world gives. His peace is everlasting. It is always there. It is something that is able to completely overcome any fear, anxiety, or uncertainty that you have in your life.

So ultimate peace with God and peace in any circumstance of life is only found in the person of Christ. Ultimate peace with God. That’s exactly what the Bible talks about, right? In Romans 5:1 that’s what we read, therefore having been justified by faith in God through Christ, what does it say? We have peace with God. So this peace that we have in our life is not just a something fabricated. It comes because ultimately you have peace with your creator, your maker, and the redeemer of your life. Because you have peace with God, now you can have peace in any circumstance. You can have peace with fellow man. You can have peace in the midst of difficulties. Why? Because the most important relationship in your life is already taken care of. That is the relationship with God because of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As you read on in Luke 24, in actually go to John 20:20, the second thing that He says to them after telling them the peace is this. After He said this, He showed them His hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. So after telling them peace be with you and up until this time, they have no idea what kind of resurrection He’s had because no one has what? Touched Him yet. Remember even when Mary tried to touch Him, what did He say? Don’t touch me. What does He do here? He shows them His hands and side and John tells us that they were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. But you turn to Luke 24:37,39 and you see that that was not their immediate reaction. Look at verse 37, 39 of Luke 24. They were startled and frightened thinking they saw a ghost when He appeared to them. So the immediate reaction was what? One of fear and amazement and thought. What do they thought? They thought that they had seen a ghost. They thought the ghost of Jesus had appeared to them. And then He said to them, why are you troubled? Why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. Why did the Lord do this? You know why? This is the first and the only time in the history of the world someone had been resurrected from the dead but now with a supernatural heavenly body. Every other resurrection before and after this that has happened, people have come back to life but with their same body that they had as they went to their death. Lazarus came back from death. Jesus miraculously restored his life even though he has buried in the two for four years. God was able to restore his body back to him. But Lazarus he came back to life. He could not go through walls. He could not go through locked doors. He could not just be in one place one minute and just one second later he could be a different place. Why? Lazarus still had the same body that he had before he died. Same thing with Jairus’s daughter. Same thing with many of the people in the old testament who was raised to life again. They all came back with the natural bodies that they died with only to die maybe a few years or a few months later. Now stands before them for the first time in the history and the only time until now it has happened in the history of mankind. Someone has died but not only did that person rise up again, that person has a different kind of body. He has an indestructible body. He has a supernatural body. He has an immortal body. He has a heavenly body. It is no longer bound or restricted by locked doors. Walls can’t keep him away. Their time and distance and none of those things matter anymore. And Jesus comes and says touch my body and see it. What is he trying to tell them? I have risen from the dead. My resurrection is not like the rising of a ghost or rising of a spirit. I have risen again and there is nothing on earth you have to be afraid of anymore. Because what is the greatest fear the disciples will face in the years ahead? We’re going to kill you if you follow Jesus. And you know what they’ll remember? Touching his hands and his side and they would always be reminded that even if my physical body is burned to death, even if my physical body is cut to pieces, I saw, I touched my risen savior. I felt his side. I felt his hands. I know what that body feels like. Even if my physical body is taken away, one day I will have a body just like his. What can man do to me? That’s why Jesus have said, don’t fear man who can only kill what? Your body. Fear God who can kill your soul and your body. Man cannot do anything against us. That is why for the last 2000 years believers, not only these apostles who got to touch the hands and the side of the Lord, but believers all throughout the ages have paid the ultimate price of giving their life to the Lord because they did not care about their own body because they knew they had a much better resurrection and a glorified body that was waiting for them. They did not care about any loss on earth and that gave them the confidence in their life.

But also another thing, it is not only about the resurrected body. They knew that the person that they were believing in is truly God, the one and only God. Muhammad hasn’t risen from the dead and appeared before someone in bodily form and said, touch my hands and side. Krishna hasn’t done that even if he’s a real person. There’s some debate as to whether Krishna is even a real person. None of these gods that people worship have ever done that. It is here, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus that walked among them, now the one that they saw crucified and buried in the tomb, that is now standing in the side and saying, touch my hands and side. And in our life today, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is a greatest reminder, his bodily resurrection, that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. It gives us the confidence that one day whatever we do for the Lord will be paid in thousandfold dividends on that day. That’s why after giving us a long description in the book of Corinthians about the evidence for the resurrection, look at the way the Apostle Paul ends that chapter. He tells us this, therefore my dear brothers and sisters stand firm. Why do we stand firm today? Because our life is built on the solid foundation of the historical proof of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. If somebody were to ask you, why are you a Christian? How come you’re not a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Muslim? Why would you answer that? There’s only one answer that you can give. It is this, it is because of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ that I’m a Christian. His life, his true life that is beyond a shadow of doubt and his death, his resurrection, that’s what makes me a Christian. That’s what gives me my confidence. Let nothing move you. Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. If whatever we do today is only for this world, that the Apostle Paul writes the same thing. He said we are out of all people miserable in this whole earth. Like for example, tonight even, Saturday night, right? Many of your friends are out there having fun and some of you wish you could be if your parents will let you. But whatever they are doing is going to perish with this world. But what you are doing tonight is the only thing that’s going to last for all eternity. You worshiping God tonight, you listening to his word tonight, you playing instruments tonight, you doing media tonight, you doing whatever you’re doing, you being faithful to the Lord and just coming to church and worshiping God. One day you will be so grateful that you came to church on Saturday night. See, only what we do for the Lord is not in vain. Everything else is meaningless at the end of the day. Whatever you do in your work, you need it for your sustainment here on earth. But beyond this earth, it has no meaning. Whatever you do in school, you need to study and get a good education and get a good job. Yes, we all need to do that. But beyond this earth, it has no meaning. Only what is done for the Lord has meaning for all eternity. Why? Because we have a hope and a future that is beyond this earth because our Lord bodily resurrected from the dead and he is still alive today.

Third thing he says to them. John 20:21. Again Jesus said, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. First, peace I give you. Second, I give you confidence. You are not worshiping a false God. Look at me, feel my hand and side. I have defeated death. I have conquered the ultimate enemy. I stand before you victorious. You can be victorious in your life as well. Thirdly, he sends them. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. You know, when I read certain verses like this, it just completely just like overtakes me because it is beyond what I can explain. When did the Father start sending the Son? Think about that for a second. Even before this world was created. The Bible says he was a lamb who was already slain even before the world was created. So the plan of salvation and the redemption and the sending of the Son was something that God preordained even before he created us. So the Son always knew for thousands of years, millions of years maybe, that he was going to be sent into this world. That is the eternal plan of God. And when the Son was sent into this world, the Father did not send him in a vacuum. In fact, Jesus himself would tell us everything that he spoke, he only spoke what the Father wanted him to speak. He only did what the Father wanted him to do. He only completely and perfectly, the only person ever, he fulfilled the will of the Heavenly Father here on earth. But he also says, the Father has sent me for a mission and with a purpose. I am also sending you with a mission and a purpose. When God calls us, we all know from God’s word that God saw you even before the foundation of the earth were laid. You’re all chosen by God to become believers and become children of God. But he did not just choose you just to live your life for yourself. He chose you with a purpose. The Son had a purpose. What was that purpose? To become king here on earth? No, eventually he would. But his ultimate purpose was the cross. That’s why he came into this world. And so Jesus completely fulfilled the purpose for which the Father sent him. The question tonight for us is that, if we are being sent as the Father sent the Son, are we fulfilling the purpose for which Jesus is sending us? Or are we people that are just living our lives the way we want to and doing only the things that we want to? But is your life lived with a purpose? Jesus lived his life with a purpose. Jesus did everything with that purpose of the Father in mind. And if you and I are sent by Jesus, the question at the end of your life, the success, the measure of your success is that, did I do what Jesus sent me to do? Did I do fulfill in this earth what Jesus called me to do? Your life and my life has a reasoning behind it, has a purpose behind it, and we are not alone. God himself is intimately and actively involved in our mission and purpose in this world. We are not people that are here by ourselves. Look what Jesus himself said to us in John 14:18, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Do you know that today, whatever Jesus is asking you to do, if he is sending you, guess what? Who’s coming along with you? He is coming along with his presence is there with you to strengthen you. He will not leave you as orphans. He is there to strengthen you.

And the next thing that he does for them is very indicative of how he makes his presence available to us. John 20:22, with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. So three things we saw already, Jesus gives us peace in the midst of our troubles, our confusions, our questions. Jesus gives us confidence for mission, knowing that he is the risen savior. Jesus gives us purpose in our mission because we know that we’re being sent by him as he was sent by the father. And fourthly, very importantly in the life of the believer, he wants us to have the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. This act of our Lord is something that is very deeply debated. Most people, theologians will tell you, and I agree with it. There was nothing supernatural that happened in verse 22. What he was doing there was just symbolic act of what would happen a few days later on the day of Pentecost when they will receive the Holy Spirit. But he breathed on them. Now it’s very striking. Why did he breathe on them? Then you had to kind of think about other times in God’s word where God breathed. And two things come to my mind very importantly. We became a living being by God breathing into us. That’s what happened in our way of creation. In fact, the only creature that God breathed into is man. Everything else God created by his word and he gave them life. They had life. But we are the only beings that God fashioned with his hands. But he did something very important that made us eternal beings. You know what that is? God breathed into us. We see again in the book of Ezekiel, God breathing. Remember the dry bones in the valley. God comes and he breathes on them and make them to be living again. Both of these shows to us this act of God breathing means true life comes into us by giving us the Holy Spirit. And the way God does that in the New Testament is that the moment you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ death on the cross, the Holy Spirit comes into your life. That’s what we call the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In fact, if you don’t have the Spirit, the Bible says you are not a believer. Every believer has the Holy Spirit living inside of them. So always be mindful of the fact that God is living inside of you. And if somebody asks you, how is God living inside of you? Answer is the Holy Spirit is living inside of me. That’s what born again experience is. The Holy Spirit comes and makes your part of yourself that was dead alive again. And that’s the power of the Spirit of God. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead comes and makes us who are dead alive again, born again. We became born again. Now the Holy Spirit is inside of you, but that’s not enough. You know what we need? We need a constant filling of the Spirit of God. Now this Holy Spirit that is living inside of you is not some magical power. You need to use that Holy Spirit. One of the things that we often fail sometimes is to recognize the personhood of the Holy Spirit. You know, if I were to ask you to tell Jesus that you love him, nobody will have a problem because you can imagine Jesus being a person. But when is the last time you told the Holy Spirit that you love him? He’s actually nearer to you in a way than Jesus is because he’s living inside of you. But when is the last time you prayed to the Holy Spirit? When is the last time you actually said, Holy Spirit, I am sorry for what I did because I know that I grieved your heart. Holy Spirit, I love you. Holy Spirit, comfort me. Holy Spirit, counsel me. Holy Spirit, strengthen me. We need to learn to pray to the Holy Spirit that is the person. This Holy Spirit of God not only indwells the believer, but the power that we have to evangelize and to live for the Lord comes directly from the Holy Spirit. For that, we need something that we believe in called the filling of the Holy Spirit, where the Holy Spirit that is inside of us overflows in the life of the believer and makes him, enables him to do things that he’s not naturally able to do. So every one of us should be praying for not only the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that God has given to you because you’re a believer, but you should be praying for the overflowing and the filling of the Spirit of God in your life. I pray that every single day that you pray, that you pray for that. Now that might manifest itself as tongues, that might manifest itself as boldness like you never had before, that might manifest itself as joy like you never had before, that will manifest itself as giftings that you never had before. All of this comes because of the filling of the Spirit of God. I know this is a little bit controversial, but I am of the opinion that speaking in tongues is not the only evidence for the filling of the Spirit of God. There are other things, gifts, that are shown to us in God’s Word as well and there’s not really any clear proof in God’s Word to show that it is only in speaking in tongues that you have the filling of the Spirit of God. You have interpretation of tongues, you have giftings of tongues, you have the ability to learn languages that come from the filling of the Spirit of God. All of us should yearn for them, should yearn for the filling of the Spirit of God. It’s something that God wants us to have. Why? The task that God is asking us to do, we cannot do it on our own. We need the strength and power of the Spirit of God in our life. But look what our Lord did here. When He asked us to go into the world and do His work, He didn’t just say, oh I will just send one of the angels to help you. He didn’t just say, I will send a pastor to help you. The third person of the Trinity, who is God Himself, has come to help you. He has come to help you and we are today equipped with the power from on high as a third person of the Trinity indwells and empowers us. This is remarkable when we think about it. Lord, the triune God is not leaving us alone. Today you know who is building the church? The Holy Spirit is building the church. Jesus said, I will build my church and you know what He did to build that church? He sends Him and the Father together and they all three decide, this is not a job to be given to someone else. Have you ever heard the term, if you want to do it right, you have to do it yourself? And that’s kind of what God did here. When He came to building our church, He didn’t just leave it to a man, leave it to an angel. No, this is the most important undertaking that God is doing in the world today. He is building His church and you know what He did? He Himself has come down to indwell the church, equip the church, to have power inside the church and we believe that when we gather together, there’s a presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our midst. You don’t have to stand up and sing, welcome Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is here. You just have to yield yourself to it. The Holy Spirit is there. You have to be in tune with Him. But in your personal life, I want you to be children that listen to the Holy Spirit, that pry with the help of God not to grieve the Holy Spirit, that you are children that consciously rely upon the Holy Spirit. When you need counseling in your life, yes, parents are great, pastors are great, but they can only do so much. Your ultimate counselor is the Holy Spirit. When you don’t know what to do, ask the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom. When you don’t know which path to take, let the Holy Spirit teach you. When you study scripture and you don’t fully understand it, stop, pray to the Holy Spirit and say, Holy Spirit, you are the author of this book, teach me this word. In fact, I always tell you this, you should do that before you read God’s Word. Let the Holy Spirit teach you. If you are able to teach, if you are able to do God’s work in the power of the Holy Spirit, no man can stand against you. Because remember what God’s Word says, the one that is living inside of you is greater than the one that is in the world. No weapons of enemy can work.

Finally, Jesus says to them, if you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. There are certain verses in the Bible that I wish Jesus never said. This is one of them. Because an entire wing of wrong teaching has come up in the Catholic Church because of this verse. They take this verse and they say, well, the apostles were given power to forgive sins. As descendants of the apostle Peter, the Pope also has the right to forgive and not to forgive. Here’s the problem with that. Remember what I read to you from Luke 24:30-35. It was not just the apostles who were in that room. Other normal disciples were also there. So when Jesus says to them, if you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. Who is he speaking to? Not just the apostles. He is speaking to the whole church. But what is he saying? You have the power to forgive? No. Only God can forgive sins. In fact, when you read through the book of Acts, you never see Peter saying, I have forgiven your sins. You never hear Paul say, I have forgiven your sins. What do they say? The Lord Jesus Christ can forgive your sins. But what does this verse mean? Here’s what it is. When we stand before someone and say, if you believe in the Jesus, your sins are forgiven. There’s authority in what we are saying, because that’s exactly what the truth is. Only in the name of Jesus, there is forgiveness. You know, we are living in a world where nobody wants to say anything absolute, right? People always want to like sugarcoat things and say things are great. But I can confidently stand before a person and say, your sins are not forgiven if you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because what we are proclaiming is the only truth in the world. The message of the church is the only truth. That’s why Jesus says, if you forgive their sins, they’re forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they’re not forgiven. Why? Because we know how they can be forgiven. And whatever we communicate is the absolute truth. And you don’t have to hide behind anything.

So you have peace. You have confidence in a risen savior. You have purpose. You have the power of the Holy Spirit. And you have ultimately the only true message the world needs to hear. Something from which you don’t need to hide away from, or sugarcoat it, or delude it. Whatever you say is the truth, because it is based upon the word of God. And that never changes and never goes away. Even today, what you have to communicate to the world is the most important thing. We don’t go into the world to tell the people how to become better people. We go into the world to tell the people how to have life everlasting. How to go from death to life. And the message that you have is the most important message. We don’t tell people, come to church so that you can be a better person. We tell people, come to church, come to Jesus, because that’s the only way you can go to heaven. That’s the only way your sins can be forgiven. There are no multiple ways for sins to be forgiven. There’s only one way. You know what that is? The forgiveness that we find in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have this very limited understanding of forgiveness, because we all grew up in church. And we think that we don’t need much forgiveness. We think, you know, every time somebody talks of forgiveness, you’re all constantly thinking, well, I’m not as bad as the other person in the world. I’ve been in church all my life. What we don’t realize is that every single one of us is really in desperate need of God’s forgiveness. Don’t compare yourself to another sinner that is in the world. I have news for you. The Bible says you’re all bad. We are all bad. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It is only the message of the cross that is able to give us forgiveness.

In almost bullet points, in five verses, the Lord really tells the church, I’m about to send you to the world, but I’m going to send you with all these tools that are going to strengthen you, not only for today, but even for the ages to come. And the church has done that so faithfully in so many ways, and I praise God for that.

I want you to pray in your heart today for God to give you peace. If you are here troubled in your heart, pray, Lord, you appeared to them that night and told them, peace be with you. I need that peace in my life. Lord, sometimes my faith is shaking. I’m not sure if all of this is true. Do I believe what my parents taught me to believe? That’s what the pastor preached on Sunday. Is it really true? What about my friends that are Hindus? What about them? I want you to know tonight that you serve the only God to ever rise up from the dead and defeat death forever. You might be thinking, do what I do in this world have purpose? Remind yourself, as a father has sent the son, the son has sent each one of us. And if you’re feeling weak today and inadequate thinking, what can I do? God’s word tells you, he has given you the Holy Spirit, who is God himself to indwell you and empower you. And if you’re sitting here tonight, guilty, shameful, ashamed of what you’ve done, maybe even this week, God’s word reminds you through forgiveness, acceptance, complete cleansing of your sins is only found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let not the enemy lie to your hearts. Jesus has come so that your sins can be forgiven and be washed away, not to continue sinning again, but to live a victorious life. But when you do sin, to go back to him time and time again, and you can be assured that his blood is able to wash your sins away and make you whole again.

Let’s look to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for you give us peace in the midst of our strife. We thank you that you have given us the confidence that our Lord is risen from the dead, not as a ghost, but a bodily resurrection that you have promised for each one of us. We thank you tonight that you have sent us with a mission and a purpose as the Father has sent the Son. We thank you tonight that you have given us the Holy Spirit to live among us, to live inside of us, to empower us for the work ahead is so hard. Oh God, without your help, we cannot do anything. And finally, we thank you for the forgiveness of sins that we have for you. Help us to live our lives knowing that we are accepted by you, embraced by you, in a world, an enemy that tries to put us down. Give us confidence in our life to know that we are children of God, here with a purpose and a mission. Help us to accomplish that in the days to come. Thank you for hearing our prayer. Oh God, bless everyone here. It’s in the name of the Lord Jesus that we pray.