The Gardener
Dr. Chris Montgomery
John 20:1-18 | April 5, 2026
1. What you think about when you think about God is the most important thought of your life.
2. My dominant image of God shapes everything.
(John 20:14-15) She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?” She thought he was the gardener. “Sir,” she said, “if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”
3. God created people to live in a garden.
(Genesis 2:8) Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made.
(Jeremiah 29:5) Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens and eat the food they produce.
4. Our lives were meant to look like a healthy garden.
(Isaiah 58:11) The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden…
5. Our sin separated us from God’s garden.
(Genesis 3:23) So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden…
6. God’s kingdom looks like a healthy garden.
(Isaiah 61:11) The Sovereign Lord will show his justice to the nations of the world. Everyone will praise him! His righteousness will be like a garden in early spring, with plants springing up everywhere.
(Luke 13:19) It is like a tiny mustard seed that a man planted in a garden; it grows and becomes a tree, and the birds make nests in its branches.
(John 15:1, 5) I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener… I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
7. Jesus went through the garden so that we could come into the garden.
(Matthew 26:36) Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.”
(John 19:41) The place of crucifixion was near a garden, where there was a new tomb…
(Revelation 22:1-2) Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations.
8. Jesus reversed and restored what sin had separated and broken.
(1 Corinthians 15:21-22) So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life.