But what I want to focus on are the verses following these events. The context of the next few verses is not Easter morning, but rather it’s Easter evening. All of these guys, in spite of all the clues that Jesus had risen from the dead, were cloistered in a room hiding. John 20:19 says, "That evening, on the first day of the week, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! ‘Peace be with you,’ He said." Peace be with you. Now that could be just a greeting, but it wasn’t in this case. It was an expression of reality. Peace be with you. Let me tell you something, as the presence of Jesus Christ was felt, sensed in that room, they experienced peace. A group of people who were living in confusion, chaos, and fear, suddenly experienced peace. All the doubts and discussion ended because Jesus was there. When Jesus comes into our individual lives, He brings peace. If you’ve experienced the peace of Jesus Christ, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t experienced the peace of Jesus Christ, I’ll be honest with you, you don’t have the faintest notion of what I’m talking about, because I don’t think it’s possible to describe it, it can only be experienced. We can experience His peace but can’t possibly understand it. But whenever He comes, He brings comfort and He brings peace, regardless of the external situation. Peace is not dependant upon the external situation. The external situation for the apostles was just the same after He came as it was before. They were still probably in fear of the Jews but it didn’t matter anymore, because there was peace.

John 20:20 says, "As He spoke, He held out His hands for them to see, and He showed them His side. They were filled with joy when they saw their Lord!" When Jesus comes to each one of us, He brings joy. Joy unspeakable and full of glory. He brings joy into our lives.

Do you know the difference between joy and happiness?  

Joy is something that is deep within you, lives within you, bubbles up, and can’t be put down. I see the Christian life like a cork. You can have a cork floating in the water and somebody tries to push it down into the water, but as soon as you take your hand away, it pops back up again. The joy of the Lord does something in our lives so that nothing keeps us down. No matter what happens, the joy of the Lord is so powerful that you can endure anything that life can hand you. No matter how severe, no matter how hard, no matter how discouraging, no matter how difficult, you can still have that joy bubbling up within your heart. Happiness depends upon your external conditions. But joy doesn’t at all. You can be going through extreme difficulties but still have the joy of the Lord welling up in your heart because you are His and you know it! He plants joy within. I have gone through times in my life when I felt like it was just not right for me to be experiencing this joy. When there are so many hard things, so many people suffering tragedies, babies are being killed at abortion clinics, and all these other things are happening. It’s just not right for me to feel this joy. Somehow I need to suppress this, to keep this joy down because it does not seem right. Then I realize, oh yes it is! God wants us to live with His joy in our hearts no matter what the circumstances are.

John 20:21 says, "He spoke to them again and said, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When Jesus comes to our lives, He brings a commission. He brings orders. He brings something for us to do which gives purpose and meaning to our lives. It’s not just for those who are called to some kind of full-time ministry. It doesn’t always work that way. God’s will is different for each one of us, but He calls every Christian to minister for Him. He brings a commission. There are a thousand different ways: but God calls every one of us to minister. "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." God calls us to express His love and His mercy, to share the Gospel with other people. There are so many ways and we don’t have to pick just one. We can do it as God gives strength and opportunity. We can be involved in so many different ways. When you do, I can guarantee you that your life will have purpose. Psychiatrists have found across the years that one of the main things that is necessary for a person to live a "successful life" in this world is to have a sense of purpose. Jesus gives us a sense of purpose right off the bat. We have a sense of purpose in serving Him.

John 20:22 says, "Then He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’" Jesus brings peace. He brings joy. He brings a commission. When Jesus comes to our lives He brings preparation for that commission. He brings the help to prepare to become the ministers that He has called us to be, whatever our setting, wherever we live. He’s the Enabler. He enables us to do that. I find 

that people, even Christians in the church, in spite of ourselves, find ourselves thinking that a person’s natural intelligence, natural gifts and so forth have something to do with the way we serve God, or what we should do or where we should minister, etc. That’s just not true. I’m not saying we don’t use whatever God gives us, I’m saying when God commissions you to serve Him, it doesn’t make any difference whether you are qualified or not. I can remember when God called me to ministry my first thought was, "No Lord, not me. This has got to be some kind of mistake. I’m not qualified for that. I can’t talk before groups. I can’t do that kind of thing." You know what? That was true. I couldn’t, but it didn’t make any difference. God doesn’t rely on what your talents are, or what your abilities are, or if you don’t have any. (Everybody’s got something.) But it doesn’t really matter because as soon as you yoke up as a teammate with Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, anything you lack He can take care of. So don’t worry!

One of the most effective ministers of the Gospel I have known has won literally thousands of people to Jesus Christ. But he’s not very smart. He’s kind of slow. His mind doesn’t work fast. Does that hamper his ministry?  It doesn’t seem to. Why? Because when you hear him speak, you are never impressed with how smart he is, or how eloquent he is; what really impresses you is, "This guy really loves the Lord. Jesus Christ is real in this man’s life, and that captivates people and draws them to Jesus. That’s all that matters. He’ll never go down as a guy who was an eloquent speaker. They’ll never publish a book of his sermons and say how great they were, because they weren’t. But he is a sharp cutting instrument in God’s hands, harvesting souls for the Lord. He has blessed thousands of people by simply being a channel through which God’s Spirit works. There is hope, excitement and enthusiasm from the idea that all we have to do is abandon ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ! He not only brings peace, He not only brings joy, He not only gives us a commission with purpose, but He prepares us to do everything He has called us to do because we are in partnership with Him.

John 20:23 says, "If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you refuse to forgive them, they are unforgiven." Now if you want me to explain exactly what that verse means, I can’t do it. I don’t know. Churches get into fights over it. Some groups have no problem, they know exactly what it means. Other groups have no problem, they know exactly what it means. The only problem is they disagree with each another. Some say that in this particular verse of Scripture, Jesus gave the apostles, and the apostolic succession, the authority to forgive, or not forgive, sins. That’s scary. It’s scary if God gave us that much power. But in a sense, regardless of how you interpret that verse, He does. I’m not going to try and interpret it but one principle of it is true here, no matter how you interpret it, the principle is still true – Jesus is saying that He is giving us responsibility not only for ourselves, but to others around us. Every one of us as 

ministers of the Gospel (and if you are a Christian that includes you, too) is given the responsibility not only for ourselves, but also for others. The eternal welfare of other people may depend upon us. Someone into theology is liable to sit back in their chair and disagree with me on that. But stop and think about this passage of Scripture, no matter how you interpret it, you will come out with the fact that somehow, we have some responsibility to others. We are involved in the process. God uses human instruments to accomplish His purposes. Jesus called for real commitment over and over again. In an earlier passage of Scripture a man said he wanted to follow the Lord, but first wanted to go bury his dead father. Jesus says something that sounds pretty harsh. He said, "Let the dead bury the dead, come and follow Me." That sounds cruel. It isn’t. I don’t think Jesus was trying to sound harsh. He was making the point that when it comes to establishing priorities, God is to be first. Jesus Christ is to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords in our lives. He is to be first. Everything else has to take second seat. Another man said, "Lord I’ll follow you but first let me bid those farewell who are at my house." That seems like a pretty reasonable request. He just wanted to go home and tell his family and friends goodbye, that he was taking off to serve Jesus. But again, Jesus seems to speak harshly. He said, "No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God." He was just establishing priorities. He’s saying His service has to be number one. Your allegiance to Him has to be number one. There can’t be anything else that divides us. We can’t live with divided loyalties. Loyalty has to be total and complete.

I’d like to admonish you this resurrection season to recognize Him for who He is – King of Kings and Lord of Lords. There is something powerful about just saying that! I don’t mean as a formula or a remedy. I can’t say King of Kings and Lord of Lords without it thrilling me someplace in my being. Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And just as He was resurrected from the dead, every one of us who live in fellowship with Him are also going to be resurrected. There is no death. He’s banished it and we’ll live forever with Him. I encourage you to try something: when you are quiet today, say to yourself, He is Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. God will make you aware of His presence in your life. God bless you!