April 17th. He Knows My Name

But they welcome you in the name of our Lord. Jesus Christ to worship here. Mister Presbyterian Church on this Easter Sunday. Welcome, especially if you're visiting. Or if you're worshipping with us online through our social media platforms. You're welcome. We pray that this service might instill in you a sense of God's living presence as we celebrate, Resurrection this day. Don't forget to put a flower in the flower cross on your way out and you might find it a good place for a photo. Couple of scriptures from set for our message to Daniel first is from the Old Testament. Joe chapter 19.

For, I know that my redeemer lives and at the last day, he will stand upon the Earth.

and from the Gospel of John, Part of the account of the Resurrection, in chapter 20, starting in verse 11. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb as she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels, and white sitting there, where the body of Jesus had been lying one at the head and one at the feet. They said, to her woman. Why are you weeping? She said that they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him. When she said that she turned around and she saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that. It was Jesus. Jesus said to her woman. Why are you weeping? Who are you looking for? Supposing him to be the gardener. She said to him, sir. If you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and said to him and Hebrew broadly, uni, which means teacher Jesus said to her. Don't hold me yet because I have not expended yet to the father, but go to my brothers and say to them. I'm ascending to my father and your father to my God and your God Mary Magdalene win and announce to the disciples. I have seen the Lord. And she told them that he had said these things to her. This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray, corporate body, be pleasing to you and help us to learn from your word and its truth in Jesus name. Amen.

Alright, we practice last week. We practice Hosanna last week. So I hope you got your voices on this week. What are we going to say? 1? 2 3, Hallelujah? Jesus Christ is risen today. He is risen. He is risen, indeed. Amen. When we say that word, hallelujah. It's a foreign language. Believe It or Not. Hebrew Hollow means praise. Yahweh means god. So you're just speaking Hebrew language and saying, praise God for abscess. Not even English is not even your mother tongue. But whatever time we are speaking, we are praising. God today from east to west, north and south Christian's are gathering together to praise God. For his mighty work in, Breaking the power of sin and death. Freeing us from the grave and allowing us to have life Everlasting in the Name of Christ. You know what we've taken this journey through lent, these last 40 days, and we ended on Friday on a, on a somber, note with Jesus in the Tomb. We all were looking forward to Easter, but you can't get to Easter without going through the death and difficulty of the Tomb. And we did that. It's important that we realize that there was something that was costly given for us in. Order for us to arrive at this day. Some years ago. I was in the Ukraine and that's where lots of things are going on right now. I was in a city called Asia and in that City, there was a seminarian Bible College. I was there for a semester to teach Misty, ology and evangelism and what not. The students were great. They were very, very bright and play, learn an enormous amount. I think I have a picture of them in the classroom there. Yes, great, Seminary there, under duress, at the moment. The city is in Ruins and many places. I have not heard from the dean of the Seminary yet, but we can certainly pray for them. One of my assignments to the students was visiting hospital, visiting the sick in the hospital and how that was an opportunity at those difficult places in life where you are in between this life in the life to come. How are spiritual healers are very in tune to the moving of God's spirit, children's cancer hospital award. Maybe had 50 people in it, twenty in beds, 30, on the floor. I found one little girl. They captured my heart and I'm was Julia. And I sat down, she was on a little pallet and the nurse had said she didn't have many days to live. Julia had some sort of cancer that she had gotten from radiation even while she was in her mother's womb from The Fallout of Chernobyl, which was very close by her parents had already died. All of her family was either sick or dying and she would face death imminently in the next days. We talked about the future about a hope that she could have in Christ Jesus. And she was filled with joy and hope by the end of our conversation. We prayed and tears running down her cheeks. She said this to me.

I never knew that God knew my name.

I never knew that God knew my name. Julia passed away a few days later, but I know that she had the hope of the Resurrection in her heart. I know that she knew that God knew her name and would welcome her home into his eternal Kingdom, having that kind of experience of knowing. Our name is so important. It's so important. I have a double first name most of, you know, friend for you that if he called me on the phone, I always answer the same way as a friend, pull his string. I don't say hello, or how are you, howdy, or whatever. I just a friend. I like my name. My name, connect me to a lot of things that connect me to my culture, my family. It's a family name. Obviously. Why in the world would you give somebody Fred for you as a name? If it's something important. So they connect me back to somebody in l.a. That I never met. But anyway, there that's lower Alabama for you guys, but text me to my Heritage and my people and it's part of my identity. How about you and introduce yourself and say your name to them and say hi. Grant grant, this is okay. It's just we're not that decent and in order.

Okay. Now that you've done that turned to that same person and hopefully, your memory is, at least, at least you've got this much memory. Remember that person's name and say Fred Foley. Jesus knows your name. Can you do that turn to that person? Now that you just said and just say bread for you and Jesus knows your name and then do it back to the other person. I felt a little crazy imaginable, the god of the universe, the one who flung, the stars in the sky, made the planets. The everything knows my name. He knows your name.

That's mind-blowing unbelievable names. Are so important. In his, we look through this story of Mary at the tomb, we can see how that connects so deeply with her. It was early in the morning. Mary had come to the tomb. She found it as a scripture, say with the the stone rolled away.

That in itself was a shock season brief. She's in mourning. All the disciples are they bought was the Messiah crucified, they knew where he was, he was in that too. sealed whole Dark Death and yet when Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb, she finds The stone rolled away. She Paints in and she is surprised. She is scared. She is wondering what in the world is going on. And she looks where the body was in there. Nobody. All there is is grave clothes. This is a travesty. This is horrible. She's not thinking resurrections. She's thinking Jewish culture. The body is safe for. You have to treat the body with certain rights and respected and protocol. Where's the body? Oh my gosh. What will we do? Distraught. She goes into the garden and there, she meets someone she doesn't recognize them. We don't know why she didn't recognize. I would you not recognize Jesus. We don't know. But perhaps he looked different perhaps it was he had ascended to the father. Perhaps. This was his resurrection body and it was a little odd looking as we don't know, but for whatever reason, she did not recognize this person is priced and she was like, where is the body? Tell me and I'll go get it. Why would you want to do that? Because of the propriety of treating a corpse in Jewish culture, had to bring it back and be honoring of that dead person to re-wrap it to put fragrance oils and spices on the grave clothes to entomb the body.

And then Jesus says, one thing. One thing, one word. What did Jesus say? Mary. Her name. Jesus just said Mary and immediately. She heard the Lord God Almighty speak her name and she knew it was Jesus and not only the Jesus in the Tomb, but the living resident rated Christ. Oh my goodness Darkness from her. So she ran back with joy to tell the disciples the news and that's what we do on Easter each and every Easter we're full of joy because of the Resurrection that gives us life that lets his face, the difficulties of this life that lets us even face the grave and death. So that we might not go in fully, but we go with hope hope of the resurrection and hope of our Resurrection so that when we see the Lord, he will speak our name. And welcomed us into his eternal Kingdom.

Just like Julia. I didn't know, I didn't know that God knew my name.

But often in our culture wear, what kind of an odds with our culture, I talked earlier about a post Christian culture. The Western world is certainly in a post-christian culture. We can't assume anything but anybody cares anything about faith? And it's maybe it's just all a myth and that's the culture in which we live, but I don't need this. I don't need religion. I don't need Jesus. And I was like, Hey, we're just in it for ourselves. Maybe we can get up brother, Bill. Keep moving. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. You'll get over your whining and move on. Go to Walmart. They got everything. You don't need Jesus.

The fact is that you do. We do, we all do. The Bible says in Romans 3:23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Who? all all

That means me. That means you. That means, every person has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Okay, send any more like a church. You aren't they don't use that word. Ali means, in the Greek, is we missed the mark, all have missed them. Are we all miss them? Are we've all missed them art and fallen short of the glory of God. Every one of us.

In Romans, 6:23, we read that. The wages of sin is death. If we've all missed them, aren't the wages of missing. The mark, That's the penalty of missing. The mark, the price do for missing the mark. Is what? That's what the scripture say. That's what I believe.

It's a penalty of. Missing God's Mark is death. And if everyone of us including me, including you have Miss God's Mark, and then we have a little bit of a problem. So what are we doing? Most of us, you know, where like, okay, I'm going to go do something good. I'm going to go. I'm not going to let you know. Lay on the horn at the light. I'm not going to be no worse when I hit my thumb with a hammer, I do whatever we're going to do with that idea of the mart, but the problem is We have Miss God's Mark. And so God is not happy with Sandra. We've heard and we missed the mark with Dawn our own way and that has been an offense to God. So trying to make up for something. To God is very difficult because I'm just a human. What in the world in 10,000 lifetimes could I do say be, or give that God didn't already have? No, it has to be a different kind of gift, a different kind of gift. To pay that wage to pay that wage that does lead to death in. That is someone who is human. We got to pay for me. But someone who has the goods to pay God. And the only person, the only way is the god-man, the human fully human Christ, the fully Divine Christ, the one who went to that cross to shed his blood. I went to the Grave down in those depths. And rescued me and you all those who call on his name. Do you like children's sermons? I love children. Sometimes, sometimes you can just have a children's sermon, and, and go to sleep for the regular something cuz it's basically the same thing. We've got an adult children's sermon here. Okay, and I'm got a couple of things here. I hear Jim Morris used to play baseball, like back in Vanderbilt Dash, loc, die sucker, die, and you just hold on to that a minute and let's see your pretty holy up there. Why don't you take one for goodness sake? And I mean, he's a good guy there, that needs a dice. Hello, sir. Can you hold that? Alright, you got to die now, hear from Indy. You get one shot? To hit God's Mart. Was that Bullseye Elizabeth? I got both on there. Somewhere are bulls out there again. One shot. Here it is right here on my check. You hit this Mark. You don't have to be good. You don't have to do nothing. All you have to have free pass, do whatever you want. You're going straight to Glory. But if you miss it, I don't know.

Who wants to try to hit God's Mark a baseball Guy? Come on.

All right.

Uh, oh. All right, young, man. You got an arm back there. Chunk it hard as you can get out. Now, that junk that thing.

Wow, that was a curveball. I didn't quite hear. I totally checked over here. Come on, check. Hallelujah. He was close, but no cigar.

You see the problem. The problem is there is God, if you don't believe that there is a God, that's another story and I'd love to talk to you about it at some point, but there is God. God is holy God is infinite. Is all wise omnipotent omniscient.

God is righteous and remember a few weeks ago. I said God was holy, the essence of God's character is God's holiness. and when I said because of my missing God's mark, he made a mess of Matt relationship between me and God. Then the only thing that can solve that is having a sacrifice. But I can't give to renew that relationship. And that's what price does. That's what Christ does for us. He comes to us wherever we are and he wants. To renew wash to make us whole. I don't pretend to know where you are in your life Journey. You may, you may be totally doubting all this stuff. You may have had faith that one point, but things have just plowed it bad and he's drunk the way.

You may not think you're too bad, a person. Kill anybody with an axe last night? I'm okay. Not that bad. I'm not I'm not as bad as you or you, so I'll be higher up on the pecking order or you may think the completely opposite way. I know, I am horrible. I know I've done bad, things. There is no way that anyone could love me.

Just like Mary went with a heart full of joy to share the resurrection story. I want to share that with you today. And that story is simply this. No matter where you are. No matter what. You think, what doubt you have Lord knows. I've had my doubts and questions no matter what you think you've done. And that's the depths of the pit of The Dark Night of the Soul. There is no place that is so deep. So dark, so discouraging. And so depressing, that God cannot reach the light of his love to you. And grab you and bring you to God self. Because God loves you. The scriptures are clear. They put it in the simplest way. Probably the most famous, found him a famous verse translated in every language God. So loved the world. That he gave his only son that whosoever believes in Him. Should not perish but have everlasting life. That's God's promise to us, God's promise to us. And I pray that on this Easter day, you would know, deep down. God's amazing love for you.

He knows your name.

He knows your name.

Christ is risen. Amen.

But stand, as we respond.