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[audio:http://hillcc.org/sermons/SWS042014.MP3]Sermon Outline
Text: Luke 24:36-49
Luke 24:36-37
- Picture the scene – Jesus has just been executed on a cross, crucified horrifically, brutally
- The disciples are in despair, many fled during the arrest of Jesus, now their leader is gone
- Confused, troubled, grieving, a group of them gathers to console one another and to figure out what to do from here
- Remember, they gave up everything to follow this man and now he’s dead
- Suddenly, in the midst of swirling emotions, Jesus stands among them. He says, Peace to you
- And it says, they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost
- This is a very dignified and composed way of expressing what really happened
I grew up watching a fair amount of horror movies
- I don’t recommend this
- Esp now that I’m a Christian – learned about spiritual battle, Satan, demons
- This stuff is real, better be careful
- Just to say, I don’t scare very easily
But put yourself in the shoes of these disciples
- What if we were hanging out after service and then suddenly, a figure appeared right in the middle of the sanctuary?
- What would be our reaction?
- I don’t think you would describe your reaction as being “startled”
- You’re startled when you’re out jogging and a dog suddenly barks at you from behind a fence
- This scene is more than a little startling
- A modern day translation would be, Jesus stood among them and everyone was Freaking Out!
- Earlier in his testimony, David mentioned being a Christ-like man of God, but I wonder what he would do if a figure suddenly appeared
- I bet him and Joel and a bunch of single men would be climbing over infants and pushing aside expectant mothers as they stampeded toward the door
- Understandably, the disciples were terrified and they thought they were seeing a ghost
The work of God is always like this
- It’s as if you are seeing a ghost, it’s so terrifying, so odd, so out of this world
- Yet there is a peace that draws you
- That’s the work of the Holy Spirit
- You used to be so skeptical, so hardened, so convinced that Jesus is just like any other human
- Then, suddenly, He shows up in your life and you resist, yet eventually, Jesus draws you to Himself
- This is the work of the Holy Spirit
Let’s look at how Jesus engages people and meets them where they are
- For some of the women who saw Jesus at the empty tomb, they’re already convinced – Jesus is resurrected! They came running to tell the rest of the disciples.
Some are not as convinced.
- Luke 24:38-40
- The initial shock has worn off. many are starting to believe it’s really Jesus
- They saw him die on a cross 3 days earlier and now he is really standing among them
- But others still doubt
- Doubt is okay
- Jesus is not discouraged by our doubt
- If you are having your doubts this afternoon, don’t turn away from Jesus
- Be encouraged because He sees your doubt and comes after you
- Some must have been doubting – is this a ghost, is this a figment of our imagination, are we just using Jesus as some kind of emotional crutch?
- You might think, if Jesus showed up in the flesh right here, right now, I would believe
- If Jesus does something miraculous right in front of me, I would believe
- Maybe, but maybe not
I can’t think of a better situation for people to believe that Jesus really is the Son of God than this
- Jesus, the man they saw bleed and die, the man whose body was placed in a tomb, has just arrived, not just to a single person because individuals can claim that they received divine revelation but there is no one to validate their experience
- But this is a room full of people, Jesus is appearing before them simultaneously
- Can you think of a better situation for saving faith to be born?
- Yet, some doubted
I love that Jesus is not discouraged by your doubt
- Why does he say to those doubting?
- See my hands and feet, remember the nails that pierced them for your sin, look
- Come and touch them
And just in case there were people still on the fence, he asks for food
- Luke 24:41-43
- If there were some who were still clinging to their unbelief after Jesus suddenly appeared, now they have seen the scars on his hands and feet
- They’ve touched his hands and feet
- Now they see a piece of fish disappearing right in front of them
- Jesus is not a ghost
- During certain religious rituals when you leave food out for your deceased ancestors, But I’ve never heard of a case where a grandmother who died showed up and ate the food
- I think if the food disappeared while you were watching, you’d be sufficiently freaked out and I’d bet that you wouldn’t try that again
- On Christmas Eve, kids put out milk and cookies for Santa and the next morning, they wake up and it’s gone and they are so overjoyed–Santa was here
- But we all know that Mom and Dad ate the cookies and drank the milk
Jesus is not a ghost
- This is not the figment of someone’s imagination
- This is not a private revelation to a single person
- This is Jesus, the Son of God, in his glorified state, with a resurrection body intersecting our physical reality
- This is holes in hands and feet, fish eating flesh and blood appearance before not just one person, not just a dozen people, but Jesus appearing to hundreds and hundreds of people over 40 days after he rose from the grave
This is a historical event
- The Roman Emperor was so threatened by this growing movement of Christians that they had Christians burned and beheaded and burned alive and torn to pieces by lions, yet these Christians were fearless
- If Jesus has taken the sting out of death and he has conquered sin and death on the cross by overcoming death itself by resurrecting from the dead, what do we have to fear
- I have absolutely no fear of death
- God could take me right now and I’d be at peace, I’m ready to go
- These early Christians risked their lives and many died
- It takes so much work for the Roman Empire to send out soldiers and round up Christians and persecute them
- If they wanted to stop the Christian movement, all they needed to do was to produce the body
- You say your leader is alive, well, you’re lying, here’s his body
- But they couldn’t because the tomb was empty
What were those first century Christians so passionate about to the point of death and what do Christians over two thousand years later still to this day proclaim?
- The answer is in Luke 24:44-47.
- For the Christian, the main message that we proclaim is the gospel of Jesus Christ
- You can’t understand the Bible without seeing how everything points to Christ
- God created humanity to be in loving relationship with us
- But Sin entered and the relationship of love between God and man was destroyed
- God sent priests and kings and prophets to get rebellious man to repent and turn back to God
- But humanity kept rebelling
- So God has no choice to send His one and only Son, Jesus Christ
- Jesus preached and healed and served and loved and he had the same message as the messengers of God sent before him–you need to repent because the kingdom of God is near
You would think, okay, humans for generations might reject human messengers, but surely they would respond to the Son of God
- A man of such compassion and miraculous power and authoritative teaching, surely they would repent
- Instead of repenting, they nailed him to the cross
- That’s Good Friday
- But thank the Lord that Friday is not the end of the story
- Easter Sunday has come
- Jesus overcame your sin and mine by resurrecting 3 days later
- God did all of this for you
- If you are a parent, can you think of something more painful than losing your child?
- God loves you THIS much to send His one Son to die on a cross
Luke 24:48-49
- Christianity is not blind optimism
- Christians are witnesses
- You can’t see you are a witness unless you saw or heard something
- Like a witness at an accident
- Likewise, for a Christian, we are witnesses of something supernatural
- We have seen things and heard things
Thomas refused to believe in Jesus until he became a literal witness of his scars
- Thomas wasn’t there during Jesus’ initial post-resurrection appearance
- The disciples told Thomas, man, you missed it! Jesus showed up!
- But Thomas refused to believe – If I don’t see the nail marks and I don’t touch his hands and side, I won’t believe
- So Jesus appeared a second time to the disciples in John 20 and this time, his focus was Thomas
- Thomas gets his wish–he gets to put his finger in the hole in his hands and he gets to touch his side
- Thomas finally believes, he says, My Lord and my God!
Jesus responds in John 20:29
- Who is Jesus talking about here?
- He’s talking about you and me
- He says, you and I are blessed because we believe even though we did not see
- We are blessed because of our faith
- We were not there in that room with the other disciples in 33AD when Jesus first appeared
- In that sense, we have not seen Jesus physically
- But that does not mean that we are not witnesses
There’s that adage, Seeing is believing
- Many things we believe that we cannot see
- Gravity, Wind, Love
- You see the effects
Listening to David and Jimmy’s testimonies
- They were witnesses of God speaking through His Word
- Through conversations with people
- Answered prayer
- God even intervening into Google’s search algorithm and displaying results which were not there a day earlier
I, too, am a witness
- I have heard the voice of God, not audibly but there were times when I heard the Word so clearly, it felt like there was a spotlight on me and I was the only one in the room
- That’s the work of the Spirit
- After certain messages when I was a young baby Christian, I remember literally being unable to move, in a puddle of tears, cleaning up after me
- Such a strong sense of the Holy Spirit convicting me of sin
- That’s the work of the Spirit
- I remember the call of God to become a pastor in 1996 as I prayed about my future upon graduation
- I believe that was from God
- I remember some incredible answers to prayer, medical miracles, amazing provisions
- I remember witnessing the miracle of salvation, people you never thought would come to faith in Christ, like a Tokyo University japanese grad student who never even heard the name of Jesus before he met me
- I remember God’s intervention through doctor’s who diagnosed Jeremiah’s kawasaki and he got discharged from the hospital on the very first weekend we met as a church in Pasadena
- I’ve been witnesses of God throughout the years
- And I know there is so much more of God to experience so that I can be a better witness
Luke 24:48-49
- You’ve heard the Word of God preached
- Some of you will hear this word and say, Amen, I am a witness
- Some of you will hear the same word and say, what’s the big deal? What’s for dinner?
- What’s the difference? The Holy Spirit
- Maybe today the Holy Spirit will come from on high and will descend upon you for the first time
- Maybe He will open your eyes to the truth and beauty of Jesus
- Maybe He will convict you of your sin and your need for a Savior
- Maybe the Spirit will come like a wind and you can’t explain it
- You don’t know where it came from or where it’s going
- You just see the effects
- Effects: your heart melting, God touching you, it’s like a fire has descended into the core of your being, he is forgiving you, you’re terrified yet there is a peace
- This is the supernatural, saving work of the Holy Spirit
Every day, for the Christian, we must be in a posture of waiting for this power from on high
- So that we can have real testimonies that God is real
- He answers my prayers
- He’s healed me
- He’s delivered me from addictions
- He’s changed my life
- And He can do the same for you