VISION SUNDAY '26

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Amen. Amen. Hey, go ahead and make some noise for the worship team this morning for leading us, man.

How's everyone doing this morning? Everyone's doing all right. Hey, let me just draw some attention. This guy right here is pretty fly with a hat on. Can we.

Can we make some noise? Like, I saw you walk in. I was like, yo, this guy. Yeah. I was like, man, I'll take.

If you just want to let me borrow it, you know, I'll take it, man. Welcome to Greenhouse. My name is Mike. I'm one of the pastors here, man. And I'm so glad to be in the house of the Lord today.

I feel like we got a word today.

In the words of Bishop Wale last week, don't sleep on me. Today, we're going to be in John, chapter 20, and it's crazy. We're looking at the end of Jesus life. And I'm just like, man, like, there's so much that we can grab of this passage of this context. But before we do this, I want to pass this out to you.

You're gonna be receiving right now a blue envelope. Okay. And we're pass that out to you. So go ahead. I know it's gonna take a little bit of time, so, you know, let me get it.

Like, oh, But this is. We're gonna unpack this in just a second, really towards the end of the sermon. But I don't want you to look at.

To hold this deer. Okay? Hold it close, and then just turn to John 20 with me. Is that cool? All right, I'm going to give you guys a few seconds to get this done, and we'll jump into the Scripture.

Don't cheat.

Don't be like some of your kids before Christmas, trying to tear, you know, a little corner, trying to see what it is. Don't do that. Okay. All right. Hey, jump on your feet.

John, chapter 20.

And I'll still take some noise a little bit. I'll take some background noise as we're reading God's word. Kind of makes it a little bit more. There we go. There we go.

Thank you. John, chapter 20.

I'm going to read verses 19, but then we'll unpack the entire chapter starting in verse 19. It says, when it was evening on the first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because they fear the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, peace be with you. Having said this, he showed his hands and his side. So the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord Jesus said to them again, peace be with you.

And then this is the line we're going to sit on today. As the Father has sent me, I also send you. Can we say that together? As the Father sent me, I also send you. And after this, he breathed on them and he said, receive the Holy Spirit.

As the Father has sent me, so I also send you. We're gonna unpack that today, but let's just pray just for a moment. Jesus, you are welcome in this place.

You are welcome in this place.

Lift up our eyes to you, our gaze to you, our hearts to you, and transform us in this moment. In Jesus name we pray, everybody say it. Amen. Amen. Hey, go ahead and high five your neighbor and say, let's do this.

There is a lot of uncertainty in this passage.

John 20 is.

There's a lot of hope there, but then there's also a lot of uncertainty. And it starts off with this, where on the first day of the week, John is detailing the moments after the resurrection. And in verse one, John gives us a time step. And so we know that the resurrection happened on the first day of the week. And it says that Mary Magdalene and then Luke kind of gives us another frame of reference that there was others and they were going to the tomb to deliver spices.

But when she arrived at the tomb, she saw that the stone had been removed. And immediately she drops her bags and she goes running towards Peter and John. And she goes to Peter and John, says, peter and John, like, hey, our Lord is missing. And the text says that Peter and the disciple that Jesus loved.

What a title.

I'm not even mad at it. Part of me, I want to walk around like, hey, man, I get that we're all loved, but I am the one that is loved by God. Amen. They immediately begin to run. And then he kind of puts in a footnote that he outran Peter and John makes it to the tomb.

But Peter, when he makes it to the. When he makes it to the tomb, he walks inside and he notices both of them as they're glancing inside. They notice that the linen is there, but the body is not. The linen is there, but the body is not.

And they're trying to figure it out. In verse nine, it says, for they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. And Peter and John, they returned back to their place that they were staying. But the text says that Mary stood outside the tomb and she was crying. Now, in Jewish culture, when you cry like this was not like a single tear when you cry, like you actually.

Like you wept. And Jewish custom would actually have them standing tall, crying and weeping and wailing. And yet in this moment, like, she is stooping down. And as she stoops down, she leans in. And to her surprise, what was once an empty tomb now has two figures standing in it.

One at the head and one at the feet. And they ask her, it's like, woman, why are you worried? Why are you crying?

And she says, because they have taken away my Lord and I don't know where they put him. And having said this, she turns around and she sees Jesus standing there, but she does not know it's Jesus. And this unrecognizable man says to her, why are you crying? And Mary pleads with the gardener, sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where you've put him, and I will take him away. And if you can imagine, in this moment, this scene, she's here, she's pleading and she's asking.

And before, in my mind, she could even finish her sentence, Jesus interrupts and he calls her by name. He says, mary. And immediately Mary's able to identify the risen king. I wanna just pause for a second because where we're going today, there's so much anticipation, there's so much hope. But even right now, I wanna even just set the scene for us, for some of us, where maybe you're drowning, you feel like you're in seasons right now that feel hopeless.

Here's the greatest news. We always sing songs that are always titled towards giving and calling out his name. But can I tell you something? There's something about going in the secret place, away from the crowd, away from the noise. There's something about getting along with your king and actually waiting in anticipation for not you just to call his name, but for him to call yours.

Everything changes when he hears. When she hears her name, Mary. And immediately she begins to cling to Jesus. But Jesus assignment is not yet done. And he says, no, no, like, don't cling to me.

Go to your brothers and tell them that my God and your God and my father and your father has an assignment. And then we get to verse 19, and this is where we're at. And let me just pause for a second. I love this. Because even though the mission is not done yet, he sends Mary out.

Now for some of us, we're like, okay, well, cool. Like, why does it matter that he's sending Mary out? Well, she's the first person to be the carrier of Good news in a society and culture that undervalued women's testimonies. If you wanted to get this right, if you actually wanted to have a movement, you wouldn't go and have the first person with good news be a woman. And yet Jesus is so intentional.

And then it says here in verse 19, are you with me? Are you with me? In verse 19, it says that the disciples were gathered with the doors locked because they feared the Jews.

If you are the disciples, there are legitimate reasons to fear.

It makes sense. Because if they silence their leader, it makes sense that they're gonna silence you. Point number one is this. In the same way, there are legitimate fears that maybe some of us are walking in today. And what blows my mind is that in the middle of their fear, in the middle of their chaos, for the second time today, Jesus shows up.

I want to just even pause one more time, because as we look at what's happening in our world right now, there is a legitimate reason to fear. There is a legitimate reason to fear. Look at me. At our church, we follow the ways of Jesus. We are not a Democrat church.

We are not a Republican church. We are the church of Jesus Christ, and that's it. Amen. That's who we are. And so many people will look at me and they're like, man, Mike.

But like, hey, what's your position on the unboard? I'm like, hey, man, listen, I will put my foot down. I believe that life begins at birth. I mean, at conception. I believe it begins at the moments of life.

God knew us in the womb before we even formed. Like, he has purpose there. I will put my foot down and say, hey, this is what I believe. At the same time, if someone came to me and was like, hey, man, Mike, you know, what's your stance on xyz? I'm gonna put my foot down.

And at the same time, man, people come to me and say, man, Mike, but why be a church that talks about any of this? Why can't we just preach the gospel? Why can't we just be about the Lord's business? This is the Lord's business.

And one of the things that I love about Jesus, we look at his ministry. Jesus incarnational ministry was one person are one moment at a time. Let me just say it another way. The entire world could be burning. But if you had Jesus eye, you were his eye.

We see this with a woman with the bleeding issue. There's a whole crowd, but for one moment, it's just this woman and her God. We see this with the cripple who. It gets lowered down. There's a whole crowd that's there.

But for one moment, he has his eye.

A lot of us like, man, Mike, I just want to preach. Like, no, no. Like, listen, to do the work of the gospel is not to ignore things. I want to say this because for us and get it. I get his vision Sunday, but all night long, I feel like God was stirring on my heart.

A lot of us were like, man, all things matter. All lives matter. Listen, they do. But can I be honest with you? If your house was on fire and all of a sudden you called 911 and you asked for help and the fire trucks came out and they started spraying other people's house, would you be like, hey, all houses matter?

No, what would you do? You'd be like, hey, listen, I get that all those houses matter, but the one that I need you to focus on right now is this. Are you following me?

All that to say is this.

If you are here and you're grieved by what's happening in our country and in Minnesota right now as it relates to human rights and immigration, and you're trying to reconcile all of your emotions together, I want you to know that I see you. I want you to know that I'm with you, and I want you to know that it is wrong. I want you to hear your pastor say, like, on this Sunday, where other churches might be mute, I want you to hear me say, hey, this is wrong. Wrong.

And listen, I feel the challenge right now. If you're here and you're trying to figure this thing out, and you're trying to walk with Jesus and you're trying to be bold and courageous and you're trying to rationalize the faith. Here's the thing. Here's the issue at hand. It's not all the disunity within the world right now, that's an issue.

My concern right now is the disunity within the church. Because if I'm honest with you, it is so hard right now to grapple with brothers and sisters that are not raising and lifting their voices. Now, here's the thing. Here's how I know it's going to end. One day, we're going to get to heaven, and Jesus is going to be fully available for worship.

We're going to worship him. It says that every tribe, every nation, every tongue is going to be gathered together, one name, together. Listen, in the end, it's going to be all united. But can I tell you, we got some challenges here today.

There's challenges here today. There is reason for legitimate fear. Maybe you're here and you're trying to make sense of this and you're fighting hard to follow Jesus in the season. But you can't grapple with the gap that we have where we have a gap between what we believe and what we experience. Listen to me.

I want to be clear. There are immigration issues that we got to fix. I'm not saying that our immigration system was perfect before this administration. We've always had issues with immigration. It needs reform, it needs fixing.

But I'm telling you this approach is wrong. Why? Because laws that strip identity value and the imago DEI are not the way and not the heart of God.

They're not. Listen to me. All throughout the Gospel, we see Jesus crossing ethnic and national boundaries intentionally. The Samaritan woman in John 4, she's an ethnic, religious and moral outsider. And yet Jesus goes out of the way where everyone else would avoid the conversations.

He goes straight through and he has a conversation with her. The Roman Centurion in Matthew 8. This was a representative of of the occupying power. This would be the equivalent of going to a major leader in the opposing party. And Jesus looks at him and he praises his faith.

The sherefenician woman in Mark 7 is a Gentile outsider. And Jesus responds to her persistent and heals her daughter. Jesus doesn't merely tolerate outsiders. He welcomes them in. Here's the biggest one.

Matthew 25. This scares me. Jesus is giving us insight that when the Son of Man returns, the angels are going to be around him and all nations are going to be before him. And it says in this moment that he's going to separate the sheep from the goats and he's going to look to the sheep and he's going to invite them in. He's going to say, hey, take a hold.

Like, come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, and I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. And here it is. I was a stranger and you took me in. The stranger is foreigner.

And the righteous are going to look at Jesus and they're going to say, but Jesus, when did I do that for you?

And Jesus will reply, whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.

Who are the least of these? It's those in our society right now who can't go around the block without being profiled.

If I even carry out with an accent, I'm discriminated. Who are the least of these. It's the immigrants that are trying to walk through the process. And for years and years they've been here and they've been law abiding citizens and they've gone to school like they were supposed to, and they went to medical school like they were supposed to, and they went to law school like they were supposed. They did everything they could, they followed the law.

And all of a sudden there's something that strips them of their purpose and their identity. It's choosing to rename immigration centers here in Florida by the name of Alligator Alcatraz.

It's like, yo, you're stripping people of the imago dei. Jesus says, whatever you did for the least of these, you did who for me? In other words, Jesus says here that our response to the stranger is a response to him. Now here's the hope. Because there is so much hope in this passage.

I want you to know, if you are in sorrow right now, if you are grieving right now, can I get your eyes set on things above? Not social media, not CNN or Fox, not the gossip that's happening, not Twitter. Can I get, just for a moment, your eyes focused on him because he is bringing out the solution.

See, number one, there are legitimate fears. And sometimes we're gonna mourn like Mary and sometimes we're gonna march like Martin and he's gonna call our name to see what to see. It's not just legitimate fears, but it's also legitimate hope. And this legitimate hope, it comes to the route of peace. Verse 19, it says, Jesus came and he stood among them.

And he said to them, peace be with you. Look at your neighbor, say, peace be with you. Now say like you say, peace be with you. Now that sounds commonplace, but this word, peace, in the Old Testament, this was a prominent term used for the word shalom. Everybody say shalom.

Now, I know we hear this a lot. Shalom. We don't know what that means. Listen, shalom is not just peace. Shalom.

When this word was used, it was not just blessing. Shalom is the full weight and benefit of economic, spiritual and physical flourishing for his people. Let me say that again. It is the full weight of economic, spiritual and physical flourishing for his people. In other words, shalom.

When it's used, shalom is the way things ought to be. And when they're not. Biblical justice is the pursuit of doing what is right. Not in your eye, right in the eyes of the judge to correct the wrong. Don't miss this.

The Hebrew word justice is this word mishpat. And this word occurs over 200 times in the Old Testament in various forms. And I know when we think justice, we're thinking one thing. But behind every place of justice is the desire for shalom. Let me say it again among every place, because we always talk about doing biblical justice.

Listen, behind every place of biblical justice is the heart for shalom. Which means when we look at this, shalom is not just a system based of handing out punishment. Shalom in the biblical sense is not just punishment. It's restorative, it's restoration. So when Jesus comes on the scene in this moment, he's with the disciples and they're afraid and they're fearful and the doors are locked and he comes on, he says, hey, peace be with you.

What he's saying is that every legitimate fear that you walked in here with, every legitimate fear that you walked through these doors with, he's saying, receive my shalom. He's letting him know that every unbalance of injustice is being restored. How many of you guys know that's good news? Come on, can we just take the Lord for his shalom? That's what it is.

It's the bringing out, it's the restoration of all things. But as we look at the text, it seems like they're still not getting seems like they're still not getting it because they can't identify the messenger. Some of you are waiting for a breakthrough and you hear the words and they're biblical words, they're biblical truths, but you can't identify the messenger. It's crazy because Jesus here, he walks in, he appears. In my mind, I'm thinking like Casper or something.

He just kind of floats. But the way he comes in, check this out. He doesn't come in in a mystical sense. He comes in in a physical sense. He is physically in the flesh.

Most secular historians in this moment, they would have said all of this was made up, like this is just a fairy tale. But again, if you're trying to be convincing, this is the wrong way that you would have told the story. Because the problem is if you were Greek or Roman, you would never make up a story about Jesus resurrecting. Physically, it would have been spiritually. They couldn't get around like a physical resurrection, but they can get around a spiritual resurrection.

What about the Jews? Well, the Jews, this would have been a wrong messaging as well, because Daniel 12 lets us know that when they believe the resurrection is going to come, that person that gets resurrected, they're going to be blazing like the heavens. There's Going to be like a glory that kind of feels. There's going to be like a shine, a dust that kind of comes upon them. And yet we know that's not necessarily the case as well, because when Mary sees Jesus, she takes him for a gardener.

And when the disciples see Jesus, they don't react.

And Jesus knows all of these things.

In verse 20, he says, having said this, he showed them his hands and his side. And it says they rejoiced when they what? When they saw the Lord. This week, I was just praying through this reality.

When they saw Jesus in the midst of their worry, in the midst of their doubt, in the midst of their uncertainty, it says what? They rejoiced and they praised the Lord. I think a lot about this because Jesus, he could have shown up in any way. Jesus, in this moment to reveal himself. He could have shown his power.

Jesus to reveal himself. He could have shown his glory. Jesus to reveal himself. He could have shown the plan of victory. But John tells us that he chose to show them his wounds.

Not power, not glory, not insight on the future. He chooses in this moment to show his wounds.

Can we just stop and just even marvel at that, just for a moment? What confirms to the disciples that it's really Jesus, it's his wounds. Likewise, where we're going today. What confirms to the world that you're followers of Jesus is not when you lead in with power. It's not when you lead in with glory.

It's when you lead in with your wounds and you allow yourself to get low. Here at our church, we long to give ourselves to people that could never pay us back. There's a story of a father who has some time to kill and had his daughter with him and was trying to give her some busy work. And so he sees a sheet with a globe on it, and he takes the globe and he tears it into different pieces, small pieces, and he gives it to his daughter. He says, hey, you know, hey, take some time and kind of put this thing together.

He goes away for a little bit, and in five minutes she comes back with the entire world put back together. He's stunned. He looks at his daughter and says, how in the world did you put this thing back together so fast? And she said, okay, Daddy, I understand. And she looks back at him and she says, oh, the whole reason I was able to put it back together was that on the back of the map, the world, it was a picture of Jesus.

And so I flipped it over and I figured that if I could get him right, the Whole world would fall into place.

If I could just get Jesus right, the whole world can fall into place. Let me say that again. If I could just get Jesus right. If our communities can just get Jesus right. If our city could just get Jesus right.

If our neighborhoods could just get Jesus right. Come on. If our work and our coworkers could get Jesus right, the whole world will fall in line.

I want to encourage you today, some of you, you're on the sidelines. You're on the sidelines. Don't let your faith lead you into inactivity.

Get in a game. If we get him right, the world gets put in place. The reality is, when we look at our world, the brokenness, we're not surprised by the brokenness. Here's what we know. Jesus hasn't just been put right.

He hasn't put in the right place. And this is where verse 21 goes.

This is where I want to stay today. Jesus said again, peace be with you. It says, as the Father has sent me, so I also send you. Write this down. Mission.

Mission. The mission of God is not an add on to faith. The mission of God is not an add on to faith. It's not you coming and just attending and then one day you just decide to go. No, no.

Like, it's not an add on. It's the continuation of Christ's sending. As the Father has sent me, so I also send you. Can we say that together? As the Father has sent me?

Come on. So I say it together. Here we go. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. All right.

We said it all different times. It's okay. All right, but that's the trick here. As the Father has sent me, this is Jesus, So I likewise, in the same way, I send you. So the thing we gotta unpack today.

Well, how did the Father send the Son? He does three things. Write this down. The first thing he does is that the Father sent the Son by stepping into real human life. This is called the Incarnation.

The Father didn't just send the Son from distance. Jesus didn't just hover above humanity and issue out commands. He didn't shout instructions from heaven. What happens? Jesus moved into the neighborhood.

Jesus moved into a body. He moved into a family. John tells us early in the Gospel that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This word dwelt literally means to move in. What does it mean by Jesus stepping into real life?

It means that there is a moment where Jesus lived a real life. You ever seen big brother and big sister like that? Joke is fake, like you record, like there's a masterful architect behind the scenes that is shaping the story. Jesus does not shape the story from distance. He chooses to be among his people, which means as he's living real life, he got tired.

Jesus was misunderstood. He waited. He felt pain. He stayed present when it would have been easy to pull away. The Father sent the Son by sending him into real people, real tension, real message.

But the second thing he does is that the Father sent the Son to show us what we were made for. Do you know what we were made for?

Do you know what we were made for? We were made for his glory.

We were made for his glory.

This means that we were made to know him, to enjoy him, and to reflect Him. And when we do, it gives God glory. But we know the tragedy of humanity. Something went wrong. Scripture says that humanity exchanged God's glory for other things.

Even right now, you can look at our world, you see the exchanges happening, don't we? There's a lot of exchanges that are happening. We exchanged God's glory for weak substitutes. And so the Father sends the Son not just to fix behavior, but to show us what God actually is. Jesus, in this moment, he doesn't just talk about who God is.

He is God. That's why Jesus says later that if you see me, you've seen who you've seen. The Father, the Father sends the Son. So glory isn't abstract anymore. In this moment.

God becomes visible. God becomes approachable. God becomes personable. Here's the third thing. The Father sent the Son ultimately to carry what separated us from God.

The Father sent the Son to carry what separated us from God. Every other religion will tell you if you work hard enough, if you do the right things, if you attend the right functions, if you read the right things, if you live a good life, if you're the person that kind of pays it forward, that one day your good deeds are going to measure up to righteousness, and you'll be in right standing with God, which means you'll be able to have eternity in life with God. Christianity, it says the exact opposite. Christianity says that even on your good days, Isaiah says they're like filthy rags.

Talk about a starter. The Bible would say the moment you stole the cookie from the cookie jar, that sin separated you from God.

The tragedy of humanity is we look at small little things like that and we think it's not a big deal. But as it relates to God is a very big deal. Your sin breaks God's heart because it separates you from Him. And so the Father sent the Son to do what you could not do. There was nothing in you that could take your dirty sin and make it white as snow.

There was only a crimson blood that was spilled that could take your sin and make it white as snow. The Father sent the Son to carry what separated us from God. He is the substitution. Jesus, he doesn't just want to come close. He doesn't just want to reveal God.

He wants to deal with the problem. And this is why I love this. Because when Jesus shows up on the scene, he comes fully physical.

And I'm listening to this, I'm like, man, well, why not just heal your wounds?

And I was thinking about, even for some of us, we start following Jesus like man, okay, God, but you got to heal this thing with no scars. And if I still see a scar, that means I'm not fully healed yet. And Jesus becomes the ultimate example in this moment where he lets us know that it's possible for resurrection to actually take place in your life and still have reminders of the crucifixion that took place in your life. It is possible for you to go through some things and God restore you. And you still got scars.

Your scars do not disqualify you. Why? Because the Father sent the sun, the carry. What separated you and I. How many of you guys know?

That's good news. That is good news.

Now stay with me because it's going to get a little difficult because I think we're okay with Jesus handling the resurrection and the mission reserved for the disciples that he's talking to in that moment. And yet he says to us, as the Father has sent me, I also send you. Jesus isn't saying, go out and be saviors. He's saying, go the same way I came in the same way that Jesus came to us. He's asking, could we be the church that goes to others?

I want you to think about that just for a moment. In the same way that he came to us. Would you go to others? I'm going to get a little practical. Just for a moment.

This is the moment. Can you hold these cards in the air? Because, Worship team, you can begin to come up.

I.

As I was praying through this message, there was a part of me where I just really.

I really want us to do what the Bible is asking us to do.

This is not a left or right thing. This is a Jesus thing. There are so many injustices in our world that are breaking God's heart.

And my desire for us is that this year God would burden us to live sin, to give ourselves and what we've done. We've worked really hard this year to really make this easy for you. I want to ask you what is, what is the next step that you're supposed to take this year? I get we're like out of January, you know, pretty much. And some of us already made our goals.

Listen, I'm asking for you to open it back up again. All right?

But how are you called to live sin?

The first card is Discipleship Pathways.

Another it says this. It says we will continue to help ordinary people become passionate followers of Jesus Christ. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to make disciples that make disciples. A disciple loves all people. Everybody say all it does.

A disciple loves all people even when it's hard, discovers their identity in it, in Jesus and seeks to deepen their relationship with Jesus in the faith.