Easter Sunday

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

For centuries, Christians have had a call and response that we do for Easter, and I would like to do that this morning, the call and response goes like this. I say, he is risen, and you guys say, he is risen indeed, but you have to say it like you mean it. So we're just gonna do it a few times, okay? So just, anytime I do it once, you do it once, here we go, you ready? He is risen. He is risen indeed. We've walked through the pain of the cross. We've read the dismay of the burial, but the reason that we are here is we are celebrating the resurrection. He is risen. This morning, Christians in the Czech Republic, in Chile, in Chad, and in China, are all celebrating the glorious triumph of our Savior and our King. He is risen today. I want you to turn to Luke 24. We are gonna be looking at the resurrection. It's a very familiar story, and this morning, what I wanna do is I wanna notice

a few things that are there. Even a few things that we had in our scripture reading before that, there's just these moments that I wanna make sure that, as we're reading this resurrection story, we don't forget it, we don't miss it. So we're gonna start on Luke 24, and we're gonna be mostly there, and we're gonna just be kind of going through it. We're not gonna read every verse, don't worry.

We're gonna start in Luke 24, and start in verses four and five, and this is where the ladies have come to the tomb. There are three women, they have come to the tomb, and they have found that the stone is rolled away. They found the stone is rolled away, and they are a bit confused. So it says in Luke chapter 24, verses four through five, and you can always read the scriptures up here or in your Bibles or on your phone. It says, while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel, and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the man said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? Now this is an interesting thing for an angel to say. Normally, when an angel comes, they aren't asking questions. Normally, when an angel comes, the word angel means messenger. It's exactly what it means. Angulos in the Greek means messenger.

Angel's just a word that we use to differentiate God's messengers from other random messengers in the Bible. So when that messenger comes, it's an interesting thing that he starts with a question. Usually, they just announce things, but it really does set the tone for the rest. So it goes further. Look at verses six and seven. This is the angel still speaking. He says, he is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise. Now I wanna point something out to you. We're gonna see this all over Luke 24. We saw it in some of the verses that we read before. The angel isn't announcing anything. The angel is saying remember.

The angel's not giving new information at this point. No, no, no, no, no, like yeah, he's risen, but he already told you that. Remember how he told you is how the angel kind of begins this helping the women understand like what's going on. And so even in announcing, right, it's still remember and this is the opposite of how a lot of us pray. When we pray, we are often looking for something new. Right, when we pray, we want a new decision. We want a new direction. We want a new solution. We want a new life. We want a new way forward in a way that maybe we can't see. We're looking for something new. And sometimes that is how God responds. In Isaiah 43, for example, it says God says, behold, I'm doing a new thing. So I'm not saying God doesn't do things new, but the truth is that when you look at Jesus' life and ministry and really when you look at a lot of the Old Testament, a lot of the New Testament,

that is all full of remembering. Mark 8, Jesus says, remember the loaves and the fish and believe that I can provide bread. In John 2, Jesus is flipping temple tables and the disciples remembered in that moment and believed that Jesus was fulfilling the Old Testament. In Matthew 26, Peter remembered Jesus' words whenever the rooster crowed three times and he believed that Jesus was the Son of God.

John 16, Jesus says, I'm telling you these things now so that you will remember and believe that your suffering is not in vain. Acts 11, Peter sees outsiders becoming Christians and he remembers Jesus' words. It says he remembers Jesus' words and he begins to believe that this is truly the Holy Spirit making people new. Ephesians 2, as followers of Jesus, we are encouraged to remember that we were at once, at one time we were outsiders, we were alienated and we are to believe that Jesus has made us new and brought us in. Second Timothy two, remember the words I preach to you and believe, believe that it is enough to spend your life on it. Remember, Jesus told his disciples specifically, I'm not always going to be here to teach and to reteach and to continually connect the dots for you. Hang on to what I'm saying, hang on to what I'm giving you now, store it away so that when later you can remember

and believe, you can remember and believe. The angels here are telling the ladies that are visiting the gravesite to remember and this is how Jesus often works with us. We come to him, we're looking for something new and Jesus is saying, look, I'm working with you but I'm leaving you things to jog your memory. I'm putting things in your way to make you think I'm not always gonna just spell out it with something completely new. Very often Jesus is going to use a sermon, he's going to use a piece of scripture, he's gonna use a bumper sticker, he's gonna use a sunrise and he's gonna jog our memory and we're gonna think, okay, yeah, I remember. I remember what Jesus was telling me. I remember back whenever that happened. I remember Jesus' faithfulness that I'd forgotten. I remember those things. This is how Jesus works with us and many times when we are trying to follow Jesus as his disciples,

if we are living in communion with him, very often it is not a matter of discovering something new, it is a matter of remembering and believing. Let me say that one more time. When you are following Jesus, a lot of times it's not a wave after wave of just new things, it is remembering and believing. Not everybody remembers and not everybody believes whenever they should. In fact, as we read Luke 24, we're gonna see a lot of different ways that people can respond to remembering. Remember Jesus is leaving things to jog their memory and so there's these two angels at the graveside, so these two women there at the graveside, the look for Jesus and the angels simply say, remember, and then Luke 24, eight through nine.

And they remembered his words. The women remembered his words. And returning from the tomb, they told all these things to be 11 and to all the rest. The women knew the truth but it had to click into place. They knew it in their heads, they got it, but it's like you're watching a movie and it has several plot twists in the movie and by the time you're on the third plot twist, you're like, I don't even know it's the same movie I'm watching, this is just crazy. What you do with that movie, a lot of times is you start it over and you watch the beginning again because when you watch the beginning again, you see it in a different way because you know what's coming.

When you watch it again, it clicks into place. You start to pick up little details that you missed, you start to understand why somebody said something. It clicks into place. A lot of times when it comes to remembering something like the women at the graveside, we grow up our whole lives and we hear the gospel in a couple of different ways and maybe for some of you, it never really clicked until, it never clicked until you had kids. It never clicked until you had specific life experiences. It never clicked until you became a teenager. It never clicked until you got married. It never clicked until, it never clicked until and sometimes you know the truth and it's just kind of there and it's hanging out and you would not disagree with it but sometimes it just has to click into place and when it does, sometimes that even feels like you believe for the very first time.

When it does, when it clicks into place, you're like, man, was I even a Christian before? I don't even know because it feels so different. Clicked into place, the women remembered and believed. What about the rest of the disciples? Let's look at Luke 24, 10 through 11. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary, the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. These are all the women that were at the graveside. Now they're coming to the apostles. Says, but these words seem to them, the apostles, an idle tale and they did not believe them. Seemed like to them, this was some women stirring up some drama.

This seemed like an idle tale. Like you needed something to do. You were a little bored, you went to the graveside, maybe you hallucinated, maybe something happened. The tough thing about the gospel in Burleson, Texas, in the Bible Belt South is that you hear it so much. You see it demonstrated in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it is easy to pass it off as just somebody stirring up some drama. It's stirring it up, it's attributing it to something that people need to believe in. They need to believe in something and they need to believe in something that makes them feel good and so then gospel. That the people are just hanging onto it or you're trying to re-explain whatever's going on by sociology or by psychology. You're just trying to explain it from a purely human perspective.

The disciples know Jesus's words. But when they hear them, when the women go to them and repeat what the angel said to them, remember Jesus's words? They don't believe. The disciples have maybe another explanation for what's really true. Except for one, there was one disciple. We see in Luke 24, 12, all the disciples were believing in idle tale but Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stopping and looking in. He saw the linen cloths by themselves and he went home marveling at what had happened. Peter remembers but we don't really know if he believes right now. We know he's amazed that something happened at a grave site.

We know that he has some evidence of a missing body but it seems like he's continuing on. So he remembers, he doesn't believe, but he needs a few reassurances. And for some, Jesus leaves things to jog your memory and you are kind of on that journey and this is kind of what you do, right? Jesus leaves things to jog your memory, you hear something, you think of something, maybe you're inspired by something and you go into research mode. You go into research mode. Some of you cannot buy a coffee pot unless you have researched the entire thing and get like the 15 page report. You're like, okay, this is the best one. Okay, Aaron Peltier, I'm looking at you, buddy. Okay, some of you have a problem.

We can talk about it after the service, okay, buddy. You need, if you're gonna follow Jesus, then you need some irrefutable evidence. You need something to hang on to. You need some substance. You need some, you need something that is verifiable. You need to know, is this Jesus calling you or is this your mind playing tricks on you? What is this? So for some of you, the truth clicks into place. For some of you, blow it off like the disciples. Some of you looking for assurances like Peter. So let's keep reading. We're gonna see two more responses to remember and believe.

We're gonna jump down to verse 13. Actually, we're gonna start reading in verse 13, there are two of these disciples. So these 11 disciples and many others hear the testimony of the women and two of that group of people, we don't know who, two of them begin to walk to a place called Emmaus. So they're walking on the road to Emmaus, which is a nearby town. And Jesus meets them there on the road to Emmaus. He just kind of like, you know. But they don't know it's him. Scripture says that their eyes were blinded. They couldn't see that it was Jesus in front of them. And so they begin talking with Jesus about how they're depressed and about how their savior has been crucified and is buried.

And they're still talking. In verse 21, we kind of pick up where, this is the mood right here of these two that are walking to Emmaus, Luke 24, 21. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Listen to that sadness. We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things have happened. So a ton of resignation in their tone. And now it's the third day. So this is interesting because it seems like they're remembering something, okay? Maybe they're not sure, maybe, but they know the third day, something should be triggering their memory, something should be kind of ringing about that. They remembered something. But look, it doesn't stop there. Verse 22 through 23, it says, moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning. And when they did not find his body,

they came back saying that he had, that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. So this is what these people are, you've got two on the road to Emmaus and they've got angels on their brain, they've got these women on their brain, they've seen things, they know it's the third day. They've got everything kind of right in front of them. Even Peter, he went to go check it out, but things weren't conclusive. So you have these two disciples, they have it all in front of them. So they know, they had the reminders, they had the testimony and they are still missing it. Not only can they not see Jesus right in front of their faces, but spiritually, they're also blind to the fact that something else is going on that's super wonderful, that's actually kind of the solution to what they're dealing with. They don't need to be depressed, but they can't see it.

It's all in front of you. Some of you this morning, you have it all in front of you. You have all you need and more. You know the gospel truth, you've heard it. You have friends who follow Jesus that are authentic, that are trying to follow the Lord. And you feel Jesus calling you out personally to follow him, but you are not respondent. You don't, you just ignore that. And you're frustrated and you feel a little bit lost. You feel a little bit depressed. Or maybe you just feel a little bored or you feel really tired all the time. This is what Jesus says. Let's listen to Jesus in verse 25 and 26.

It says, and he said to them, oh foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory. Jesus says, it's right in front of you. You got it all in front of you guys and you're whiffing. So what does he do next? He goes to scripture, look at verse 27. Jesus says, in beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. What Jesus does, this is really, really interesting here. What Jesus does, he doesn't like peer through the veil and say like, ah, it's me the whole time. He doesn't do that to these two that are walking through. They still don't know it's Jesus, still, just so we're clear. But what does Jesus do? Jesus opens up the scriptures to them. Starts with Moses and all the prophets.

And he says, look, all of this is pointing toward a savior king. All of this is pointing toward a messiah who is going to change everything and it's me. He's not saying it's me because he doesn't know it's them yet, they don't know it's him yet. Jesus actually tells a parable that is similar to this or kind of about this, he tells it's called a parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Okay, so it's ironic that Lazarus the poor man is named and the rich man is not, but that's fine. So Jesus tells this parable and in the parable, this is the very short version, the rich man is condemned to hell and after seeing how bad hell is, after seeing how bad it is to not be in paradise, he asks Abraham, who's there in the parable, he asks Abraham to go back and warn his brothers. He says, Abraham, I've got seven brothers who live basically, who live just like I lived. I need to go back to them as a ghost

and warn them not to live the life I'm going to live and the response is so interesting to me. The response is, look, even if you came back as a ghost, they wouldn't believe you. They've got the law and the prophets, they've got the Bible, they've got the Old Testament, they have everything they need at their disposal. If they don't have, if they're not responding to what's in front of them with the Old Testament and the prophets, if they're not responding to scripture, then even a ghost coming back wouldn't help them. There was a friend of mine, his name's Brandon, he's in Louisiana, we were friends a really long time ago. He's a theoretical physicist and he's a university professor and he's also a Malthusian atheist, which is kind of the worst kind, okay, the militant kind. Okay, so if you're a Malthusian atheist today, you know, God bless you.

I hope you hear this with love, but this guy was definitely not believing, right, basically. That's really what I want to point out to you. But we talked all the time and we were talking about what it is to believe in Jesus, what it is to, is Jesus real, things like that. And he said, and I said, finally, I said, Brandon, what would it take for you to believe in Jesus? And he goes, look, you strap a heartbeat, like a monitor, that's called something, anyway, the thing that takes your heartbeat, that, and he goes, you strap that to your arm and then you pray for your heartbeat to decrease to 45 beats a minute, I don't know, he said a number that was really low or really high, I don't remember, but it was kind of exaggerated. And I said, so if I do that and I pray and that happens, you'll believe? He said, yeah, I said, there's no way. I said, you would have another explanation for that.

You would think I learned a trick to get my heartbeat down or up, I don't remember what it is. I said, dude, if you prayed for that chair to levitate for three minutes and then go back down and that happened, you would still have another explanation. You'd be waving your hand above it for wires. You would seek another explanation because you don't want the explanation that I'm giving you. You don't want the truth. Sometimes, especially in Bible Belt Burleson, man, we are inundated, so inundated with the truth that we think we know it, but we don't believe it, not really, we don't live by it.

We don't respond to it. If that's you, man, if you're just feeling frustrated or depressed or lost, tired or something, man, look to the scriptures. Study it with somebody. Remember, take the time to remember what you've learned before if you already know it. Man, read the story of Jonah and the big fish, okay? Read the story of the patriarchs in Genesis. Read the story of the resurrection.

Read and remember. I don't care if you read the story a thousand times, man, when you read it again, there is gonna be something in it that the Lord is gonna use to speak to you through that. I don't think there's anything magical about a Bible, by the way, I mean, this is literally ink on paper bound by leather, this is all that is, but what Jesus promises to do, what the Holy Spirit says he's going to do as we read that, that is amazing, that is a wonderful, miraculous thing that the Lord God in heaven chooses to speak to us through the scriptures. Seek out Jesus in the scriptures. Let's look in the last one. This is Jesus near the end of Luke 24. He has left things for the disciples to remember, and they haven't. He's opened up the scriptures to two of them, they still didn't really see them and believe. We don't ever get in that two that are going to Emmaus,

we don't ever get this moment where they're like, oh, yeah, except after Jesus leaves. So Jesus leaves, so none of the disciples have seen and believe in Jesus at the same time. Like it's just a lot there. So what happens? Luke 24, 36 through 37. As they, the disciples, were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said peace to you, and look at their reaction, but they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit ghost, okay? They thought they saw a ghost.

Maybe they thought they were having the same delusion that the women were having at the grave site. The disciples here are skittish. And really, let me just offer a little bit of, can you really blame them, right? They followed a guy around for three years, two and a half years, and they believed that he was the Messiah, and they watched him die. That's a big deal. That's your whole life going down the toilet.

That is amazing loss and trauma. On a level, I think that many of us can't really understand. And so could it be true that he's actually alive? This should really be an encouragement for us. We'll see why, let's look at the next couple of verses, 38 and 39. And he said to them, why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your heart? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. So the disciples here, they finally remember, they finally, but they still doubt. They're still afraid, they're still skittish. And really, if we're reading Luke 24, the disciples seem like they're the toughest ones to reach. The guys that should have been first in line, like yeah, you said it a couple of times, and now we remember, and we believe, and we're in line, we're first. No, man, they're like, they are lagging behind.

That should be an encouragement to us. Because sometimes, man, it seems like we should've known. We should've been there. We should've been the first ones in line. And what does Jesus do? Here's the actual encouragement. Not just that we can relate to the disciples. Here's the actual encouragement, because the encouragement comes from what Jesus does. Jesus presses in. He opens himself up to examination. He says, look, I'm not flesh and blood. I'm not a spirit. Look at verses 41 through 43. It says, and while they still disbelieved for joy, and we're marveling, okay, that's disbelieving for joy is kind of like saying that like, that's not even possible, but you're watching. Okay, they still disbelieved for joy, and were marveling. He said to them, have you anything to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it before them. Some of you today are suffering doubt, frustration,

or you feel like God left you, or God betrayed you. Let me just tell you, that's a very common feeling. The events of our lives can make it very difficult to remember and believe. People go through things that are very difficult, and sometimes it takes a couple years to recover. We got a couple of people in our church. That's their testimony. There's the, look, I was blown and going with Jesus, and then my life got derailed, and I wasn't really sure about him for a while.

But this is what Jesus does, right? He doesn't just say, oh, okay, you're skittish. Well, I'm skittish too. Okay, you're doubting, well, now I'm not sure I wanna be here either. That's not what Jesus does, right? Jesus presses in. He's like, look, look, I'm really flesh and bone. Do you have a piece of fish? Can I have a piece of fish? I wanna show you. Look at the scars in my hands and my feet. Feel them. Jesus isn't acting desperate. This is normal pursuit. This is what Jesus does. Jesus, look, if you follow Jesus today, man, that is a, I'm so thankful, but you aren't following Jesus today because you're smart. You didn't, you're not following Jesus today because somehow your heritage put you in a position that made it easy to follow Jesus. You're not following Jesus today because you're moral. Or because you live in a specific area, or anything like that. The only thing, the only reason that you and I

are following Jesus today, if you are following Jesus, is because he pursued you. It's because he reached out and he made you alive. That's it. There is a way to follow Jesus that where you think like you have to hold up your end of the bargain. And that's not the gospel. That's not the resurrection. That's not what we see. Jesus here is unafraid of your pain or your doubt, your struggle, he's unafraid of all those things and he stands before all of us continually in a pursuing fashion and he says, remember and believe. Remember and believe. If you are seeking out Jesus today and you are looking for something new, if in your prayer life you're saying, man, if I just had a new this, if I just had a new that, if I just had a new direction, if I just had a breakthrough here at work, I want you to ask yourself first, is there something for you to remember and believe?

Do you need it to click in place? Is it a little fuzzy? Do you want to believe? Are you wary? Are you doubting? Are you hurt? Jesus pursued all of us. Some of you are just like those two on the road to Emmaus. You got it all in front of you. And you're just not really sure you want to take that step. Here's how he deals with the disciples. Hurting, skeptical, afraid, Jesus says to them, we'll close with this, Jesus says to them in Luke 24, 44, then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the songs must be fulfilled. Jesus is saying to them, without saying these words, he's saying to them, remember and believe. Look back, find it. It's always been there, remember and believe. And then verse 45 and 46, it says, then he opened their mind to understand the scriptures

and he said to them, thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and in the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. Jesus is revealed through the scriptures. Read and remember and believe. Read and hear what Jesus is saying to you through his word. Look, I'm not making any of this up, right? This is just stuff that's been in the Bible for a couple of thousand years. We're just, all we're doing today is reading and remembering. We're reading and observing. Today I wanna encourage you, just in our time of response, I wanna encourage you.

Today, I wanna challenge you actually, I want you to challenge you to read Luke 24. We just went through the whole chapter, right? So it might be a little familiar. Read Luke 24 today as a family. Read it and remember and see what the Lord's saying. Do that today. This week, I want you to take time to read and remember what Jesus has shown you. If you need to start somewhere, read Galatians and learn about how Jesus has set you free. Read Ephesians and learn about your identity in Christ. Start somewhere but read and remember and believe. Let's pray together. Jesus, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the opportunity to remember and believe. We pray that as we are just kind of having Easter,

all the family obligations, all of the meals that have to be ready on time, just all those things. I pray that you just quiet our minds, that you would help us just in this moment to respond to you, help us to listen to you. In the name of Jesus, amen. In the name of Jesus, amen. During our time of response, we have a song that we sing and then our service is over. I'm gonna be at the couch and the chairs over there in the back. If you want to pray, if you wanna have questions answered, if you wanna talk about something, man, just go back there. You can go back during the last song, you can go back after the song, I'm just gonna be hanging out there and I'd love to help you kind of take that next step, whatever that is. Let's stand.