John Gunter: Hi there, friends. Thank you for listening to our podcast here at the Eagle Community Church of Christ. My name is John Guenter. This week, it is Easter Sunday, so that's what we get in the sermon this week. We've taken just a day off from or a week off from the story.
And of course, what we study today is still very much a part of our story. I hope it's uplifting to you as we, study about what Jesus, not only what Jesus has done for us, but how it should impact our lives. That we now have this charge to not live lives just focused and consumed by the flesh but lives that are consumed by the spirit. And so again, I pray that this is impactful for you. Thanks again for listening.
We'd love to see you in person. Come see us anytime and we hope you have a great week. See you soon. Trying to get some audio here. Again, I wanna thank you for for being here this morning, especially those of you in the splash zone up here.
I was kidding Lucille about making a lot of eye contact and she looked genuinely nervous about that. So I will try not to look her way. Just happy Easter again. What a special day as we think about all that happened so long ago and really what impacts us two thousand years later, right? Isn't that amazing?
How many things can you point to in your life that have impacted you that greatly from so long ago? Isn't that amazing? We start this morning with a scripture reading from John. In John chapter 20, we're gonna read verses one through 18. Early on the day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed 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 they we do not know where they have laid him. Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter, humble brag there, and reached the tomb He bent down to look in, saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.
Then the other disciple who reached the tomb again, 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 returned to their homes but Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other 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. Then when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for? 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 Hebrew, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, do not hold on to me because I have not 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. She told them that he had said these things to her.
This is the basis for all of our Easter thoughts, is it not? At this point in the story of Jesus, if we could use the language of the story, the upper story, God makes at this point you see that God is not just full of air and talk. Right? That God has said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to make this happen.
And you had to think, as the text describes here, we didn't know what all that meant. We weren't exactly sure about all this being dead and then rising again stuff. But at the moment that they beheld Jesus standing there, they had to know, okay, God is faithful and he has the power to stand behind what he said. We watched him be crucified. We watched him die and here Jesus stands again, the tomb now empty.
Isn't it amazing to think about that? As DC pointed out this morning, there's a lot of this that we think about during our time of communion and as we do it each week. This is kind of an intersection of what God has done in the past and what God has promised in the past and what we experience in the present and also what God has promised to us in the future. And we see with Jesus' resurrection that he stands behind what he says. And so when we see this, we see the faithfulness of God.
We see the the righteousness of Jesus. We see the obedience that Jesus is that he has to his father saying, I will go even to death for all of you. Isn't it amazing that at this point in the story, God makes that relationship right if you will just accept it? He doesn't say, you know what? You have done so many things I'm gonna make you jump through some hoops.
You're gonna jump over some hurdles. There are gonna be some things you have to prove yourself to me again. Scripture tells us that while we were yet sinners, we had no basis, Jesus was sent by God to us to die for each and every one of your sins. Do you know that, church? That there is no sin that God looks and says, Well, I didn't consider that.
Jesus may need to come again and die for you again. Now sometimes we put those thoughts in our own head, don't we? You don't understand all the things I've done. You don't understand how many times I have known better and I have made the wrong choice. And we build it up and we feel like God has not done enough for me.
Let me tell you right now this morning, if you were listening to a voice in your head that's saying that, that is not from God. Because God has done everything for you. Not because we deserved it, just because he loves us, and he wants that relationship with us. And so that impacts, we we gather together and we remember all the things in the past God has done. When we come for communion, we think about Passover.
That's what they were thinking of. That's what they were assembled for was Passover, what God has done prior to them. They think about that not not in just a man I'm sad that all this happened but rejoicing that God is faithful. That God told them this is what's gonna happen and it happened and his hedge of protection was around them as the spirit of the Lord passed over that night. And that's what we see in communion as well.
Is that God is faithful, that he has poured out his son to us and his son has been obedient into the even to death where he pours out his blood for us. That he gave up his body and his blood for all of us. Do you hold that thought lightly or does that hang with you? That Jesus has done all of this for you. Do we walk out and do we kind of forget that during the week?
Or is that something you hang on to and think, Man, I'm so thankful of what God has done for me. What we see in the upper story and lower story, quite frankly, later on in scripture is people wrestling with this. What does this mean for us now? What is the impact of all the things we are celebrating as we look at Easter? Paul talks in Romans eight and our scripture reading is going to continue there.
Romans eight verses one through eight to begin. He said, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Do we need to read that again, church? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Again, if you're wrestling with a voice that says, I'm not good enough, you didn't do enough for me, you're gonna have to wrestle with God and wrestle with scripture on that.
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin. He condemned sin in the flesh so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on things of the spirit.
To set the mind on the flesh is death but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For this reason, the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And so we see this back and as Paul lays it out.
This life in the flesh versus life in the spirit. As people who come together and claim Christ, you are to live a life that is in the spirit. Life in the flesh is really this kind of rebellion against what God wants. That when I leave this place, and so often I think in our culture we've really been trained to compartmentalize. You keep your church stuff at church, you don't take this outside the building, you certainly don't bring it with you to work or school or anything like that.
Right? Do you feel that way sometimes? Yeah, it'll bring that with you. Compartmentalize. But what Paul is saying here is that your whole life, whole mindset, if you're a follower of Jesus has to be life built on the spirit.
That my life, that my mind is consumed not with worldly things or fleshly things but of things of the spirit. That's what I think about. I don't walk out the doors and all of a sudden say, alright, good. Until next week, right? I'm gonna go and do what I wanna do and think about what I wanna think about and I'm gonna rebel against God the whole week and then we'll make it up next Sunday.
That is that is not life in the spirit. That we are drawn to and that we feel this this obligation or this love for Jesus so that I don't I don't want all the other stuff. I don't wanna live a life. Remember it says, can't be obedient to god. It cannot if you're living a life life in the flesh.
You cannot do that because your mind is so consumed with all of these other things that there's no room for God anymore. So that's what we see in the life life of the flesh. We'll continue reading here in verse nine. Again, talking to people who should know better. Paul explains it this way, but you are not in the flesh.
We're gonna talk about that because it feels like sometimes, oh, I'm still in the flesh. Right? The previous chapter, Paul kind of wrestled with that. He says, I do not do the things I wanna do and I don't do the things I wanna do. Right?
He just keeps wrestling with this. But he says, but you are not in the flesh. You are in the spirit since the spirit of God dwells in you. Church, when do you receive the gift of the holy spirit? At your baptism.
And so this is you. This is talking. Paul is talking. He's looking at you unlike I'm looking at Lucille. He's looking at you in the face saying, since the you are in the spirit since the spirit of God dwells in you.
So if you're wrestling with that this morning, what are you talking about flesh versus spirit? If you have been baptized and we know what all that means that I have pledged obedience to Jesus saying, this is the way I wanna follow. Thank you Lord for all that you've done for me. I'm gonna pledge obedience through this this immersion into baptism through his death, burial, and resurrection coming up out of the water. If that is you, you are in the spirit since the spirit of God dwells in you.
Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. Though the body is dead because of sin. So when you're baptized, when you put on Christ in baptism, nothing changes. You don't come out and, oh my goodness, I feel twenty years younger.
Right? I feel like I will live forever. DC's, I think, claim to be the oldest person, oldest member. Is that is that actually correct? You're 92.
Right? The body keeps aging, does it not? You weren't able to stop it. Some of us try, don't we?
Speaker 2: But he's all his numbers anyway.
John Gunter: That's right. Amen. All his numbers. That's right. The what?
Mom's older. She is older. Okay.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. She's really hang up.
John Gunter: She got a little on you. Okay. But when we come up out of the water, we don't we don't come out like, man, I don't even recognize you. You're a teenager again. But Paul is saying the body is still reaping what has happened in the past.
Right? That God, when he set up the Garden Of Eden and set up perfection, right? That Adam and Eve could sit there and they could have all their needs met and we're going, you know, if we could see them face to face we would shake them. Why did you do this to me? Right?
But because of this, sin was introduced into the world and death was introduced into the world. Right? We go, we age, we continue that. So the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness. And I want you to hold on to this next verse.
If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his spirit that dwells in you. Because you claim Christ, because you have accepted Jesus, because you have put him on in baptism, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. And so what's gonna happen to you? You're also gonna be raised. My goodness, if that doesn't motivate us as a church today, I've got nothing else for you.
I've got nothing else. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his spirit that dwells in you. I need an amen for that. Amen. But that's what Jesus has done for us.
But the same spirit that raised him will also raise us. So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the spirit of God are children of God.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption when we cry Abba Father. I hope the series this past year when we talked about who God is and some of us carry the feeling that we're always on the edge of the knife. That God is just waiting. That somehow we've made it up in our minds that God is a God just waiting for us to mess up so he can wipe us off the map. What does Paul say here?
You are not given this spirit or this feeling of slavery to fall back. You have been adopted. Now maybe that rings a little more powerfully to me because I am adopted. Anybody else in here adopted? I'm the only one,
Speaker 2: We're all adopted.
John Gunter: Uh-huh. Amen. Well, I'll tell you as an adopted person, my family grew up and I feel like we captured the sense of what adoption is in scripture. Because we would have conversations forgetting that I wasn't actually blood relative. Right?
And so we would assume, we would have conversations, we would just forget that was not a thought that I'm different or that I'm weird or anything like that. It is I have been fully accepted into the family. And that is your status this morning if you claim Jesus. If you follow Jesus Christ right now, it's not a, well, maybe you're in and I've told this story before because when Katie and I got together and we would take family pictures, her nana always put me on the edge of the picture. And I caught on and I said, Listen, you're doing that because you're not sure if I'm going to stick.
And so quick pair of scissors and we can do that real quick, right? But that is not adoption. That is conditional, right? You have been fully adopted, accepted. You can sit in the middle of the picture.
It's your choice. This is not a God that is waiting to throw you in or out. This is you have been fully accepted if you just choose to stay. Some of us make it a lot more difficult than that. We wrestle with that in our mind and what that feels like, but this is God has given us everything if we would just say yes.
I want to be here with him. That's what Paul is saying here. Just a couple more verses as we close out our scripture reading. It is that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, that you can know that you are a child of God. You know that.
You can know you are a child of God. And if children, you are What's that word? Heirs. Heirs. I I don't know if it's the the case everywhere, but I know in Arkansas that if you adopt a child, you cannot leave them out of the will.
Do you know that? You adopt a child, you can leave blood children out of your will, but you cannot leave adopted children out. Isn't that interesting? If children, you're part of the family, you are an heir. My sister, when she was young, looked at me one time and said, You're not really a gunter.
And my mom made her read so many adoption books. She still remembers it. I barely I remember the incident, but I don't remember all that, but she remembers it. There was not another incident after that. You do not get some kind of quasi status.
You don't get a little asterisk that says, well, you know, really not part of. But when you are given the name me as Gunther, all of us as Christian, follower of Jesus, follower of the Messiah, our savior, you are in. You are heirs and heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. That is powerful. Because we're the whole who's more important, all this stuff.
You are joint heirs with Jesus because of what God did for you. If in fact we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. This morning as we think about the Easter story, as we think about the empty tomb, the main question is do you accept what Jesus has done for you? Now you can look at this story and say, I don't believe that to be true and that's gonna lead you somewhere. Or you can decide this morning that I wanna be a part of the family.
Maybe you haven't begun that walk and I wanna start it today. Or maybe it is that you've kind of held these other feelings that I'm not good enough, that I haven't done enough, you don't know what I have done. And you need to throw those out. And you need to start fresh. And what a better day than right now, Easter Sunday, we think about Jesus rising from the grave showing God's power.
And because God's power is shown through the raising of Jesus God gifts his spirit into all who accept him and are baptized into his name and we have a bunch of people right now with the holy spirit living inside you and because of that you will rise again. Though our bodies will age and eventually die, we will rise again. Amen? Amen. So if you need to begin that walk with him, we'd like to encourage you to do that.
If you need the prayers of the church, love to pray with you. Would you come as we stand and sing?