This message is one of the Times Square
Church Pulpit Series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
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I'd like to just pray and then maybe
if you would just turn with me to
John chapter 20, John chapter 20.
It's not surprising that on Easter we will
be looking at the first Easter morning in
John chapter 20.
Now I'm going to pray.
Father, I come to you in Jesus' name.
Lord, we come to you in your precious
name.
And I thank you, Lord, that you will
come now and walk among us.
And that, Lord, you will speak something so
vital and pure of yourself.
Lord, we ask you now to touch us.
And, Lord, would you speak to us through
this word.
Lord, make it a living word.
Lord, I ask for those that do not
know you, that, Lord, you would touch hearts
and let there be a surrender to your
love, to your crucified love.
Lord, I pray for those that are struggling.
And I pray, Lord, for those that come
hurting and with pain.
I thank you, Lord, that in your presence
there is healing and fullness of joy.
Lord, only by your spirit.
This cannot be worked up by man or
any words a man or woman could say.
But, Lord, where the spirit of the Lord
is, you bring life and you bring all
that we need.
So, Lord, we ask you to come now
and richly bless this word with your spirit
teaching us.
And we thank you for it in Jesus'
precious name.
Amen and amen.
I entitled the title of this message.
It's called The First Believer.
The First Believer.
And I wanted to look at the life
Easter morning of Mary Magdalene in John 20.
And to piece together the sequence of events
that first Easter morning, that resurrection morning.
You have to really read the four gospels.
Because every gospel tells a piece or a
section of the events of the unfolding of
that early morning.
And if you read the four gospels, we
would see that Mary Magdalene and other women
go to the grave of Jesus early in
the morning.
And they had prepared spices Friday night.
The next day was Sabbath.
They weren't allowed to travel or to do
any work like that.
So early Sunday morning, they go to the
grave to prepare what they feel to the
body of Jesus Christ.
And when they get there, they are told
by angels, men in white, in the gospel
of Luke, he is not here.
He has risen and go back.
They tell them and tell the disciples.
And so they go back to where the
disciples were and they give them that news.
And then we see that in starting in
John chapter 20, that Peter, it says.
When Peter and John went running to the
tomb on the on the news that the
women brought them.
And it says, verse four.
So they ran both together.
And the other disciple did outrun Peter and
came first to the sepulcher.
And he's stooping down and looking in, saw
the linen clothes lying.
Yet he went, when he not in.
Then come a Simon Peter following him and
went into the sepulcher and see if the
linen clothes lie and the napkin that was
about his head, not lying with the linen
clothes, but wrapped together in a place by
itself.
And so the women follow the men back
and they see Peter and John go in
and they see that the body is not
there.
And then verse nine says, for as yet
they knew not the scripture that he must
rise from the dead.
And we see here in verse 10, it
says the disciples went away again unto their
home.
And now starting in verse 11 is where
Mary Magdalene is now left alone in the
garden.
And she has received or heard the word
from the angels.
But you know, the disciples come, they look
in, they see an empty tomb.
And all of a sudden her reality or
what really must be the truth comes crashing
in on her.
And it says in verse 11, but Mary
stood without at the sepulcher weeping.
And as she wept, she stooped down and
looked into the sepulcher and see if two
angels in white sitting, the one at the
head and the other at the feet where
the body of Jesus had lain.
And let me read one more.
And they say unto her, woman, why weepest
thou?
And she saith unto them, because they have
taken away my Lord, and I know not
where they have laid him.
It kind of struck me that this was
angels speaking to her and she doesn't seem
at all amazed that angels are the ones
giving her this information one more time.
Whether it is due to her extreme grief,
or maybe it's the second time an angel
has spoken to her, whatever it is, what
is really in her heart is I have
come to minister to Jesus, to his body.
And when I get here, they have taken
him away and I don't know where they
have laid him.
And as I read these words, I could
hear the pain in this woman.
And I could hear her confusion and almost
the worst 48 hours of her life she
has just experienced.
And now all the confusion and what's happening
at this empty tomb is only intensifying what
she's gone through the last 48 hours.
You know, many of you know her story.
This is a woman from whom seven devils
were cast out.
And she had been allowed to follow Jesus.
She was one of the chosen, one of
that band of women and men that followed
Christ.
And she ministered to him.
And she had gone with him through his
journey through Galileans and Samaria and Judea.
And she had seen miracle upon miracle.
And she had seen in Jesus, when so
little was put into his hand, how he
could feed a multitude.
And she could see when he would spit
on the ground and just from his own
spit and dirt and that mud, but apply
it to blind eyes and how they were
opened.
This woman where she saw demons came under
the authority of his word that he could
speak into the deepest, blackest part of a
man's soul and bring freedom and life.
She could see waves and wind come by
the power of his word.
She saw everywhere she looked, everything.
There seemed to be not one area of
life as she knew it, whether it be
in the heart of man or the elements
around her that was not under the authority
and control of this man at his will.
But beloved, I think nothing compared, though, in
her mind to being loved and accepted and
forgiven by him.
She who had been so vile was now
so loved.
She who had been, I, we, you just
know someone with seven devils, how the society
would so put that one out, cast them
aside, see the nothing but how vile and
dirty and how they wanted nothing apart.
And when people looked at her, they thank
God they weren't her.
And people would judge and people would have
all kinds of reactions to her, but none
of it would ever have been what how
he reacted to her.
It's like he looked down and when he
saw her.
I was able to reach into the deepest
part of her hell, the lowest, slimiest part
of her pit.
And nothing that was of hell in her
could withstand the light and the power and
the love that he brought to her, her
mind and her soul and her spirit and
how he raised her up and made her
clean, made her in her right mind.
When he looked at her, he fully accepted
her.
He fully loved her.
And it didn't matter what one person on
the face of the earth thought about her
or felt about her in his eyes.
She knew she was complete.
She was loved.
She was cleansed.
She was forgiven.
She was made whole.
He could look right through her, see everything
there was to see, and it did not
keep him from stretching forth his hand and
saying, I choose you.
I want you.
I love you.
You are my chosen one.
This is the Jesus she followed.
And yet she knew something else this first
early morning when she watched Jesus die on
the cross.
Her experience that Sunday morning was that hope
to her mind could be crucified, that love
could be taken from her.
That faith could be killed.
Beloved, everything that she longed for, a new
heart, a new life, a new start could
be buried and the good could be overcome
by evil and everything that meant life to
her for some strange, unknowable reason could be
taken from her.
When Jesus died on that cross, when she
stood there, knowing that in her experience and
in the experience of so many, without a
doubt, he was the most holiest man they
had ever encountered, that he was the one
so God possessed, that he was a prophet,
surely in word and deed that no man
spoke like this man.
And yet how a people Israel called by
God, his chosen ones could have a messenger
with such a clear and bright, shining message
that so transformed the lives of those that
opened their heart to him, that had their
hearing touched.
And yet here it was this holy man
crucified, counted as forsaken, counted as a God
hater, counted as a blasphemer, counted as one
against the authority of the religious system in
Israel.
Now, this man.
Who had been accused of so much, and
yet her experience had been so different, stood
at the bottom of his cross and watched
him die a horrifying death.
And beloved.
When Jesus died.
I believe there was something of anything that
was life and faith and hope in her
died with him because he who had seemed
so God possessed, suffered and died like a
man.
And so she has come to do what
she feels she can do.
Is that since they've taken him and killed
him now, she wants to go, she wants
to take that body and she wants to
perform the last rites as as something, something
that she can do for him and verse
14 and 15.
It says when she said, I know not
where they have laid him.
And when she had said she turned herself
back and saw Jesus standing and knew not
that it was Jesus.
And Jesus said unto her woman, why weepest
thou?
Whom seekest thou?
And she supposing him to be the gardener
said unto him, Sir, if thou have borne
him hence, tell me where has thou laid
him?
You know, the scripture is telling us that
she looked right at Jesus, but she did
not know it was Jesus.
A face that she had known so well,
she was now restrained from seeing.
She was not allowed to see and to
recognize him.
And she says, where have you born him?
Where have you carried him?
And born is to bear or carry or
take up or endure.
Where have you carried him?
Where have you taken him?
He did.
He bear and he carried.
He took me up.
And he did that for me.
He was that for me.
And now I want to be that for
him.
You see, you have borne him somewhere, but
that's how what he did for my life.
He endured me.
But then he reached down and he changed
me and he carried me and he bore
me when no one else would bear with
me.
And now someone has come and they've taken
him.
If you've taken him away, I want to
take him away.
I want to bear.
I want to.
What he's done for me, I want to
do for him.
And that last line of verse 15 so
touches me.
And she says, and I will take him
away.
I will take him away.
It's just a dead body.
I want to take him.
And it just said to me.
I'm trying to give back what he gave
me.
He took me up.
I'll take him up.
And beloved, it was the very best and
most tenderest of intentions.
But really, what would she do with a
dead body?
She would dignify it with spices and give
it a proper burial.
But beloved, something very devastating would be allowed
to happen that it happened in the lives
of many people who say they do want
to know Jesus like she knew him before
the cross.
She would say, I want to do something
special for someone very special to me.
I want to take the body of Jesus
and and I want to have it, take,
carry it and bury it.
But beloved, at the core of that action.
Would be that I have to take my
faith and my God out of harm's way.
I have to take.
My faith that has now been shattered when
I saw him die.
And who I thought might have been.
My God, and I have to take him
out of harm's way and I will be
good to him.
I will give him a proper burial.
And I will bury him.
But beloved, what dies when you have to
guard God's grave?
She knew or felt she knew who this
man was.
And yet when he died.
And something in her died that she says,
I have to take care of him now
and I'm going to find a grave and
I'll put him one and whoever took him
away, he will never be allowed to be
taken away again.
And I will go and I will give
him a grave and I will guard it
and I will guard my God's grave.
I will take him away.
And beloved, so many people live here.
They are guarding a grave.
You see, they want something of Jesus.
They know something of Jesus.
They have been drawn by his name and
they have tried religion.
You have tried something of Christ, but it
has not worked out.
There has been deep disappointments.
There have been things in your life and
you could wonder, God, how can this be
you?
You know, I want to I have a
heart for you and I want the things
of your kingdom.
But I know nothing but repeated frustration and
failure.
And God, there are things in my life
that happen that don't make sense to me.
If you're alive, I followed you with a
sincere heart and God, you were real to
me for several moments.
You were more real to me.
And I could have told people, I know
God lives.
I know he's alive.
And yet with this heart for him, you
have stood at the foot of a cross
in your life.
And that's all it's been is a cross,
no resurrection in it, just a cross.
And something has died.
And there's almost a fear to admit it.
There's almost afraid to say this is really
what's going on at the bottom of my
heart.
There could be a pretense of religion.
There could be a show.
You could attend church.
You could be counted one of the faithful.
But really, your faith is something you have
to guard and your God is something you
have to guard because put to the test,
you feel your faith and your God would
not come through.
There are those that say, I have tried
him and it has only left me with
such fear and such questions.
There has been a cross.
There has been pain and misunderstanding, and I'm
now afraid of what it means to fully
trust, fully declare one more time, God, I
want to be made willing to believe you
again.
And with no resurrection in our theology, with
no resurrection in our experience, no new life,
we could end up, many of us, like
Mary Magdalene, with a lot of religion, a
lot of knowledge about God, a testimony, a
little bit of a testimony.
But underneath it all is the anxiety and
the doubt and the fear.
Underneath it all is repeated failure at trying
to serve and please a God that seems
impossible to please.
That seems, if he could just show me
what he wants and what is to be
my next step.
But everywhere I turn, it seems to be
a place of more pain and questions this
faith that I have.
But beloved, verse 16 comes.
And Jesus said unto her, the Jesus she
couldn't see the Jesus that had been standing
before her all the while, a Jesus that
had been withholding from her eyes, a Jesus
that could not reveal himself until she had
come to the bottom and until she had
come to a point where she could hear
something.
Beloved, we can be in our pain, our
misery, our fear and our doubt, and we
still can't hear from God all the while
saying, God, I need a word from you.
We can be so wrapped up in trying
to pursue God, but it's all in our
own understanding that when God's trying to break
through and finally reveal himself as standing before
us all the while, we've been saying, no,
all I see is a gardener.
I need God and God in his time
knows when he can reveal himself.
And here is this woman now.
Willing to take him away, willing to give
him a proper bear, willing to somehow give
back to him because she he has given
so much to her and this is how
she sees religion.
You see, God, now you've given to me.
Now I've got to give something back to
you and God, you're going to give more
to me.
Now I've got to give something back to
you.
This is how I please you.
This is how it works.
But she came to the end of it.
And all of a sudden in her desire
to take him away and take a dead
body away, God in his mercy said, no,
you are not that you do not the
keeper of my grave.
It's going to be a new relationship and
a new understanding.
And it says here in verse 16, Jesus
said unto her, Mary, and she turned herself.
Because at the right time in the perfect
timing of the Lord, when he knows the
exact amount of pain and pressure and doubt
and fear and failure and despair at the
right time, beloved, at the right time, some
are crying out even now.
Oh, God, you know, why won't you answer
me?
Because he's saying at the right time, I
need one word to move with a mountain.
I need one word and a full revelation
will come to you and I one word,
one time his way.
It's worth the way it's worth the way.
Because there's something when God says one word,
he says, Mary, and she turned herself.
Because at the sound of a voice at
the sound of her name, she turned herself
because she recognized the voice.
Nobody said her name like Jesus did.
Hallelujah.
Nobody could say it with such love and
such tenderness, with such care, with such fullness
in it.
She could hear the longing in it.
She could hear her God in it.
She heard herself known in it.
She heard herself loved in it.
He said her name and she turned herself,
the scripture said, and she recognized him.
And she said, Rabboni, which is to say,
Master.
Beloved, what happened in that moment?
I'll tell you something.
She didn't have the words and she didn't
have the theology down.
She didn't have the doctrine down.
She couldn't have told you all the theology
behind it.
But in a split moment, she knew he
lives, he lives and I don't have to
be the keeper of his grave.
It's not up to me to bear him.
He bears me still.
And in my doubt and in my understanding,
my lack of understanding, when I thought it
was the end of all things, he stands
before me and it's the beginning of all
things.
Because death couldn't take him.
All of that cross couldn't take him.
All that I thought was the end of
my confusion and my pain.
I can hear you live.
You are greater than death.
You arose from the grave.
You are my God.
And I could hear it in her.
Beloved, what a moment.
What a moment.
We thought we were undone without you, Jesus.
We thought for sure we were next for
the cross.
We thought we were going to be a
band of disbanded rebels.
Everybody, the laughingstock of the nation.
And we ourselves would sit night after night
saying, where did we miss?
Didn't we see the dead raised?
Didn't we see the eyes open?
Didn't we see him walk on water?
What happened?
But no, he stands before us on the
third day.
And all of a sudden, the testimony of
the angels, it made sense.
All of a sudden, the scripture opens up
and beloved, I believe that in that moment
when she would read scripture, it would all
become new.
It would all become clear to her that
it behooved.
It was a must that the Christ must
suffer, that he must die on a cross
and he must be risen on the third
day.
And that which Jesus had been preaching to
them over and over and that they couldn't
hear were now fully understood when they saw
him risen from the dead, that Christ, the
Messiah had to suffer.
That there had to be an atonement for
sin, because in that incredible moment when he
suffers and he atoned for sin, all those
that would come to him in faith, Jesus
said that now I'm going to separate you
from my sin, from your sin, those that
repent and say, Lord, we have our lips
and our mouths have said we want you,
but our hearts have been far from you.
And God, we are now smitten and we
see what kind of people we are.
But Lord, if you have mercy on us,
God, give us a heart for you.
And they began to cry out.
The scripture tells us that not just repentance,
but remission of sin would be come to
them and there would be the putting away
of sin and the deliverance of the sinner
from his sin, that the power of sin
and the penalty of sin would be broken
over the life of whosoever would come to
Jesus and that God said, because I separate
you from your sin, I can now come
dwell in you and I will be in
you and I will radically transform you.
And it was a new relationship.
It was a new covering because the blood
of the son of God had been shed,
not the blood of goats and bulls that
could only satisfy as a temporary covering.
But Christ says, when you come to me,
I give you my covering.
It is a perfect covering.
It is a righteous covering.
And you can come to me and I
will receive you all the days of your
life.
Hallelujah.
God says, when you come to me, the
same spirit that raised me from the dead,
I will put on you and you will
be able to raise from your places of
death and your places of sin.
That's how you'll know you're mine because the
same spirit that raised me up, I give
to you and we are in Christ are
given a new mind.
We don't want the old things.
We don't want to think the old way.
We have a new nature and a new
appetite because the same spirit, a Holy spirit
is raising us up out of the places
of death, out of the places of strongholds
of sin, because that's how we show the
world he's alive.
His spirit is in us.
Hallelujah.
Now, an interesting thing happens here in verse
17, Jesus said unto her, touch me, not
touch me, not, you know, in our own
understanding, a very natural reaction would be to
grab him and never let him go.
The natural thing would be the, Oh, the
joy that would break over such.
When you go from the pits of despair
to the heights of elation, you just want
to throw yourself into this good news.
That's Jesus that now you have an understanding
in your soul.
He is your God and he cannot fail
us.
And the love in our heart for him
would just reach out and want to grab
him and touch him.
And Jesus says to her, touch me, not,
you know, I have heard it explained and
I believe it's, it's an excellent explanation of
what this means of touch me, not that
when Christ resurrected, he said, don't touch me
not for.
I am not yet ascended to my father.
And it was explained that there is now
a new relationship in the sense that Mary
Magdalene and every other believer in the new
Testament now had to know him by faith
that they would not know Jesus in the
flesh anymore.
That they used to know him before the
cross.
They knew what he looked like, what his
voice sounded like.
They knew his laugh.
They knew his mannerisms.
They knew things about him in the flesh.
They knew him in the flesh, but now
that Mary Magdalene was going to be the
first believer that had to start to know
him in another dimension, not in the flesh,
but she had to learn to understand him
and grasp him by her faith that the
eyes of her faith, that her faith now
had to reach out.
And she was not allowed to touch a
physical body because now you are going to
know me through faith.
You're going to know me by faith.
You don't know me in a physical realm
anymore.
That has passed away.
And now I'm going to be known by
you and every other believer through their eyes
of faith.
And that's how you're going to know me.
That's how you're going to open yourself and
know that I am with you.
It is with faith is now how you
touch me.
You embrace me through your faith.
And that's very valid.
And that's, she is a pattern for how
we today know Jesus.
He said, blessed are you when Thomas, the
disciple said, unless I put my hands in
his hands, the scar in his hands, his
feet, I will never believe.
This is in his great mercy appeared to
that man, his disciple, and said, here, feel
touch.
But he said, are blessed are those that
don't have to do this.
Blessed are those that in hearing my word
preached to them, I will become not as
real, but more real to them.
Because when I enter you by the spirit,
when you know me with your mind, with
your heart, with your soul, by your faith,
you know me better than through just the
touch of a flesh.
Thomas, if you just only want to know
me by the touch of my hand, there's
going to be a day that hand will
be withdrawn.
Then what will you do?
But those that will know me by the
spirit.
As living in their heart and their minds,
I will never leave them.
I will never forsake them.
There'll never be a time.
They say that I am not strongly supporting
them and being their God.
And when I seem veiled to you, and
when I seem as a gardener to you
and not as your God, know that by
faith, my word, I cannot lie to you
that I am there in your midst.
I am with you in the times of
your deepest disappointment in the times of your
deepest discouragement.
When you don't understand what is going on
and how I'm dealing in your life.
Know that I am there and beloved.
We are going to know him in those
times by faith.
And he will be as more real to
us than if we had seen him in
the spirit.
Yes, it did signal a new type of
relationship.
But in looking up that word, touch me
not.
I saw a new meaning.
You see that word word there.
If you look it up, and if you
have that kind of Bible, look it up.
Today, touch means touching for the purpose of
manipulating.
Touch me not.
And that word touch means touching for the
purpose of manipulating or to exert a modifying
influence.
You see, beloved, when we truly know what
kind of salvation we have.
Where Christ says that if you come to
me in repentance and I forgive your sin,
I put the positive, the Holy Spirit is
proof that my word is good to you
because you'll change.
There'll be power in you.
You will have a new nature and a
new mind.
You will have something in you that's divine.
That's my life in you.
And when you sin, if you confess your
sin, I'll forgive your sin.
That the sin question was settled at the
cross.
The question is now, will you believe me?
Do you believe me?
You're totally forgiven.
Do you believe me?
I put your past behind me and I
don't remember your sin anymore.
If you're going to talk to me about
your sin, you'll have to remind me about
them.
I don't remember them.
And when that gets into our spirit.
Jesus knew that the salvation he was offering
to these people that come to Jesus by
faith because of the cross and now the
work of the Holy Spirit.
He knew that still beloved, though the power
of sin and the penalty of sin has
been broken in our lives, the presence of
sin is still there and there will be
a corruption want to come into our relationship
with Christ because I have this incredible salvation
and there will be something in the heart
of every believer when it's grasped, when it
finally gets through in the condemnation and the
guilt and the sin and we've been brought
into a new life and I have a
new life in Christ.
There can be another corruption present.
That will say, God, it now can be
all this freedom.
I have this, this, this wonderful life I
have in you.
I can still run the show.
Because you love me, because I'm forgiven, because
that's the God you are.
There can be when we come to him
now, Jesus was saying here is the sign
of my believer that there is going to
be a reckoning almost every day of your
life of saying, Jesus, not my will, but
thine, if my life is to show through
you.
Because, beloved, when we have this freedom in
Christ, it can be manipulated.
When we have this freedom in Christ, he
is going to say that there is something
in our heart that we don't want to
have to pray a daily prayer, Lord, I
will not mind.
That, Lord, I want to be able to
take this incredible salvation, but I don't want
to have.
The core, a selfish core, the core of
my own understanding, the core of how I
want now this walk to go, I don't
want that touched.
But Jesus said that if you will deny
yourself, that means my will, not your will.
That's what that means.
People run out and say, well, I won't
have a candy bar that's holy or I'll
deny myself this or that.
But in in its basis form, deny yourself
means, Lord, I choose your will over my
will every time you raise the issue.
You know, if we hear this outside of
this glorious salvation, it sounds more like works
again.
Oh, God.
What do you want?
But we forget we've been given a new
nature and there's something in us that wants
what he wants.
And in that new nature is power.
But, beloved, we're still given a choice.
That's what makes our love to him something
he treasures.
And God is saying, don't manipulate.
He says your battle will be to surrender
to my timing for your life.
Your battle will be a surrender to my
ways and to my counsel and to my
purpose.
But go tell the brethren, he says in
verse 17 and say to my brethren and
say unto them, I ascend unto my father
and your father and to my God and
to your God.
Tell my brethren that I ascend, that I
am continually higher than your own understanding, than
the obstacles of your fear or your pride
or your selfishness.
The manipulation, beloved, when we manipulate, when we
are trying to say, God, if I do
this, then you'll do that.
Or if we're trying to say we don't
understand, you know, the human heart, as we
know, the scripture says is deceitful.
And there are some obvious signs of manipulation.
But there are subtle things of manipulation.
And Jesus is telling us in John 20,
he says, you cannot manipulate me.
You cannot.
You cannot manipulate me.
But you can deceive yourself into some things.
And in that deceiving, you're going to find
myself revealed to you as a gardener, not
as God.
I'm going to seem far from you because
that's how I'm going to get your attention.
That you're going to say you're mine, but
you're not going to hear my voice because
you're manipulating and you have another plan in
another way.
There's something going on.
There's another motive of why you're, why the
service?
Why this?
Why that?
And beloved, in his incredible love, God puts
us in exactly where we need to be
so we can hear his voice.
We are exactly with the people we need
to be with if we are in Christ.
We are exactly in the situation we need
to be in if we are in Christ.
Because beloved, when we are in Christ, he
places us where we need to be because
the steps of a good man are ordered.
And in Christ, we are automatically in the
place that we need to be if we
have a sincere heart.
And where any other motive, where there is
a manipulation, where we're not understanding, where we
say, God, I want you, but why the
silence?
Why the wall?
Why am I hitting a brick wall?
Why do I not seem to understand you
in this way, in this place?
Beloved, because God is saying, I want your
attention.
He says, you can't touch me to manipulate
me.
You can't come to me in your prayer,
in your works, in your fastings, in your,
in your good deeds.
He says, you come to me because you
have, you have so much to learn.
And I have to teach it to you
as a little child.
You see, when Jesus arose, I can guarantee
you something.
There were many, when they found out Christ
arose, they'd say, yes.
Now the kingdom of Israel be restored.
Because they thought that's what Jesus was about
when he first walked the earth.
There were many that gathered around.
Even the disciples said to him, God is
now the time that Israel be restored to
her former glory.
Because that's what Messiah is come for.
Messiah came to bring us back to the
glorious kingdom of David and Solomon, where we
are the greatest nation on the earth.
And we are the chosen people favored of
God.
And when Messiah comes, we'll get it all
restored back again.
And when he rose from the grave and
walked among them, you can be sure that
many said now is the hour for Israel
to be restored.
Now this earthly kingdom will be set up
and will be the greatest people on the
face of the earth.
And that theology can get into us.
Where we forget that, God, you have not
called me and saved me to establish my
earthly kingdom.
It's about your kingdom.
It's not about establishing my reputation, it's your
reputation.
And it's easy for us to look back
there and see, I hope they get it.
It's not so easy for us to see
when God's saying, here you go again, you're
taking my glory and salvation to build your
own earthly kingdom, your own reputation, your own
ways of being known.
God says, you can't manipulate me because I
love you too much.
I am not going to let you continue
in that way.
Your vision of me has to be so
much greater that you will bend your knee
because I am your God.
And you will accept my kingdom and my
agenda in everything.
And beloved, when we say, God, teach me
these things.
I have so much to learn about you,
Jesus.
How your kingdom works, how you are able
to go to the core and center of
my heart and release me for every area
of bondage and darkness as I go your
way.
That Lord, everything I've ever learned from this
world and from my own understanding, you have
to go and separate that which is true
and not true.
And I need to be relearned and retrained.
And beloved, so many times we do not
realize to the degree that we come to
our Jesus.
And there's another motive and there's other issues.
And there's something going on all the while
saying, God.
I want you.
Jesus says, touch me not.
Do not touch me.
Do not manipulate me.
I'm going to expose every area that you
have this motive and this reason for coming
to me to build your own kingdom.
I'm going to expose it.
When Jesus revealed himself that night to the
men on the road to a mass, Jesus
walked with them for a long time and
they didn't know it was him either.
And once again, Jesus was showing his disciples,
now you must know me by faith.
And they walked with him.
And as Jesus began to talk to them,
their hearts began to burn.
And the scripture says they invited this unknown
man in with them to eat.
And as Jesus sat with them and they
didn't know who it was, they were talking,
who was sharing, who was teaching, who was
revealing to them scripture.
They didn't know who it was, but yet
Jesus was faithful to them.
He was committed to teaching them about him
and his kingdom, even then they didn't understand
who the teacher was at the moment.
Beloved, there we can be in situations in
time, but it is Jesus behind it all,
teaching and revealing him and his word and
his ways to us.
And if we have an honest heart, our
hearts will burn.
And we'll begin to know, God, when I'm
running up against that wall, you're going after
a motive.
There's an area of unsurrender in my heart.
There's an area where I still am manipulating
something.
God, you've come that I may be deliberated
from this darkness and this oppression.
And God, I want your kingdom fully in
my life.
Jesus, I want people to see you in
me.
And beloved, it says that when Jesus took
and broke bread, their eyes were open.
When he broke bread, their eyes were opened.
And it's such a picture of how Jesus
said, I was broken for you.
He says that when you come to me,
your will is going to be broken.
This is how the kingdom of God advances.
This is how the manipulation breaks, because he's
beloved.
He's going to take what is us, what
is the human thing, and in his hands,
we're going to become his broken bread.
And that our own will and our own
understanding, every time put in his hand is
going to be broken.
It's going to be changed.
It's going to be broken like he was
for us.
But beloved, our spirits are not broken.
Our spirits are not broken.
But if we will not be broken, we'll
have to keep going around that.
We will not advance in God till that
dealing is done.
We will not move forward from God's issue
till God says we move forward.
And therefore, many of us, God has his
hands on us, and we are resisting the
breaking.
We are resisting the breaking.
We're fearful.
And we want to manipulate our way out
of a situation, out of the people that
we're supposed to, that we're associating with.
We're looking for a way out.
We feel that if we stay in this
situation, we'll be overcome with fear and failure.
God says, no, I'm breaking your will.
I'm breaking your will.
You know, a horse, I may have shared
this, I'm going to close with this, but
a horse, his will has to be broken
before it can be trained to do its
job.
A horse's will has to be broken, has
to learn to accept a bridle in its
mouth and a rider on its back.
And when the master says stop, it's got
to learn to stop and go.
It needs to go.
Then it can be put in the field.
Then it can be sent out to the
purpose that it was bred for.
But till that will is broken, it is
useless in the field.
And beloved, there's a calling on our lives,
but till we submit and surrender those areas
that need to be broken by him.
And Jesus is behind it all.
We may not see him in it.
We may not understand how this could be
you and your dealing in my life.
I tell you as surely as Mary Magdalene
was standing in the presence of Jesus.
So are we in those moments.
And when he can finally break those areas
in our lives that we may say your
will, not mine.
I'll tell you the purposes and plan of
God move forward in our lives, but not
till then.
And beloved, it is a glorious day.
When finally we can be led out into
the work and the plan, because what has
been broken in us has been our own
self-dependence and our own understandings and our
own pride and our own stubbornness and our
own fears and our own rebellions.
That we can say, God, lead me.
And I don't understand how and I don't
understand where.
But as you show me in your word,
as you confirm to me, it is you
lead on.
And it doesn't matter where.
Beloved, that's when the abundant life begins.
It's not fun in boot camp.
But the abundant life, because every day we
can wake up when our will is broken.
God, what are you going to ask me
to do today that I may obey you
in it?
But if the fight is still on, is
that you speaking?
Is that really you wanting me to do
that?
That's a hard place to be.
Because you never win in a fight with
God.
And we don't move on.
He says, touch me not.
Do not come to me.
Do not come with a pretense.
All the while manipulating.
You've got to let me do that.
I don't manipulate for evil.
I've come.
I restore you.
I once heard a speaker say, God, you've
got to heal me, then kill me.
And sometimes that seems like the process.
But Jesus' words when he revealed himself to
Mary Magdalene.
I've been here in your deepest despair.
But now I tell you, as you come
forward in my life and my freedom.
Every day there's got to be the agreement,
not the manipulation.
But I will give you the grace and
the power.
Every time you need to say, Lord Jesus,
not my will, but your will.
And I will see you move in my
life in such glory and sweetness and power.
The power of being loved, forgiven, cleansed, and
used.
And I thank that first believer.
That's such an important message for us today.
If we can hear her and the Holy
Spirit in it.
Will you stand with me?
For some here today, you may never have
surrendered to the love of Jesus Christ.
His love is a love that breaks through,
changes our life.
If today that you would say, Lord, I
felt that burning.
I feel that drawing to you.
We ask as the musicians play, if you
would come forward.
We would like to pray for you because
God knows your name.
He has drawn you here.
He will put his hand upon you.
And if we confess your sin and repent,
he comes into our lives.
He changes us and gives us a new
life.
And he gives us the power to change.
There's some here today that you're saying, God,
I need that power to stop the manipulating.
I need that power to be able to
look inward in every area.
You say I'm building another kingdom other than
yours in my life.
I want the power, God, to be made
willing to do whatever change is necessary.
For some, you're in the valley of decision.
It's very fearful to pray, Lord, your will,
not mine.
And this, I have no strength to walk
that walk that said, God, I'm hearing you
that you promised me.
That your life in me will be the
power to pray it.
And then your life in me will carry
me and bear me through the roughest part
of the road where I can only declare
I could not have done it, but for
you, but God, you did it.
We come through with a faith because we
are doing what we are not capable of
doing.
Beloved, there are some here today.
It's not by accident that you're here.
God wants you to come and put something
at this altar and believe him for the
strength, believe him for the courage, believe him
for the desire, believe him for the change
of heart and mind.
He will never fail us.
I have come to an altar like this
so many times, only
knowing death in my life, never the resurrection.
Only knowing the failure, never the power, only
knowing the tears and never the victory.
But little by little, God proved himself.
He says, I have the way I am
the way I know what I'm doing in
your life.
I'm taking you through the center of a
selfish heart, and I'm freeing you from your
own understanding and your own stubborn will and
pride.
Because I love you and I will use
you.
For those that have come to the altar
for salvation, I'd like to pray with you
in a minute.
But first, I would like to deal with
those that have come to the altar, because
you know that God is asking you to
lay down something, that you may fully accept
what he is doing in your life, where
he wants to lead you.
Beloved Mary Magdalene had to be willing to
lay down that concept of Jesus.
She had that dead concept.
She thought he was dead.
That had to be laid down so that
the real Jesus could be made resurrect in
her heart.
That the real Jesus who lives and reigns
forever could be established in her heart.
And beloved, we can surrender to a God
like that, who reigns our lives forever, rules
our hearts forever with love.
And beloved, we're going to come.
And many of us here, you know, there
is...
I want you to know, there really is,
in a Christian's life, a daily surrender.
It's not a one-time prayer.
But it is a daily surrender on many
issues.
But the victory comes and the freedom comes.
And every time we say yes, it gets
easier to say yes.
And for those that have come to lay
something down that says, God, I'm stopped to
manipulate in my questions and the silence from
you.
And where I'm hitting that wall.
Lord, if you need to speak to me,
I'm laying down now.
I surrender, Lord, my stubbornness and my selfishness
and my pride and my...
And all that is a barrier.
And Lord, I just pray, Lord, for all
those that say, God, give me a heart
now to cry, your will not mine be
done.
That Lord, I have to trust you now,
even for the desire to pray this prayer.
And then Lord, I have to trust you
to make it a reality.
That Lord, you know my flesh.
I cannot.
But you are a God who cannot fail.
And when I surrender this to you, Lord,
you will be God to me.
And you will resurrect me up.
Lord, it will be your divine power.
I will know victory and I will know
freedom.
Because it will be your life in me,
taking me through to the resurrection and the
power.
And Lord, we thank you.
We lay down our own understanding and our
own sin nature.
The presence of sin in our heart and
our lives and our mind.
And Lord, we thank you that we have
power, resurrection power of Christ in us.
Lord, to put down everything not of you
and to accept your resurrection life in its
place.
Lord, I thank you.
You're patient with us.
Lord, you are not frustrated with us.
You are not fed up with us.
Lord, you're finally speaking again.
That you're going to take us by the
hand and lead us through the hardest and
darkest places.
But you will never let us go.
And you bring us through to victory.
Because Lord, that's why you died.
To give your children victory and life.
Now Lord, we accept it with open arms.
We lay down everything else.
And we accept, oh God, your deliverance.
Done your way, your time.
Lord, now I pray for a heart of
peace.
And a heart, Lord, that is confident in
you.
That Jesus, your time, your way.
That God, you will bring us through.
That you'll give us grace to say, not
my will.
You will give us the grace and the
power to say, not my will.
But Lord, we will cling on to you.
And Lord, we will see your will be
done.
And we will say with such a fervent
heart, this is Jesus, not me.
And Lord, many will see your glory in
our lives because of it.
And we give you the praise and the
glory.
And Lord, and thank you.
Lord, those that have prayed that prayer.
I would just want you now just to
raise your hands as an act of faith.
And just receive now this transaction of his
will in exchange for our will.
We do it by faith, Lord.
You see the heart.
You see, I thank you, Lord.
That when we turn towards you and hear
your name, life, resurrection, life flows.
Hallelujah.
We praise you, Lord, for this.
We thank you for this.
We thank you for this transaction in our
lives.
We believe it, Lord.
Hallelujah.
For those that are for the first time
saying, I want to come and give my
life to Jesus Christ.
I want to lay down my sin.
I want to accept his total forgiveness of
sin.
I want that new life, his life flowing
in me.
That'll give me a power to live a
new life.
And I receive a new heart and a
new mind for many of you that are
here.
And that's your prayer.
Would you raise your hand?
Those that are praying that prayer for the
first time.
Hallelujah.
Now, those that have their hands raised, Jesus
is receiving you.
When we come to him, and I would
just ask you to pray this prayer after
me.
Lord Jesus, I come to you.
I ask you to forgive me.
And I ask you to cleanse me and
forgive me.
I ask you to give me a new
life in you.
I ask you to give me a faith
in you.
That it will be your power in me
that will cause my life to change.
I surrender my life and I take your
life in exchange.
Thank you, Jesus, for loving me, accepting me,
and forgiving me.
I give you my life in Jesus' precious
name.
Amen and amen.
Hallelujah.
If you've just prayed that prayer or you
are a brand new believer here, we have
New Believers classes every Friday night starting at
seven o'clock.
If you come, we will give you a
Bible.
You will meet teachers that will able to
explain things of God to you.
They'll help you through questions you have and
situations you're in.
Every Friday night is a New Believers class.
We have a Bible there and a friend
waiting for you.
God bless you.
There is another service at six o'clock.
And there is now a time of prayer
starting shortly.
We thank you.
God bless you.
This is the conclusion of the message.