On Sunday, April 20, 2025 at Wildwood Community Church, I preached a sermon based on John 20:1-18.  This message was the Easter Sunday sermon for 2025.  Below you will find questions related to this message for personal reflection or group discussion.  You will also find the audio and video of the sermon to listen to/watch, download or share.

Sermon Questions:

1. Pray
2. Read John 20:1-18
3. Culturally, Easter is associated with “happy things” … bright colors, nice weather, etc.  Does this festive “color” of the season on the outside match how you are feeling on the inside today?  Why or why not?
4. Imagine you were one of the key people we talked about this morning:  Mary Magdalene, John, or Peter.  With Mary, we talked about how Jesus was a part of her past, but she probably was grieving the loss of Jesus in her present or future.  With John, we talked about the business John had left to follow Jesus, and he may have been wondering if that was worth it.  With Peter, we talked about how he had denied Jesus 3 times, and may have been wondering if it was “over for him” even if the Jesus movement continued.  Can you identify (at this stage of your life, or at a previous stage of your life) with any of the feelings of these people ?
5. Jesus’ body was dead and buried in John 19.  Are you experiencing any despair or mourning related to serious illness or death today?
6. The story of Easter is a “first day” story.  Easter is not the end, but the beginning!  Jesus reminded Mary, John, and Peter (AND US) that He was making all things new.  How does Jesus’ interactions with His people in John 20 encourage you as you “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” today?
7. Have you trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins?
8. What stands out to you most from this message?  Any particular takeaway?

To access these questions in pdf format click here.

 

To listen to message offline, click the link:

Easter Sunday 4.20.25

 

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“When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died … See from His head, His hands, His feet sorrow and love flow mingled down … Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” – Isaac Watts (1707)

For 2,000 years people have surveyed the cross where Jesus died. In fact, 700 years before Jesus’ death, Isaiah the Prophet “saw” Jesus “pierced for our transgressions; crushed for our iniquities … and with His wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)

So, for 2,700 years people have surveyed the cross … or has it been longer?

Even all the way back in Genesis 3:15, in humanity’s first days, the LORD God promised that the Seed of the woman (Jesus) would have His heal “bruised” for our deliverance. As B.B. Warfield said, Old Testament passages like this are “richly furnished but dimly lit.” In other words, the Gospel is there, but not fully understood or appreciated until Jesus ultimately arrives at Calvary thousands of years later.

Make no mistake, people have been surveying the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died for as long as there have been people. So, this Easter season, as we look to the cross, how do we make sense of it? What should our response be?

Does God want us to be moved to tears, seeing Jesus as a sympathetic figure wrongly accused and brutally beaten? Does God want to see us merely codify the events of the cross as merely religious remembrance on a Holy Day? Does God want us to fear the coming judgment and seek “fire insurance” protecting from eternal torment?

Well, only the coldest of hearts are not moved (at least some) by the brutality of the cross, so our tears are appropriate. And, Jesus instituted a religious practice (communion) to remember His crucifixion, directed His disciples to spend a disproportionate amount of the Gospel accounts detailing the events of the cross to be recorded in a Holy Book that would be read in religious institutions, and even DIED on a day that reframed a religious holiday – SO religious remembrance is also appropriate. And Jesus really did conquer death and make a way for us to escape the judgment to come if we trust in Him, so there is assurance of eternal life in Jesus.

BUT, the appropriate response to the cross is not just sympathy or religion or fear … because in John 19:1-16 we see these responses by Pilate and the Jewish religious leaders (people who certainly are not held up as examples for us to follow). No, there is a deeper response that is required by you and me than simply tears or religion or fears. That deeper response is to see the Christ of the cross for who He really is, and to follow Him as our King all the days of our lives.

As Warren Wiersbe has said, “We must not confuse sentimentality with true spiritual emotion. It is one thing to shed tears during a church service and quite something else to sacrifice, suffer, and serve after the meeting has ended. We do not simply contemplate the cross; we carry it.”

This Sunday morning, April 13 at Wildwood Community Church we will be gathering for Palm Sunday services at 8:30, 9:45, and 11:00. Hope you can join us for part 5 of our “Trial to Triumph” series as we explore John 19:1-16 together.

See you there, and bring friends!

There was no love lost between Governor Pontius Pilate and the Jewish Sanhedrin.  For the first several years of his reign as governor of Judaea, the Jewish religious leaders had no use for this Roman appointee, and clashed with him regularly.  The religious leaders hated having a Roman presence in their sacred cities, and had a particular disdain for Pilate and his actions intended to Romanize the region of Judaea.  One particular story emerging from that era had Pilate bringing images of Caesar into Jerusalem, only to have the Jewish religious leaders vigorously protest.  They were willing to die at the end of a Roman sword to have the images of Caesar removed from their capital city.  Pilate relented that day and had the images removed, but the friction between the Jews and their Roman Governor continued throughout the time of Jesus’ public ministry.

Given this contentious relationship, it is odd to see (in John 18:28-40) the Jews seeking Pilate’s help after their arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.  They hated everything Roman, but Pilate had something they needed … the ability to order a public execution.

The Jewish leaders were not seeking a quiet disappearance of Jesus, or merely a silencing of His message.  No, they were seeking a public humiliation of Jesus of Nazareth to create the appearance that He certainly was not the Messiah many believed Him to be.  If the Jewish religious leaders had stoned Jesus (like they did Stephen in Acts 7), Jesus would have died, but they would have appeared to be responding only in a fit of anger and rage.  The Jewish religious leaders wanted the Jesus movement to end in a public spectacle where Jesus would be hanging from a tree in crucifixion.  This punishment was only carried out by the Romans, so they needed Pilate’s help.  In the Old Testament text, it is written that “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”  The Jewish leaders believed that a public execution, hanging Jesus from a tree, would let the world know that God was NOT with Jesus.

2,000 years later, and with billions of converts and counting, the Jesus movement has NOT been humiliated or stopped.  In fact, the Jewish leaders insistence on the crucifixion of Christ actually helped demonstrate the curse Jesus removed from sinners like you and me!  Galatians 3:10 says “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by the works of the law.”  Since we have all fallen short of God’s glorious standard, we are under a curse.  Galatians 3:13 continues, though, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’”

The Jewish leaders were jealous of Jesus and wanted Him humiliated and killed.  Pilate wanted to save face and hang on to political power.  But our God is so sovereign that He can use the sinful, selfish decisions of others to accomplish His glorifying ends.

This Sunday, April 6 at Wildwood Community Church, we will be in part 4 of our “Trial to Triumph” sermon series as we look at John 18:28-40.  In these verses we will see Jesus standing trial before Pilate, and what that means for you and for me.  Hope to see you Sunday in our 8:30, 9:45, or 11:00 services.  We will worship, pray, read Scripture, share the Lord’s Supper, and even hear the update on our Deep + Wide capital campaign.  Hope you see you there … and bring friends!

Have you ever accidentally purchased a car?  Ever unintentionally bought a house?  Ever mistakenly flew to Timbuktu, when you planned to drive to Noble?

Didn’t think so.

Why?  Well because in all of these scenarios, we have the ability and agency to effect the outcome … and many steps are involved.

To purchase a car you have to drive to a dealership, select the vehicle, negotiate the price, sign the contract, produce the funds, THEN you have bought the vehicle.  After that many decisions stacked together, it is not an accident but a process of your will.

To buy a house, you have to find the property, make an offer, schedule lots of inspections and tests, arrange financing or save the money in advance, THEN you have bought the house.  After 30-60 days of work, it is hard to call that a surprise purchase!

And with so many options on where someone might travel and how someone might travel there, no one mistakes their hatchback for an American Airlines flight!  You can’t trick someone into making that big of a vacation vexation.

Now, why do I go through these examples?  I am simply trying to point out that there are things we do in life that we do on purpose … then there are things that happen to us in life that we cannot stop.

I cannot control if a wildfire will burn my house down tonight.  I cannot control if hail will destroy my roof this spring.  I cannot control the day of my birth or the day of my death.  These things are above our pay grade!

Some things we seem to influence, while others are beyond our reach.  This is true for us as people because we are finite limited beings.

With this backdrop, I want us to turn to John 18:1-11 … the passage of Scripture we will be studying Sunday morning, March 16 at Wildwood Community Church in part 1 of the “Trial to Triumph” Easter series.  In this passage we see Jesus arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and taken to a set of trials that ultimately would culminate at the cross.  Far from presenting Jesus as Someone stumbling His way into a tricky spot or being overcome by a superior force or freak accident, Jesus is the Sovereign in John’s account, demonstrating clearly that Jesus’ life was not taken from Him, but that He freely laid it down.  Jesus made so many intentional decisions that led Him from Heaven to Bethlehem to Galilee to Gethsemane to Calvary, that we must conclude that Jesus knew what He was “buying” during His earthly life.  His cross ransom was no surprise purchase.  And since Jesus is God, we are reminded that no force existed that could overcome Him … not the Romans, not the Jewish High Priests, not the Temple guard, not a betraying friend.  For Jesus to go to the cross, He needed to ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN … to lay down His life for the sheep.

And why?  Out of His love for us, and fidelity to His Father’s will, Jesus laid down His life for both God’s greatest glory and our greatest good.

For the next 6 weeks at Wildwood we will be walking with Jesus to the cross to see the triumph Jesus delivered for you and me through the tomb.  See you Sunday in part 1 in our 8:30, 9:45, or 11:00 service … and bring friends!  This is a message we all need to hear.