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New Life Group Study - Part 3 - Rock Point Church · Rewind

Rock Point Church

17 min

Pastor Mark Collins · May 1, 2019 · 3 min read · 17 min listen

The big idea

Jesus' resurrection turned sorrow into a new creation story, and He still calls people who have doubts and fears into the mission of announcing that good news to the world.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 5The women and disciples came to the tomb in grief, not expecting resurrection
Point 2 of 5Peter and John discover the empty tomb and grave clothes, and belief dawns

Point 3 of 5Jesus meets Mary in her tears and gives her a mission
Point 4 of 5Jesus commissions frightened disciples with peace, the Spirit, and a hard responsibility
Point 5 of 5Jesus meets Thomas' doubt without scolding him
Take it into your week
Transcript

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Scripture in this message

John 20:23
John 20:21

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Mark Collins · May 1, 2019 · 17 min watch · 2 min read

New Life Group Study - Part 3 - Rock Point Church

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

John 20:23
John 20:21

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Jesus' resurrection turned sorrow into a new creation story, and He still calls people who have doubts and fears into the mission of announcing that good news to the world.

The resurrection of Jesus turned the disciples' grief into hope and launched a brand new creation. Jesus met frightened, doubting, grieving people right where they were, gave them His peace and His Spirit, and sent them out to carry His forgiveness and good news to the whole world.

Key points

1
1The women and disciples came to the tomb in grief, not expecting resurrection
Pastor Mark describes the women arriving before dawn with spices, exhausted and heartbroken, simply to mourn and finish burial customs. Mary Magdalene finds the tomb empty and assumes the worst, that someone has cruelly taken the body away.
2
2Peter and John discover the empty tomb and grave clothes, and belief dawns
John outruns Peter but hesitates at the entrance, while Peter barges in to find the linen wrappings lying intact and the head cloth separated, as if the body had simply passed through them. Pastor Mark says this convinces them it wasn't theft but resurrection, a new creation beyond even Lazarus' return to ordinary life and death.
3
3Jesus meets Mary in her tears and gives her a mission
Mary mistakes the risen Jesus for the gardener, which Pastor Mark says was truer than she knew since Jesus is the new gardener undoing the chaos of Eden. Jesus tells her not to cling to Him because their relationship is changing, then sends her as the first witness, an apostle to the apostles, to tell the brothers He is alive.
4
4Jesus commissions frightened disciples with peace, the Spirit, and a hard responsibility
Jesus appears behind locked doors and speaks shalom into a room that had none, then gives the disciples a job they never asked for and felt unqualified for: announcing forgiveness of sins. Pastor Mark stresses this isn't the power to forgive sins, which belongs to God alone, but the charge to proclaim forgiveness through Christ, made possible only by the Holy Spirit.
5
5Jesus meets Thomas' doubt without scolding him
Thomas misses the first meeting and refuses to believe without seeing, so a week later Jesus appears again and offers him the very evidence he needed. Pastor Mark notes Jesus doesn't harden toward Thomas but meets him where he is, and Thomas responds, My Lord and my God.

Application

Pastor Mark's closing charge is to go into all the world and preach the gospel, using words if you have to but living it out first.

Seek the Lord while He may be found
Since Jesus no longer appears face to face the way He did to the disciples, Pastor Mark urges taking every opportunity now to seek Him, especially through His word.
Let your Bible get worn, not dusty
In his prayer, Pastor Mark asks that Rock Point's Bibles be read until the pages are torn and tear-stained rather than left gathering dust on a shelf.
Respond to Jesus even with doubts
Following Thomas' example, bring your questions and doubts honestly to Jesus rather than staying away or hardening your heart.
Go into all the world and preach the gospel
Pick up the mission the disciples were just catching on to: do good deeds, be kind, and also tell people about the source of your joy so it changes the trajectory of the world.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“pick up your Bible and read John twenty twenty three. You know, here Jesus tells his disciples, If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“the worst yet might be to come. Verse 23 says, If you don't forgive their sin, they are not forgiven”
From the transcript
“As the Father has sent me, now I'm sending you. That's verse 21”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

There is something quietly stunning about the detail John gives us in the tomb that first Easter morning. The grave clothes were not scattered or torn — they were lying there, undisturbed, as if a body had simply passed through them. Peter and John saw the same linen wrappings, but John saw them and believed. The sermon points out that this was not the scene of a theft. Thieves don't fold napkins or leave fabric arranged in peace. What happened here was something altogether different — something the world had never seen before. Jesus had not simply come back to the life He had before. He had passed through death into an entirely new kind of existence, a new creation breaking open from the inside out. That detail matters because it means the resurrection is not a patch on the old order. It is the beginning of something genuinely new. The same Jesus who lay in that tomb is alive — not as a resuscitated corpse counting down to a second death, but as the firstborn of a whole new creation. And because He is, everything that seemed final — grief, failure, death itself — is now open to question. The empty tomb does not just tell us Jesus is gone. It tells us something new has begun, and we are invited into it.

For reflection

What in your life have you quietly assumed is permanent or beyond hope? How does the reality of a genuinely new creation — not just a reset — change how you see that thing today?

Pray

Pray for open eyes to see the resurrection not as a past event but as a present reality that reaches into the parts of your life that feel most stuck or finished.

Day 2

Mary is standing outside the tomb, weeping, and she turns to find a man she assumes is the gardener. She is not wrong in a way that matters — the sermon makes the case that she was actually closer to the truth than she knew. Jesus is the new Gardener. The first Adam was placed in a garden to tend it and keep it, and when he failed, humanity was expelled. Now, in the earliest light of the first day of a new week, the risen Jesus is standing in a garden. The echoes are not accidental. John, who writes everything carefully, wants us to feel the weight of this scene: the new creation is beginning in a garden, just as the old creation did, but this time the Gardener does not fail. He has already walked through the worst — death itself — and come out the other side. Mary's grief was real, and Jesus did not rush past it or tell her to pull herself together. He asked her a question: "Why are you crying? Who are you looking for?" He met her exactly where she was, in her sorrow, before He revealed Himself. That is still how He works. He does not wait for us to have it together before He shows up. He comes to us in the middle of our tears and calls us by name.

For reflection

Is there an area of grief or loss — big or small — where you have been looking for Jesus but not quite recognizing Him? What might it look like to let Him meet you there today?

Pray

Pray for the awareness to recognize Jesus in the middle of whatever grief or confusion you are carrying right now, and for the courage to let Him speak your name into it.

Day 3

When Jesus finally says Mary's name and she recognizes Him, her instinct is to hold on. That makes complete sense. She has just watched Him die. He is here now — she is not letting go. But Jesus gently redirects her: "Don't cling to me." The sermon unpacks this carefully: Jesus was not pushing Mary away. He was preparing her — and all His followers — for something better. He was about to ascend to the Father, and when He did, the Holy Spirit would come. That means access to God would no longer depend on being in the right room at the right moment. The Spirit would make the presence of Jesus available to every believer, everywhere, always. The relationship was not ending. It was expanding beyond anything Mary could have imagined standing in that garden. There is a quiet challenge here for us, too. It is human to want to hold on to the forms of closeness we know — the mountaintop experience, the moment of clarity, the season when everything felt alive. But Jesus consistently moves His people forward rather than letting them camp in yesterday's encounter. The same Spirit who came at Pentecost is available to you right now. You do not have to cling to a past moment. He is present, and the access He has given you is permanent.

For reflection

Are you holding tightly to a past spiritual experience because the present feels quieter or harder? What might it look like to trust that the Spirit's access to God is just as real today?

Pray

Pray for a fresh awareness of the Holy Spirit's presence today — not a memory of when God felt close, but a real and present trust that He is here now.

Day 4

Before Jesus sent any of the eleven, He sent Mary Magdalene. The sermon highlights this with appropriate weight: Mary became, in a real sense, an apostle to the apostles — the first person commissioned by the risen Lord to go and announce the good news. And the sermon does not let us miss the cultural backdrop. In the world of first-century Judea, a woman's testimony was not considered legally reliable. Rome and the surrounding culture would have dismissed her as a witness. If the early church had been inventing the resurrection story, they would never have written it this way. That they did — that they preserved Mary's name and her role — is itself a fingerprint of truth. But there is more here than an apologetics point. The fact that Jesus chose Mary first says something about who He is. He does not operate by the world's rankings of credibility or influence. He appears to the grieving woman in the garden before He appears to the prominent men behind locked doors. He sends the one the culture overlooked. If you have ever felt like you were too ordinary, too broken, or too outside the usual categories to be useful to God, this moment at the tomb is worth sitting with for a long time.

For reflection

Have you ever talked yourself out of sharing what Jesus has done in your life because you did not feel credible or qualified enough? What does Mary's commissioning say to that hesitation?

Pray

Pray for the courage to be a witness to what Jesus has done in your own life — not because you have everything figured out, but because He has appeared to you and sent you forward.

Day 5

That evening the disciples were gathered behind locked doors — understandably. Fear was not a character flaw; it was a completely human response to watching their Rabbi get crucified. And Jesus did not walk in and scold them for hiding. He said, "Peace be with you." Then He showed them His hands and His side. Then He said it again: "Peace be with you." And then He sent them. The sermon is careful about what the commissioning in verses 21 through 23 actually means. The disciples were not given the personal authority to forgive sins — that belongs to God alone. They were being sent to announce forgiveness or its absence based on how people respond to the gospel. This is a mission, not a franchise. And notice what made it possible: Jesus breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." The sending and the empowering came together. The risen Jesus does not hand you a task and leave you to figure it out. He gives you the Spirit and then sends you. That pattern — peace, presence, purpose — is still how He works. When fear or shame has you behind your own locked doors, He does not wait for you to get brave enough to come out. He comes to where you are, speaks peace, and gives you something worth doing.

For reflection

What locked door — what fear or shame or hesitation — has been keeping you from living as someone sent by the risen Jesus? How does "peace be with you" speak to that specific door?

Pray

Pray for the peace that Jesus spoke over His disciples to settle into the specific place where fear has been keeping you back, and for a willingness to be sent from that place into something purposeful.

Day 6

Thomas was not there the first evening. We do not know why — the text does not say, and the sermon does not speculate. What we do know is that when the others told him they had seen the Lord, Thomas said he would not believe without tangible proof. The sermon is honest about this: Thomas was not uniquely faithless. He was asking for the same thing the other disciples had already received — a personal encounter. Jesus could have appeared to Thomas that same night. He waited a week. We do not know why He waited, either, but when He came back, He came directly to Thomas. He offered the very evidence Thomas had asked for. And Thomas responded not with an inspection of the wounds but with the most complete confession in the entire Gospel of John: "My Lord and my God." Honest doubt did not disqualify Thomas from meeting the risen Jesus. It became the doorway. The sermon draws a clear line: if you are sitting with real questions, searching questions, questions that feel too risky to say out loud — Jesus is not offended. He meets searching hearts. That does not mean every question gets answered on our timetable. Thomas waited a week. But Jesus came.

For reflection

Is there a doubt or an honest question you have been keeping behind closed lips because you were afraid it would disqualify you? What would it look like to bring that question openly to Jesus and to His Word?

Pray

Pray for the honesty to bring your real questions to Jesus — not polished versions of doubt, but the actual ones — and for the patience to wait for Him to meet you in them.

Day 7

John tells us at the end of this chapter that there were many other signs Jesus performed that are not written down, but these are written so that we might believe — and in believing, have life in His name. That is the whole arc of John 20: an empty tomb, a weeping woman called by name, fearful disciples sent in peace, a doubting man met with tenderness, and a Gospel that now extends to every person who will never see the wounds firsthand. The sermon lands here: those who believe without seeing are called truly blessed. That is you. That is every generation since the apostles. We do not have an empty tomb to walk into or a risen Jesus to touch. What we have is a Word that is alive, a Spirit who is present, and a community of people walking forward together. The new creation that broke open in that garden on the first Easter morning is still unfolding. We are not spectators to a finished story — we are participants in something still moving. The same Jesus who sent Mary to announce, who breathed peace into locked rooms, who appeared to Thomas in his doubt — that Jesus is sending you, too. The invitation is the same: pick up His Word, let Him speak your name, and carry the good news into whatever corner of creation He has placed you in.

For reflection

Looking back over this week, where has the resurrection of Jesus felt most real or most challenging to believe? What one step can you take this week to live as someone sent by the risen Lord?

Pray

Pray for a settled, growing conviction that the resurrection is not a past event to study but a present reality to live inside of — and for the courage to let that conviction shape how you spend your time, your relationships, and your voice in the world.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message traces one extraordinary day in John 20 — from an empty tomb at dawn to a locked room that evening — and asks what it means that the resurrection isn't just history but the opening chapter of a whole new creation we're invited to live inside of right now.

Discussion questions

1
In John 20:6-8, Peter and John find the grave clothes lying undisturbed — not scattered, but neatly in place — while Jesus is gone. What do you think that detail was meant to signal to the first people who saw it?
2
Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener, and the message pointed out she was both wrong and right — that Jesus is the new Gardener restoring what was lost when Adam was expelled from Eden. What does that image of Jesus as a new Gardener add to how we understand what the resurrection actually accomplished?
3
In John 20:17-18, Jesus chose Mary Magdalene as the first person He sent to proclaim the resurrection — even though her culture dismissed women as unreliable witnesses. What does that choice say about the kind of people Jesus sends, and about what His mission looks like?
4
In John 20:21-23, Jesus breathes on the disciples and says, 'As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you,' then gives them the Holy Spirit and ties that gift to the announcement of forgiveness. What do you think it means for ordinary people to carry that kind of authority into the world?
5
Thomas wasn't in the room the first time Jesus appeared, and when the others told him, he said he needed to see for himself. When Jesus came back and met Thomas face to face, He didn't scold him — He showed up with evidence. What does that response tell us about how Jesus handles honest doubt or hard questions?
6
In John 20:29, Jesus calls those who believe without seeing 'truly blessed,' and the message connected that directly to seeking Jesus through His Word. How might a community like ours actually live that out together — not just as individuals, but as a group?

Pray together

Ask God to meet us where we actually are — in grief, in fear, or in honest doubt — and to send us forward as people carrying the good news of forgiveness into the world around us.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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New Life Group Study

Week 3 · 2 messages

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