Easter Sunrise Service

0:000:00

Summary

Pastor Safrit walks through John 20:1-18, focusing on Mary Magdalene's encounter with the risen Jesus. He emphasizes that Mary, who was once tormented by demons, becomes the first witness of the resurrection, illustrating how love and devotion can persist through grief and confusion. The sermon highlights that Jesus' resurrection signifies victory over sin and death, encouraging believers to embrace the transformative power of Christ in their lives.

Welcome and Church Information
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. This morning, welcome.
Thank you for being here. What a wonderful time and a wonderful day it is. I had everything set up on my iPad to be outside. Did it one year, and the wind was blowing all of my notes everywhere. And so we want to do a little different here.
But we are excited about being here. As I was praying about sort of our devotion, our thought for this morning as we're here, the Lord gave me this thought, when the sun rose twice.
And we're going to look at an opening story, John chapter 20. I'm not going to read it. I just want you to know where we're going to be at. But John chapter 20, verses 1 through 18, we get the setting of this moment when Jesus rose from the dead.
And when you, if you're on Facebook this morning, you'll be able to see, I put a picture of me coming out of the tomb, out of the grave there where Jesus was buried at. And so we got to be there.
But I wanted you to imagine that this whole setup was with us outside. It's still dark. It's still quiet outside. The Passover crowds have mostly left and gone the setting of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is now beginning to wake up slowly.
Some of you can maybe imagine this, right? You woke up this morning sluggish, earlier than what you normally would have, right? Getting my kids out of bed at 5 o'clock in the morning was sometimes a nightmare, right? They're slowly dragging along.
We're having to force them along. And one woman in John chapter 20 is brought into the picture. Her name is Mary Magdalene.
Mary Magdalene is walking toward the tomb. She's not walking out of curiosity. She's not walking out of celebration like we did this morning. She's walking out of grief. Her friend, her savior, her master who she had followed has been killed.
She stood there and she watched him be crucified. She was there when the hammer grabbed the nails and they beat the nails into his hands and into his feet. She heard the agony. She saw the cross.
And now she's come to do the last act of love that she can offer. She's come to prepare the body, to bring spices and to bring joy to whatever she can do in this moment to a savior who she loved, who has now been killed and crucified.
But before the sun ever rose on Jerusalem, the Bible says that Jesus had already come out of the tomb and he is about to change everything.
Backstory of Mary Magdalene
I want to give you some backstory of who this woman is. The woman delivered by the savior is Mary.
Jesus in Luke chapter 8, the Bible says that he came to her and cast out seven demons. Could you imagine being demon possessed, having these demons constantly be tormenting you and Jesus comes.
He sees her life in chaos. He sees her life in torment and the brokenness that she has. And yet Jesus comes to meet her where she's at.
Jesus in the same way, he enters our life and he doesn't just do it as a self-improvement to help us get better, but he did it to change her life forever.
I want you to imagine if you were in a house that was burning down and the house was completely on fire and you're in the room and you're trying to figure out a way out and you can't get
out. And all of a sudden this firefighter who comes into the house and bursts in and rescues you and saves you from that fire and takes you outside and puts you outside and makes sure everything's fine with you and then goes back in.
And then as he's leaving, you look to him and you say, hey, sir, what is your name? And he would look at you and say, my name is John.
I live right down the road here. I guarantee you, you would never forget that name, John, and you would never forget that person that saved your life. And Mary in this same instance has been saved.
She's been freed and she's never going to forget the one that delivered her. She has been delivered from these things, but now she is beginning to be devoted to this man named Jesus. This man who has delivered her shows up and begins to work in her life and everywhere Jesus goes,
Mary begins to be showing up. Mary shows up. She's following Jesus.
Mary shows up and helps support Jesus in his ministry. Mary is there and is staying when other people ran.
When all of his disciples, when the 11 men, the 12 men who were his disciples were there and they turned their back and they ran away, Mary is found standing at the feet of the cross.
She is also the first one back at the tomb. Why would someone be compelled to do this? Because love shows up.
Love shows up when it's difficult. Love shows up when it's hard. Love shows up when life doesn't make sense. And now her devotion doesn't disappear when things get too tough.
I've done many funerals in my days and there'll be times where a funeral will show up and there'll be just a small group of people that'll be there.
There's other times where we'll have a funeral and the entire church is packed and the graveyard's packed and everyone's showing up and everyone's there. And I say that because when a funeral happens, those that are closest to the people begin to show up.
And the funeral for Jesus happens and Mary, one of his closest friends, shows up because she loved him deeply and was devoted to him.
As we go through our life, I want us to ask ourselves, are we devoted to Christ in the difficult times but also in the blessings of times?
Because we have to ask ourselves, are we going to be as devoted as well? We begin to walk through and we see Mary in this distressed situation. She shows up in John chapter 20 and the Bible says that when she arrived, the stone was rolled away. Now this was her first thought.
Mary's Discovery of the Empty Tomb
Her first thought was that someone had robbed the grave and destroyed the stone and came in and took away Jesus. Not that he was resurrected. The Bible says that she in her heart had said, they have taken away my Lord.
And she begins weeping on the outside of the tomb. And she stands there and she's looking in and she's thinking this is the one that she's got her spices.
She's got everything prepared to go in to prepare the body. And in this moment, the person that she loved, the one that she came to prepare in the last act of love, now she's crying.
This is an honest moment in Scripture because it shows us that we can go through difficulties. We can grieve.
We can be confused. We can have heartache. And yet in that moment, she turns and she sees a man who she thinks is the gardener.
She thinks it's someone who's there to take care of the plants. She thinks it's someone to take care of the vine because we know there's a vineyard. We know there's a garden.
We know there's a wine press there. She just assumed that it was someone that was there to take care of these things. And he asks her one question.
As the sun is coming up behind her, as the day is breaking, he looks at her and he says, Woman, why are you weeping?
What is going on in this moment? Why are you crying? And in this moment, this woman is delighted because she begins to understand what's going on.
And this gardener who she thinks is there taking care of the plants looks at her and says one word and he says, Mary.
The moment he says her name, her mind goes back to when Luke chapter 8 says that she was demon possessed and she was grieving and she was hurting and she was distressed in all of her situation.
And Jesus came and called those demons out and called her by name. And in that moment, she begins to see Jesus again.
And she immediately knows that no one has ever said my name like that man. No one has ever rescued me like that person.
Just as if you heard that voice in Walmart as you were walking around shopping that saved you when you were in that fiery burning building. You would know that's the person that saved me. That's the person that came and set me free. And in this moment,
Mary knows and Mary understands that this is not just someone outside the garden. But this is someone who has changed my life forever. Church, this morning, the tomb is still empty. Death has been defeated. Our Savior, Mary's Savior is alive.
And the woman who once was demon possessed now becomes the first witness of the resurrection.
Mary's Easter Announcement
The first person that is there at the time when Jesus is rose from the dead. And Jesus gives her this message. He says, go and tell my brethren that I have been risen from the dead. The first Easter announcement was carried out by Mary Magdalene.
2,000 years ago, we're standing here today in this place as the sun is coming up and we get to understand this announcement from a whole new light.
Because as one scholar said as I was reading this week, he said that if the disciples were trying to create a false gospel, they did a really horrible job. And I thought that's interesting to say it like that. He said in the very first century Judaism,
he said women were not people to be trusted when it came to court of law. Women were not to be trusted when it came to testimony.
And they had no social standing in society. And if they were trying to create a false gospel, why would they write in there that the very first witnesses of this event was a woman? But Jesus knew that this was going to change eternity and that no one would have wrote the story like this.
No one would have wrote it like this in our mind and in our account.
And so as we look at this and we see that Mary is the first one, we see that it is something unique. And we see that Jesus rose and he came to change the culture and to change everything that's going on. And in this moment, these two sons rose.
The first son is the physical son. The physical son that we can see outside and as it's getting a little lighter outside, the sun comes up. But the second son that rose was Jesus.
The one that changes the heart of Mary. The one that's changed our heart. The one that has made us a new creature in him. And instead of going to a tomb to find a dead savior, she found one that was living. The same truth is still true today.
The resurrection means this. Sin doesn't win. We are bombarded by sin every single day of our life. We live in a fallen body.
On the way to our house, a short drive from my house to here, we were constantly getting on to my children because it's early in the morning and they make mistakes and they do things and we're having to get on to them and they're having to get on and they're pestering each other.
Sin happens. Sin happens. But yet, death has been defeated and sin has been defeated through Jesus. And in the end, darkness doesn't win.
The Rising Sun and Darkness
In the end, this morning, as the sun came up,
the darkness didn't look at the sun and say, you know what? I really don't want you to come up today. Can you just stay down? No, the darkness had to flee because the sun came up.
And this morning, as Jesus has rose from the dead 2,000 years ago and he lives today for us and makes intercession for you and me, he pushes the darkness away in our life.
And just as Mary will begin to see that Christ was there to meet her needs, he is there to meet our needs as well. The tomb is still empty. The Savior is still alive.
And the same Jesus who changed Mary Magdalene is still changing lives today. The question we have to ask ourselves is, are we ready to make a change in our life if we've never made that decision?
Or are we ready to continue to live in this freedom that Christ has given us? Are we continuing to live in the goodness that God has given us this morning?
The sun rose twice that morning. It only rose once today. But we know that he is still alive. We know that he lives forevermore.
And he's seated at the right hand of the Father for you and for me, making intercession for us. And that this morning should bring us joy and excitement as we celebrate this Resurrection Sunday. 2,000 years ago, this happened.
And one scholar put it out that if you look back on the dates today, if you go to AD 33, which is around the time that Jesus would have been crucified, it actually lands on April 5th on this Sunday.
So very well, 2,000 years later, we could be celebrating Easter the very same day that Mary went to that tomb.
On this same morning, walking up and seeing and experiencing a risen Savior. Church, we serve an awesome God.
And I'm so glad we get to come in here this morning. Whether it be outside or inside, we get to come and worship Jesus this morning because he is worthy of our praise. He is worthy of our glory to him.
And there's nothing more powerful that we can do than celebrate a risen Savior in heaven.
I'm going to pray for us, and then we're going to stand and sing a song. And then we're going to go eat some wonderful breakfast this morning. I'm sure you're smelling it because the men have been working all morning on it.
And just enjoy the fellowship before we go into our main service here in just a little bit. Let us pray. Father, we love you. We thank you for what you've done.
Closing Prayer and Thanks
We thank you for this time we get to come and just experience the goodness and the glory of who you are.
Lord, as we would be outside watching the sun come up over us, and for weather reasons, we can't be out there. But God, I'm so thankful that we still get to meet.
Lord, the wonder of this holy week that we have worshiped you this past week and that has led up to this time of this Resurrection Sunday,
Lord, is a time where we get to praise you and thank you for who you are. Lord, you didn't have to send your son.
You didn't have to come and die for us, but yet you chose to lay down your life for a reprobate as myself.
And God, I just thank you for who you are. I thank you for what you've done.
And help us to continue this time of fellowship as we eat in just a minute, Lord, that you would bless this food, that you would help it to nourish our bodies and help us not to get too sleepy
for the main service, but to be awake and ready to go as we worship you. In your name we pray. Amen.
Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove. Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week.