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Please turn in your Bibles to
the Gospel of Luke. We're going to look at the penultimate
study in Luke today, in Luke chapter 24, verses 36 through
49. And you should find this on page 885 in the Bible in front
of you. I recall that Jesus was crucified
on Friday, that was Nisan 14 in 30 AD, and he was buried in
Joseph of Nicodemus' tomb before sundown on that same day. But
just three days later, on the first day of the week, that is
on Sunday, at early dawn, several women went to the tomb, taking
spices that they had prepared in order to anoint the body of
Jesus. They found the stone rolled away
from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the
body of the Lord Jesus. In fact, two angels were there
and they told the perplexed woman, why do you seek the living among
the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Luke in his gospel in chapter
24 actually provides four evidences for the resurrection of Jesus.
The first evidence for the resurrection was the empty tomb. The second
evidence was the angelic announcement. The third evidence was Jesus'
appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And the
fourth evidence of his resurrection was his appearance to his disciples
back in Jerusalem. And that all took place on that
first day, Sunday. Today, we're gonna look at that
fourth evidence. And I invite you to stand as
I read to you about Jesus' appearance to his disciples in Jerusalem
in Luke chapter 24, verses 36 through 49. Our two amazed disciples had
gone back to Jerusalem. They had told all the disciples
in Jerusalem what they had seen, that they'd seen Jesus alive.
And so we pick up the story in verse 36. And as they were talking
about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to
them, peace to you. But they were startled and frightened
and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, Why are
you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your
hearts? 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. And when
he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while
they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to
them, have you anything here to eat? They gave him a piece
of broiled fish and he took it and ate it before them. 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 Psalms must be fulfilled. Then
he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them,
thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third
day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of
sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning
from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things
and behold I'm sending the promise of my father upon you. but stay
in the city until you are closed with power from on high." Just
so far in God's inspired and inerrant Word. Our Father, we
do thank you for your word. Thank you for Luke's faithful
and accurate writing down of all that happened to Jesus prior
to his birth, his birth, his life, his death, his burial,
and now these resurrection appearances. As we look at this today, help
us to understand that Jesus really is alive and that he has empowered
us to tell others about him. And I pray all of this in Jesus'
name. Amen. My former pastor, Lee Eklav,
said that someone dear to him once gave him a little cross
that was adorned with roses, and it bore on the cross the
following inscription that said, hope raises no dust. He looked at that phrase and
tried his best to penetrate its mystery, but he didn't want to
look stupid, so he didn't say anything. after pondering it
for a little while, he just had to get to the bottom of what
it meant. It had been written on a cross
and so it had to mean something. When he typed, hope raises no
dust into the Google search engine, he found out that the phrase
was originally uttered by Paul Eluard, a French poet associated
with Dadaism. When he looked up Dadaism, he
found this definition. The Dada movement tried to express
the negation of all current aesthetic and social values and frequently
used deliberately incomprehensible artistic and literary methods.
If you don't understand what that means, you're not alone. Lee then read some of Eluard's
other famous quotes. Quotes like, elephants are contagious. and earth is blue like an orange. And all of this brought him back
to hope raises no dust. You see, everyone believes that
hope is vital to people, but most folks hope is about as vague
as the Eluard quote that was painted on that little cross.
But for Christians, hope is not vague. We have a hope that is
historical and personal. We have a hope that stands in
front of the empty tomb of the empty grave of Jesus and declares,
you too can live as Jesus does. Jesus was crucified, died, and
was buried on Friday. Just three days later, on Sunday
morning, He was raised back to life again by His Father. And on that first day, that first
Sunday, Jesus showed Himself to be alive on at least five
occasions. Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene,
to the other woman, to Peter, to the two disciples who were
returning from Jerusalem back to Emmaus later on that same
day, and then finally later that evening to the disciples back
in Jerusalem again. Jesus' appearance to the disciples
in Jerusalem in Luke chapter 24 verses 36 through 49 shows
us how they came to recognize that Jesus was indeed alive. And so I want us to begin by
looking first at the reappearance of Jesus. Now, in the previous
pericope, the previous story, narrative, where Jesus appeared
to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, they were walking
along and went into the house with Jesus. And it was in the
house that they finally recognized him. And when they did, Jesus
vanished from their sight. And so they immediately turned
around and headed straight back to Jerusalem, a journey of about
seven miles. And when they arrived in Jerusalem,
they found the eleven, and those who were with them gathered together,
saying, The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon. Now I want you to notice that
Luke said that the two Emmaus disciples found the eleven. Presumably, the eleven apostles,
Judas Iscariot has by now committed suicide, and the eleven disciples
were there, the eleven apostles were there, some other disciples
as well, but presumably Thomas was so disbelieving that he left
the room and wasn't there because Jesus only appeared to him eight
days later when he was with the other disciples at that time. And so the two Emmaus disciples
told the others what had happened on the road and how Jesus was
known to them in the breaking of the bread. Now, the other
disciples in Jerusalem must have listened to the report of the
two Emmaus disciples with complete bewilderment. By now they knew
that the tomb was empty, as Peter and John had gone and seen for
themselves. The women had gone to the tomb
and they saw that it was empty, but they also had seen Jesus
alive and had reported that to the rest of the disciples. And
the thing is that the disciples were not expecting Jesus to be
resurrected back to life again. In those days, the Jews believed
that there would be a resurrection, but they thought that resurrection
would be at the end of the age, when everybody would be raised
back to life again. And so they weren't expecting
Him to be raised back to life, and they were having a hard time
understanding what was going on. And then, As they were talking
about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to
them, Peace to you, Shalom. Now one can understand the shock
of the disciples at seeing Jesus. As Daryl Bach notes, they do
not expect Jesus to be raised, nor do they expect him to keep
reappearing. As with most people, they have
to be persuaded. The disciples are as skeptical
as the rest of humanity. And that's very important. These
weren't gullible, simple-minded fishermen. They didn't believe
that this was going to happen then. And they had to be persuaded. And so I want us to notice the
reassurance that was given by Jesus that he was alive. Now first notice the panic of
the disciples in verse 37, that they were startled and frightened
and thought they saw a spirit. Unlike Jesus' appearance to the
two disciples on the road to Emmaus when he drew near and
went with them, Here, Jesus suddenly appeared in the room in the midst
of them all. One moment there was nothing
and the next moment there was Jesus standing in front of them. So one can understand that they
were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. My mother had a twin sister and
they were identical twins. In fact, I couldn't tell them
apart until I was about six years old. My aunt Caroline had a slight
beauty spot just above her left eyebrow. If my mom puts some
makeup on her eyebrow, I couldn't tell the two ladies apart, my
aunt Caroline and my mom Emily. And when we were preschoolers,
we used to live near my aunt Caroline, and my mom would often
take my brother and me to visit her. And while we were walking
through the town, we'd sometimes meet people who thought that
mom was aunt Caroline. And so they would engage mom
in conversation, and she would talk to them, and then at some
point they'd say, well, who are these boys? And she'd say, oh,
they're Emily's boys. And then she would go to my aunt,
and then they would try to figure out who it was that she had met
Apparently, the two girls did this all throughout their lives.
Well, mom died suddenly of a heart attack at age 46. At that time,
my brother and I were university students at the University of
Cape Town. We drove through the night to go back to our home,
and when we got there, we slept through the day. That evening,
people, family and friends started coming in to visit. My dad had
quite a large house and we were, I was in the kitchen talking
to some people and suddenly there was screaming coming from the
living room. And I wondered what it was and
I walked out into the living room and my aunt had walked in
and people didn't know that my mom had a twin sister. And so
you can imagine their shock and surprise when they saw my aunt
walk into the room. Friends, Jesus did not have an
identical twin. There's some people who try to
argue that. Nevertheless, the disciples in Jerusalem were startled
and frightened and thought they saw a spirit, but this was no
spirit that they saw. Because Jesus gave two proofs
that he was no spirit. The first proof was Jesus' invitation
to see his wounds and to touch him. And he said to them, Why
are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your
hearts? 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 I have. And when he said this, he showed
them his hands and his feet. Interestingly, Daryl Bach notes
only this passage and John chapter 20 verse 25 suggests that Jesus
was nailed to the cross. And furthermore, verse 39 is
the only text that describes the resurrected body as having
flesh and bones. What the disciples saw was no
spirit. It was no vision. It was no phantom. They were seeing and touching
the resurrected, glorified Lord Jesus Christ. But there was a
second proof. The second proof that Jesus really
was alive and risen from the dead was He's eating a piece
of broiled fish in their presence. And while they still disbelieved
for joy and were marveling, he said to them, have you anything
yet to eat? And they gave him a piece of
broiled fish and he took it and ate it before them. Jesus really
was alive. Luke demonstrated the reality
of Jesus' presence in the midst of his disciples by having Jesus
eat a piece of broiled fish. And Bach summarized the reality
of Jesus' resurrection as follows, and he said this, the empirical
evidence of Jesus' resurrection is stated briefly, Jesus appears
to them, speaks with them and eats before them truly he is
raised you know eight days later Jesus appeared to the disciples
again and this time Thomas was with them Thomas believed then
that Jesus really was alive and risen from the dead because he
said my Lord and my God and after Jesus had appeared to his disciples
None of the disciples ever again doubted the reality of Jesus'
resurrection. In fact, historians believe that
10 of the remaining 11 apostles died a martyr's death because
they were so convinced about the reality of Jesus' resurrection. The only one who did not die
a martyr's death was John, the Apostle John. Apparently, he
was supposedly put into a pot of boiling water, managed somehow
to survive that, and then he was banished to the Isle of Patmos. But the question is this, what
about you? Do you believe that on the third
day, Jesus rose again from the dead? It's essential that you
believe because the resurrection is part and parcel of the good
news. Because God the Father accepted
Jesus' sacrifice for sins. And the reason we know that he
accepted it is because he raised him back to life again. If Jesus
were not raised back to life again, we would have no assurance
that our sins were forgiven. Well, finally, I want us to observe
the revelation by Jesus. And Jesus began by first reviewing
his past ministry. He began to teach the disciples
as follows. 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 Psalms
must be fulfilled. Jesus' expression, the law of
Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms, is the way that Jews
in Jesus' day referred to what we now call the Old Testament,
the scriptures that they had. The law of Moses was the first
five books of Moses, what we call the Pentateuch. The prophets
included the major prophets, the minor prophets, and also
the historical books such as Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. And the Psalms included not only
the Psalms themselves, but also the wisdom books such as Job,
and Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs. And Kent Hughes makes a very
important observation at this point. He says, we must understand
that one of the reasons Jesus taught them from Scripture was
that he did not want them to rest their belief in his resurrection
on their personal experience alone. Resting their faith on
a miracle was not sufficient. He wanted them to ground their
experience or their experience of His resurrection on the massive
testimony and perspective of Scripture. I can't tell you how
important that is because too many people even today want a
miracle and then they believe they won't believe. Remember
when one of the parables Jesus said, send somebody, somebody
from the afterlife, send somebody back to my brothers, I've got
five brothers, and tell them that they believe. And Jesus
said, even if they go back, they won't believe. They've got the
scriptures. And Jesus grounds his resurrection
in the scriptures, and it's for our benefit. John the Apostle,
eight days later, when he sees Jesus, of course he sees him,
and he does experience the reality of the resurrection, but what
Jesus says to him, you're blessed because you see me and believe,
but blessed are those who do not see and believe. And friends, that's the Word
of God. Everything we need for salvation is in the Word of God. Jesus' point was that all of
the Old Testament is about Him. Phil Rikens said Jesus Christ
is the key to understanding the Old Testament. To know the Old
Testament or the Bible, actually it would be true as well, is
to know Jesus. And to know Jesus, one has to
know the Scripture. Luke said that then Jesus opened
their minds to understand the scriptures. Earlier that day,
Jesus had opened the mind of the two Emmaus disciples, and
they were able to recognize Jesus. And Luke noted that on two previous
occasions when Jesus was actually talking about his death and resurrection,
the disciples were having difficulty understanding spiritual truth.
In Luke 9 45 we read that the disciples did not understand
the saying and it was concealed from them so that they might
not perceive it and they were afraid to ask him about the saying. In Luke 18 verse 34 the disciples
understood none of these things. The saying was hidden from them
and they did not grasp what was said. But now Jesus opened their
minds to understand the scriptures. And what made the difference?
Phil Riken gives the answer when he says, what these men needed,
what everyone needs, is the mind-opening work of God. Christianity is
rational, but understanding the gospel is not merely intellectual. It takes a work of God for anyone
to know Jesus in a saving way. That's what we believe, that
it is God who has to open our minds so that we can understand
the gospel. When I was being interviewed
to serve as the pastor at my previous church, which is in
a university town, I noted that the church was filled with educated
people. In fact, the adult Sunday school
class of 20 adults had 12 of them with either doctorates or
they were doctoral candidates. And I was asked how I would preach
the gospel to intellectual academics. And my response was that the
ground at the foot of the cross is level. The gospel is so simple
that even a child can understand and embrace the gospel. Because
believing the gospel is not a matter of intellectual ability. Instead,
it is a matter of spiritual illumination which is given by God to anyone
who is humble enough to ask for it. So never think that you need
to have a certain intellectual ability to understand the gospel. Simply and humbly ask God to
open your mind so that you can understand the Scriptures. Jesus then continued, and he
said to them, thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer
on the third day, rise from the dead, and that repentance and
forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all
nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Daryl Bach says that Luke introduces
the basic content of the Scripture teaching on God's plan, that
is God's plan of redemption, summarized in three infinitives. And actually this is Luke's version
of the Great Commission which occurs in all of the Gospels
and also in the Book of Acts. Well, with respect to God's plan
of redemption, first thing is God's plan of redemption is that
the Christ should suffer. Jesus had frequently noted throughout
his ministry that he had to suffer. Jesus now reiterated the importance
of his suffering as part of God's plan of redemption. He had to
suffer and die to pay the penalty for our sin. Second, God's plan
of redemption is that the Christ should, on the third day, rise
from the dead. And again, throughout His ministry,
Jesus had indicated on a number of occasions that not only would
He rise from the dead, but that He would rise on the third day. And Jesus' resurrection is an
essential part of the good news of salvation. God had accepted
His sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sins by raising Him from
the dead. And then third, God's plan of
redemption is that repentance and forgiveness of sins should
be proclaimed in His name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. The good news of the gospel is
that Jesus paid the penalty for sin, and now sinners who repent
of their sin and turn to God in faith will receive forgiveness
of their sins. This is good news, not only for
us who repent and believe and receive forgiveness for our sins,
but it is also good news that is to be proclaimed to all nations. beginning from Jerusalem. So if you have repented of your
sins and received forgiveness of your sins, then you, you are
commissioned by Jesus to tell others how they too can receive
forgiveness for their sins. And the question is, are you
telling them about it? And then the second thing I want
us to note is that Jesus previews their future ministry. In verses
48 and 49, he says, you witnesses of these things. Behold, I'm
sending the promise of my father upon you, but stay in the city
until you are clothed with power from on high. Jesus told his
disciples that they had seen him alive again. And so they
were witnesses of these things. Furthermore, he was going to
send the promise of his father upon them, which was the ministry
of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. Therefore,
they were to stay in Jerusalem until they were clothed with
power from on high, which is another way of saying that they
will wait until the Holy Spirit empowered them, which happened
50 days later on the day of Pentecost. Now the Holy Spirit has come
to all believers. All believers are baptized in
the Holy Spirit and we're all empowered by Him to tell others
the good news of the gospel. And so we have a very good reason
to tell others about Jesus. Not only is Jesus alive, but
He has changed us and we are now empowered by the Holy Spirit
to live for Him and to tell others about Jesus. believe that Jesus
is alive. There are many convincing proofs
that he is alive. The tomb is empty. The angels
made an announcement. Several disciples saw it. Five
on that first day. A total of 10 different resurrection
appearances in the 40 days that Jesus was on earth. Jesus is
alive. And the fact that He is resurrected
back to life again is proof that the Father has accepted His sacrifice
to pay the penalty for sin. That's good news. Once we believe
that, then we're transformed. And we believe that Jesus is
alive. And we are called by God to tell
others this good news so that they too can embrace Jesus and
find life for themselves. May God help each one of us to
do that. Let's pray. Father, I do thank you for raising
Jesus back to life again. Thank you for this marvelous
narrative of Jesus' appearance to the disciples in Jerusalem.
Jesus gave yet another evidence of his resurrection to them when
they saw him and touched him and watched him eat fish. Jesus
charged his disciples to believe the word of God that is all about
him. And you've given us your word
to teach us about the person and work of your son, Jesus Christ,
whom you sent to seek and to save the lost. And Jesus also
charged his disciples to tell others about his person and work.
O God, may we obey the great commission that Jesus gave to
us in the Gospel of Luke. Empower us to tell others that
the Christ had to suffer and die to pay the penalty for sins,
that you raised him on the third day from the dead, and that repentance
and forgiveness of sins is found only in him. And for all of this
I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Jesus Appears to His Disciples
Series To Seek and To Save the Lost
Jesus' appearance to his disciples in Jerusalem in Luke 24:36-49 shows us how they came to recognize that Jesus was indeed alive.
| Sermon ID | 610161210142 |
| Duration | 30:17 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Luke 24:36-49 |
| Language | English |
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