FBC Sunday Morning Service

Faith Baptist Church iconFaith Baptist Church

0 views

The Majesty And Glory Of The Resurrection

0 comments

00:52
Well, and a good morning to you, a resurrection Sunday morning. He is risen.
00:59
He is risen indeed. And we come together today to worship a risen
01:04
Savior, a living Savior. We don't bow down before wooden structures or idols of gold or any other kind of idols.
01:16
We serve a living, risen Savior today. In Revelation chapter 5,
01:22
I want to call us to worship with these words of the vision in the throne room of God.
01:28
John says, I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders.
01:34
And the number of them was 10 ,000 times 10 ,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
01:42
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.
01:52
And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them,
01:59
I heard saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power be to him who sits on the throne and to the
02:06
Lamb forever and ever. The four living creatures said,
02:12
Amen. And the 24 elders fell down and worshiped Him who lives forever and ever.
02:20
And let us raise our voices in worship to Him who lives forever and ever.
02:26
Let's begin in this Resurrection Sunday hymn book with the first hymn, number one,
02:33
Behold Our God. Let's stand together as we sing, shall we? And teach the one seated on His throne,
04:08
Come, let us adore, let us adore.
04:28
As felt the nails upon His hands, Bearing the sinful man eternal,
04:41
Humbled to the grace of Savior risen now,
04:56
Seated on His throne, Come, let us adore our
05:06
King. And standing, please, for prayer.
05:22
Let us pray. Our Father, again, we thank you for your grace and your mercy this past week.
05:31
Father, we're so grateful for the Lord Jesus is coming to this earth, dying for a simple man, dying for us,
05:44
Father. What a plan. Father, you alone had this plan from the beginning of time.
05:54
And we thank you, Father, for it. Father, as we worship you this day, may we worship you in spirit and in truth.
06:06
We thank you for the Word of God, Father. It gives us all that we need to know about you.
06:15
And Father, as we sing these songs of praise, help us as we lift our voices to you, glorifying your name.
06:26
We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Actually, remain standing, if you would, and just turn a page.
06:34
Turn a page to number two, In Christ Alone. Christ alone, my soul, this cornerstone, this solid ground.
07:05
Firm through the fiercest crowd and storm. The heights of love, the depths of peace, when fears are stilled, when strivings cease.
07:19
My God, I stand,
07:31
Christ alone, this gift of love to save.
07:51
Till on that cross, as Jesus died, was satisfied, for every sin our sin was laid.
08:07
Here in the death of Christ, I live. His body lay, bursting forth in glorious day.
08:33
As he stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me.
08:47
This is the power of Christ in me.
09:11
Jesus commands my destiny. No scheme of man is man.
09:28
Turns or falls, behold, here in the place
09:35
I'll stand. And you may be seated. If you would take your
09:41
Bibles, turn to John chapter 20, and Dan's going to read this passage for us. He's going to divide it up into two parts.
09:49
Read chapter 20, verses 1 to 10, then we'll sing a couple stanzas of the next hymn, and then he'll come back and finish up the reading.
09:56
Dan? Our scripture reading this morning is from John chapter 20, verses 1 through 10, the first section.
10:08
Verse 1 states, The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulcher.
10:19
Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them,
10:25
They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulcher.
10:34
And so they ran both together, and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulcher.
10:40
And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying, yet went in he not in.
10:49
Then cometh Simon Peter from following him, and went into the sepulcher, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
11:04
Then he went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulcher, and he saw and believed.
11:11
For as yet they knew not that scripture, that he must first rise again from the dead.
11:19
Then the disciples went away again unto their own home. Hymn number seven in your book,
11:28
Alleluia, Alleluia, Hearts to Heaven. This is to the tune of Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.
11:47
Alleluia, hearts to heaven, and voices raise.
11:52
Sing to goodness, sing to nation bled.
12:12
Jesus Christ, the King of Israel, risen from the dead.
12:27
Our hearts are broken. Christ from death to life is born.
12:34
Glorious life, and life immortal. Easter morn,
12:44
Christ has triumphed. His mighty enterprise, his resurrection rise.
13:13
John chapter 20, verse 11. But Mary stood without at the sepulcher weeping, and as she wept, she stooped down and looked into the sepulcher, and seeth two angels in the white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet.
13:28
Where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou?
13:34
She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw
13:43
Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her,
13:50
Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him,
13:56
Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.
14:04
Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him,
14:09
Rabboni, which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my
14:16
Father, but go to my brethren. And saith unto them,
14:21
I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and to your God. Mary Magdalene came, and told the disciples that she had seen the
14:30
Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her. Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for the fear of the
14:41
Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
14:46
And when he had said so, he showed unto them his hands and his side.
14:52
Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. Sing stanzas four and five of number seven,
15:03
Christ is Risen. Risen, shed upon us heavenly grace, brightness of spirit and sanctity.
16:34
Joy and rejoice in serving a risen Savior. Joy in the fellowship that we had earlier this morning, in our earlier service, sunrise service, and then the time around the table.
16:48
And I just want to express a word of appreciation to those who provided food for that brunch together, and those who helped not only prepare, but set up, and do the cleanup, and all those sort of things.
17:02
That service on this Lord's Day is a blessing to us all. As we go to prayer together today, we want to remember our
17:10
Missionary of the Week, the Hammermeisters, Darren and Elizabeth, serving in Surrey, British Columbia, the suburbs of Vancouver, pray for them and their work.
17:21
I also want to continue to pray for Jan Dean, ask for God to be gracious to her.
17:27
She's had, declined quite a bit in this last week, and just praying for His mercy and grace to be extended to her.
17:39
Many of you would know that Jan is, I think she's 93, but is the last surviving charter member of Faith Baptist Church.
17:51
So, we rejoice in her and her life. We also trust
17:57
God for her homegoing in His time. Let's look to the
18:03
Lord in prayer, shall we? And as we pray together today, I will begin reading or praying a prayer from the
18:10
Valley of Vision. It's a prayer from the Puritan era, and fits very nicely, perfectly with our
18:18
Resurrection Sunday worship. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, our
18:25
God, we marvel that You, Lord Jesus, should become incarnate, be crucified, dead, and buried.
18:35
The sepulcher calls for our adoring wonder, for it is empty, and You are risen.
18:43
The fourfold gospel attests to it, the living witnesses prove it, our heart's experience knows it.
18:52
Give to us, O Lord, that we might die with You, that we might rise to new life.
19:00
For we wish to be as dead and buried to sin, to selfishness, to the world, that we might not hear the voice of the charmer, and might be delivered from his lusts.
19:11
O Lord, there is much ill about us. Crucify it. Much flesh within us.
19:19
Mortify it. Purge us, O Lord, from selfishness, the fear of man, the love of approbation, the shame of being thought old -fashioned, the desire to be cultivated or modern.
19:37
Let us reckon the old self dead because of crucifixion, and never feed it as a living thing.
19:45
Grant us, O Lord, to stand with our dying Savior, to be content to be rejected, to be willing to take up unpopular truths, and to hold fast despised teachings until death.
20:02
Help us, O Lord, to be resolute and Christ -contained.
20:08
Never let us wander from the path of obedience to Thy will. Strengthen us for the battles ahead.
20:16
Give us courage for all the trials and grace for all the joys. Help us to be a holy, happy people, free from every wrong desire, from everything contrary to Thy mind.
20:31
Grant us more and more of the resurrection life. May it rule us.
20:38
May we walk in its power. Be strengthened through its influence.
20:44
We pray this not only for ourselves, but we pray also, Father, for those who are serving in other places, laboring in fields that are difficult and hostile to the gospel.
20:59
We pray today for Darren and Elizabeth Hammermeister, and we thank you for their faithfulness and service and their dedication of self to you.
21:07
I pray that by your power today and the might of your spirit, they might know the joy of a blessed
21:16
Resurrection Sunday. May they see the church filled, this church plant.
21:25
May it be greatly encouraging to them as they gather and assemble with your people.
21:32
Father, we pray for those who cannot assemble with us today, but would certainly love to do so were they able.
21:39
We pray for Jan this morning and ask for you to be gracious to her. We pray for the relief of pain.
21:47
We pray for physical strength. We pray for your grace in these waning days of life.
21:55
And we thank you, Father, that because we serve a risen
22:00
Savior, because Jesus rose from the dead, even the anticipation of the closing of this earth's life, we can anticipate the promise of life to come in the
22:15
Lord Jesus Christ. We also pray today for Jody and for Sue.
22:21
We pray for Dean and we pray for those others who cannot be here because of the limitations of the body.
22:30
I pray that you would bless them and meet their every need. Father, our hearts are heavy today as we, this past week, heard of these young people who were killed in this tragic accident,
22:47
Tampico. Father, what is for us today a day of great rejoicing and joy and knowing of the resurrection.
22:55
It is a day of grief and sorrow for families and loved ones and friends who knew these young people.
23:03
And I pray, Father, that you would turn many, many hearts to a risen, living
23:10
Savior, using the occasion of such a tragedy to awaken souls who are dead in trespasses and sins to the possibility of life in Christ.
23:26
Oh, may attention be turned to you and to the truth and the blessing of your gospel.
23:32
Open blind eyes and raise the dead who are dead in trespasses and sins to new life in the
23:41
Lord Jesus Christ. In the meantime, oh Lord, we pray that you would grant comfort to these who are so deeply grieving on this particular day.
23:53
We commit them and the remainder of our service together today to you.
23:59
In Jesus' name we pray it. Amen. Again, in your resurrection, hymnal number five for our message today.
24:11
And number five, good Christians all rejoice and sing. Let's stand together again, shall we, as we sing.
26:10
Thank you, and you may be seated. If you would take your
26:16
Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 24, Scripture reading this morning for our message,
26:24
Luke 24. I want to begin reading in verse 13 and we'll read down through verse 35.
26:37
Luke 24, beginning in verse 13, follow along in your copy of Scripture as we read.
26:44
It says now, in verse 13, now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called
26:53
Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened.
27:00
So it was while they conversed and reasoned that Jesus himself drew near and went with them.
27:06
But their eyes were restrained so that they did not know him. And he said to them, what kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?
27:17
And the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to him, are you the only stranger in Jerusalem?
27:23
And have you not known the things which happened there in these days? He said to them, what things?
27:30
So they said to him, the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him.
27:42
But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, beside all this, today is the third day since those things happened.
27:53
Yes, and certain women of our company who arrived at the tomb early astonished us.
27:59
When they did not find his body, they came saying that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive.
28:06
And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.
28:13
And he said to them, oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.
28:19
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them and all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
28:32
Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and he indicated that he would have gone farther.
28:38
But they constrained him, saying, abide with us, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent.
28:44
And he went in to stay with them. Now it came to pass as he sat at the table with them that he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.
28:54
Then their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us on the road and while he opened the scriptures to us?
29:07
So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, the
29:14
Lord is risen indeed, and he's appeared to Simon. They told about all the things that happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of bread.
29:26
Let's have a brief word of prayer. Father, I pray today, open our eyes to see, lest we also experience a crisis of faith.
29:38
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, in his book, a book
29:44
I just recently finished, The Little Liar is the title of the book. The author,
29:49
Mitch Albom, he writes of a young man named Sebastian Crispus. He's a 14 -year -old
29:54
Jewish boy who had, along with over 100 other fellow
30:00
Jews, been crammed into a small cattle car to be carted off to the death camps in Auschwitz.
30:09
Along with Sebastian were his parents, his grandparents, and his two younger sisters.
30:19
They were all, unbeknownst to them, heading to certain death.
30:25
Before the Nazis had enslaved them, though, this Jewish family was very devout. Sebastian himself, even though he was but a young teen, he diligently practiced the
30:36
Jewish faith. He went to synagogue every Sabbath. He celebrated all the holy days.
30:41
He joined his family in the daily prayers. Well, that was before. That was before.
30:49
After arriving at Auschwitz, he never again saw his mother, his grandmother, or his two younger sisters.
30:57
He had to learn through the rumor mill that they had been, well, they met their end in the furnaces.
31:06
He watched as his father and his grandfather's health slowly deteriorated, ebbed away as they became weaker and weaker.
31:17
He himself suffered terribly under the burden of the labor placed upon him by his
31:25
Nazi captors. Well, it wasn't long under those conditions that his father tried to coax
31:31
Sebastian to join him very quietly and silently—not silently, but very quietly—in the reciting of the evening prayers.
31:42
But the traumatized youth, he refused.
31:48
He refused. What's the point, he wondered. What's the point?
31:55
It was as if he was saying, if there is a God, He has either abandoned us or He simply does not care.
32:03
He was not the only Jew to have such thoughts. He, like many others with him, reached a crucial crisis of faith.
32:14
And for Sebastian, the rest of his life, he really found no answers to that crisis.
32:21
Well, the events from this past Thursday in the Passion Week—the Thursday night betrayal, the arrest of Jesus, the cruel, unjust crucifixion on Friday—it brought
32:38
Jesus' disciples to a similar crisis of faith. And that is certainly seen here in today's passage.
32:48
That crisis and the resolution of that crisis is powerfully recorded for us in this passage that Daryl Bach, in his commentary on the passage, describes as, quote, one of the most dramatic stories in the
33:01
Bible. This scene before us today on this Resurrection Sunday, somewhere along the road from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, two men are in a crisis of faith and they graciously find resolution.
33:22
But notice something about this. This crisis of faith can affect anyone.
33:28
It can affect anyone. Verse 13 says, "'Behold, two of them were traveling that same day.'"
33:35
Well, there's a question that is brought out in that little statement, isn't there? Who? Two of whom?
33:42
It says two of them. Two of who? Well, verse 9, you go back a few verses to verse 9.
33:50
It says, "'Then they," these women, "'returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.'"
33:58
All the rest. Well, the rest of whom? The rest of the followers of Jesus who were there.
34:07
The two that are of them are two who are of the rest, the two of the followers of Jesus who were really pretty close to Him.
34:17
It is presumed that these two were two of the 70 whom
34:24
Jesus had sent out with the news of who He was to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, that Messiah had arrived.
34:32
They were in that group. And these two, whoever they were, were clearly recognized by the eleven, the rest of the apostles.
34:41
We see that in verses 33 to 35 as we read a few minutes ago when they went back to where the apostles were hiding and closed up in this room.
34:52
And there was no question as to who they were. They all knew each other. They were known as close followers of Jesus, these two.
35:03
But to us, these two are quite obscure. We don't know who they are.
35:09
Well, we've given the name of one of them. His name is Cleopas. But that's all we know about him.
35:15
We know he's a follower of Jesus who is named Cleopas. Other than that, we know nothing about him.
35:22
We don't know where and when he began his following of Jesus. We don't know what became of him after this incident.
35:31
All we know is his name was Cleopas, he was a follower of Jesus, and he was known to the apostles.
35:37
And we even know less of the other guy. He's not given a name.
35:44
We're not told who he is. And regarding these characters, a
35:49
German pastor said this. He said, The learned cannot come to any agreement who the other one was.
35:57
And I, he says, I will give you the good counsel to let each of you take his place.
36:05
Maybe that's you today. Maybe you're that other guy. Maybe you're that other person.
36:11
Because you see, here's the thing. If two close followers of Jesus can come to a crisis of faith, then
36:19
I would suggest that any committed follower of Jesus, known well by others in a congregation, or perhaps known only by a few, can suffer a crisis of faith and reach the same level of heartache as these disciples did.
36:36
Now, I would suggest that the crisis can affect anyone. What is the catalyst for such a crisis?
36:46
Trauma. Trauma. Consider the traumatic events of the previous few days that these disciples went through, with all the rest.
36:58
There was this shocking, utterly shocking betrayal of Jesus.
37:04
Now, you and I, we have the wonderful perspective of hindsight. We look back, we know the story of the betrayal.
37:12
We know the story of Jesus and how he came to this bitter end in Gethsemane, in Golgotha.
37:19
We know about Judas. We know what a bad guy he was. But they didn't.
37:24
They didn't. They didn't have a clue. They didn't realize what was about this guy. And when this follower, this disciple of Jesus, came up to Jesus with a band of soldiers around him and gave him a peck on the cheek, as if to say, he's the one.
37:45
Seize him. This was a shock to the rest of the disciples.
37:53
They experienced, if not firsthand, at least by way of announcement, this shocking betrayal.
38:02
Oh, and then, of course, there's the terrible injustice of Jesus' trial before the high priest at Caiaphas' house.
38:12
And then that was bad enough. But then to go before Pilate and to have this terrible, terrible excuse of a trial, where the one who decided his verdict and his fate, he knew that this man was an innocent man.
38:31
And yet, nevertheless, he washed his hands of it all and turned him over to those who wanted him executed.
38:38
And so he was. Oh, and the treatment, the cruel and the bitter treatment experienced by Jesus.
38:48
For those who were his followers, to see him standing on that portico as Pilate presents him in his humiliation with a crown of thorns on his head and already having been beaten and mocked, to see him standing there and for Pilate to cry out, what do you want me to do with him?
39:17
And then to hear the mob scream, crucify him, crucify him at the instigation of the religious leaders of all people.
39:32
And then to have him marched out to that wretched place, Golgotha, the place of the skull and watch him as he's hanging there.
39:43
And then the untimely death, man of about 33 years of age, did nothing harmful to anybody, only did good, never taught anything heretical, only taught the truth, healed people, brought people back from death.
40:03
And yet there he is, yielding up the ghost, hanging there, spear thrust in his side.
40:16
One who was a quiet, silent follower,
40:23
Joseph of Arimathea, taking that body down from the cross, witnessing all of this, witnessing all of this.
40:33
And then to hear a couple of days later, the body is missing.
40:40
Now, that would be a horrible piece of news for any of us to hear, would it not?
40:49
But this was even more horrific for those of the
40:55
Jewish faith who had such a high regard for the deceased.
41:00
The body is missing. What in the world have they done to this body?
41:07
You talk about traumatic, this was trauma. And it is this trauma that was the catalyst for this crisis of faith.
41:19
But we have to ask the question, do we not? Why did these traumatic events create a crisis of faith?
41:28
I mean, these weren't the only people who witnessed all of this. There were hundreds, maybe even a couple thousand or more, who saw the injustice of the trial, who witnessed the cruelty of the crucifixion and all that was done to Jesus to assault
41:50
Him. Well, they didn't suffer any trauma. They had seen this many times before.
41:57
In fact, that day that Jesus was crucified, there were a couple others hanging on crosses too.
42:03
It didn't seem to bother them at all. Why is this a crisis of faith for these two men walking along the road?
42:14
Well, I would suggest the crisis is fueled by a few different factors. I think it's fueled in the first place by some social and cultural pressures.
42:24
Okay, again, think with me. What happened a week ago in their timetable? What happened a week ago in our timetable?
42:32
This time last Sunday morning, we were rejoicing and celebrating and waving the palms, figuratively speaking, in the triumphal entry.
42:44
Jesus is on the back of that donkey's colt and riding toward Jerusalem, and everybody is shouting, "'Hosanna!
42:52
Hosanna! The King has come! The King has come!' Yeah, a week earlier, a throng welcomed their
43:00
Messianic King. And there was, in all of that, a social pressure.
43:08
The Jewish people as a whole wanted their national independence again.
43:15
They wanted the dominance of Rome to be broken. They wanted their Messiah to come and rule and to reign, and they thought this was
43:26
He. They thought this was He. The social pressure was placed upon the followers of Jesus to anticipate that this one,
43:37
He is our Messiah, who will break the dominion of the Roman government and give us national independence again.
43:45
And coupled with that social pressure, there was the cultural pressure of being
43:54
Jewish. The Jewish culture and practices were being longed for once again.
44:01
They were so greatly restricted under this Roman domination. They couldn't worship quite as freely.
44:09
They didn't have the flexibility of travel that they used to have when
44:14
Israel was its own nation. And there was this constant pressure to adopt the cultural practices of Judaism and of Romanism and Hellenistic influence.
44:31
Cultural pressure. The Jews wanted deliverance from all of that cultural pressure.
44:40
And so these social and cultural pressures brought to bear upon the faith of these two men as they're making their way to Emmaus.
44:50
Those social and cultural pressures, I would suggest, influenced then some distorted thinking.
44:58
Now, by the way, as we walk through this together with these men,
45:05
I want us to recognize that these same influences can fuel our own crises of faith.
45:16
Social, cultural pressures that then weigh upon us or so work in our minds that we end up with some distorted thinking.
45:28
The distorted thinking has certainly come upon the minds of these two men. You see it in verse 19 where they have come to some faulty assumptions.
45:38
Verse 19, they say to Jesus, well, there are these things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people.
45:53
They had some assumptions about who this Jesus of Nazareth is or was.
46:00
Notice they put it in the past tense. And about what his purposes and plans were, his role that he was to fulfill.
46:09
They looked at him. They were looking at him. Their thinking had become distorted to the point that they looked at this
46:16
Jesus of Nazareth as merely a prophet who was mighty in word and deed.
46:24
They have now thought of him, they've come to think of him in a wrong way because their previous thinking up until that time at the late afternoon on Friday when he gave up the ghost and he expired, that their assumption was that Israel's future was in his hands and he surely, as the
46:51
Messiah, would deal with our Roman captors. Well, they had distorted thinking from their faulty assumptions and they had distorted thinking from their misinterpretations as well.
47:05
What did they think? What was their thinking?
47:11
What was their interpretation regarding the things they heard in his teaching?
47:17
He was a prophet mighty in word before God. They heard him teach, but what did they hear?
47:27
When they heard him pray or teach in prayer, when you pray, say thus,
47:34
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
47:44
They heard the words, but what did they hear? How did they interpret the words that they heard?
47:51
Were they anticipating or were they interpreting it to mean that we should pray that he, the one who is here preaching and teaching and doing all these wonderful miracles, that he should bring in the kingdom.
48:05
We should pray to the Father that he brings in this kingdom, Thy kingdom come, and that he is the one who is the instrument in the hand of our
48:15
Father who will cause his will to be done and shape, reshape the world and our own nation and rid us from the cultural influences of Rome and Greece.
48:32
They heard him teach, but what did they hear? And they saw him work, but what did they see?
48:41
They saw his miracles. They saw his miracles, but what did those miracles mean?
48:48
How did they interpret them? Did they see in those miracles what he intended them to see?
48:57
Were they there in the crowd on the feeding of the 5 ,000? Watching as 5 ,000 hungry people were fed to the full from a few loaves and a couple of fishes at the hands of this one, whom they thought was the
49:16
Messiah, whom they now simply call the prophet of the might of God?
49:24
What did they see? What did they hear? I suggest that their distorted thinking came from their misinterpretations of what they heard and what they saw.
49:39
And then I think their distorted thinking also came from spiritual blindness, spiritual blindness.
49:46
In verses 22 and 23, as they're reporting to Jesus what they were talking about,
49:54
Cleopas says, certain women of our company who arrived at the tomb early astonished us when they did not find his body.
50:04
They astonished us. Now, we should read that, and we should...
50:11
I mean, remember who these two men are. They're two of Jesus' close disciples, close enough that they were among the 70 sent out, close enough to be well recognized by the rest of the apostles.
50:24
We should ask ourselves the question, why are they astonished? You might hear that question and have a quick, ready answer.
50:35
Well, wouldn't you be astonished if you heard this report that the body wasn't there?
50:41
Wouldn't you be astonished too? Well, think with me.
50:47
What did these men hear from the lips of Jesus Himself?
50:54
Matthew 16, verse 21, Jesus told the disciples something that He repeated to them over and over again.
51:03
We have at least three records of Him telling the three different times when Jesus told them basically this same thing.
51:09
In Matthew 16, 21, it says, from that time, that is from the time of Peter's confession, remember
51:15
Peter confessing that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
51:21
From the time of that confession that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and He must suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and must be killed, and must be raised the third day.
51:45
Repeatedly they were told this. So, it's a legitimate question to ask, is it not?
51:53
Why are you so astonished? The most recent occasion of Jesus telling them this is recorded back in Luke 18, verses 31 to 33.
52:07
He took the twelve aside and He said to them, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the
52:16
Son of Man will be accomplished. What kinds of things? For He will be delivered to the Gentiles, He will be mocked and insulted and spit upon, they will scourge
52:24
Him and kill Him, and the third day He will rise again. Well, why then are they so astonished?
52:36
If you had turned with me back to Luke 18, notice verse 34.
52:43
Here's why. Because they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
52:55
That's why I say that their distorted thinking was fueled not only by their...
53:03
the way they interpreted things that Jesus did and taught, but because of their spiritual blindness.
53:09
Jesus told them that He was going to die. He told them, though, that He was going to rise again.
53:17
And now they hear the report of such a thing, such news, and they are astonished?
53:23
Yes, they're astonished because of spiritual blindness. And that distorted thinking then leads, in verse 21 in our text, to unrealized expectations.
53:37
That's huge. That's huge. Oftentimes, our crises of faith follow this same path, don't they?
53:48
The path of social and cultural pressures, distorted thinking, and then unrealized expectations.
53:59
Look at theirs in verse 21. Again, Cleopas reporting for the two of them, he says this, but we were hoping.
54:11
There it is. There it is. We were hoping. What is it that we were hoping?
54:18
We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem
54:24
Israel. There is the expectation. This was what they thought was going to take place.
54:31
This is what they were hoping for. This is what they were counting on. This is what they expected, this
54:37
Messiah, this one whom they thought was their Messiah, was going to take place.
54:43
The expectation is clear that He would redeem
54:48
Israel. And when He does, here's their thinking, when
54:55
He does, their expectation, He would fulfill all of their assumptions about the
55:03
Messiah. But that expectation, notice how it consumed them.
55:12
He says, Cleopas, in verse 21, we were hoping. This was the ongoing thing.
55:20
This was the persistent, ongoing hope. It's a hope, you could see it in their eyes the first time they heard
55:33
Jesus teach as one who had authority. You could feel the hope rise the first time they witnessed
55:42
Jesus perform a miracle in their presence. Those original, immediate followers of Jesus, the hope would rise, it would stir within them when that ladle was dipped into the water pot and out of it came sweet red wine simply at His word to take to the host.
56:10
What was water is now wine. And every miracle performed thereafter, every teaching with authority thereafter, the hope is just rising and rising and rising.
56:27
It comes to a great crescendo on triumphal entry Sunday. Hosanna, our
56:34
King has arrived. We were hoping.
56:41
But this was an expectation that was shattered to pieces on crucifixion day.
56:51
His body was taken down off the cross and placed in a tomb.
56:57
With it were all of those expectations, all of those hopes, all of those dreams.
57:05
And now they have succumbed to a crisis of faith. This crisis is fueled by social pressures, by distorted thinking, by unrealized expectations.
57:19
And here's the thing. There's not a person in this room who cannot come to the same kind of a crisis because of or by way of the same factors weighing upon you.
57:33
Social pressures. Messed up thinking. Unrealized expectations.
57:41
Here's the thing about such crises. They tend to boil on the inside.
57:48
They always affect us on the outside. You see it boiling on the inside with these two individuals in verses 19 through 24.
57:57
You see the cogitations that are going on in their minds as Cleopas reports what was going on in their minds.
58:07
What he's expressing to Jesus as he tells Jesus, whom they don't know as Jesus, it expresses confusion in the mind, in the heart.
58:21
It expresses their utter bewilderment. We had thought. We had hoped.
58:27
We had expected. This is all coming out, but it's telling what was going on inside.
58:35
And this was chewing on them. This was eating at them as they walked along the way internally.
58:43
And it came out externally. What's going on inside will eventually affect what you talk about and how you talk about it.
58:55
See this in verses 14 and 15. It says, Here are two men, two friends.
59:06
They're walking home from Jerusalem. They're going on a seven -mile walk to get home.
59:12
And as they go, they talk together of all these things which had happened.
59:18
There has been stuff going on in their mind. What they had expected didn't come to pass.
59:23
How do we figure this out? What do we make of this? And they're talking about all this as they go.
59:30
And in verse 15, it says that while they conversed and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near.
59:38
They conversed and reasoned. In chapter 22, we see that same verse, same idea coming out in verses 22 and 23 of chapter 22.
59:56
It says, Then they began to question among themselves which of them would do such a thing.
01:00:11
You got what's going on there, right in that passage. It's the Last Supper.
01:00:16
They're in that upper room. The disciples, the close disciples of Jesus, they're reclining at the table.
01:00:23
They're having that meal together, the Passover meal. And Jesus announces, one of you is going to betray me.
01:00:34
They had no clue. I mean, that was like, boom, a slap in the face to these men.
01:00:42
And they are confused. They are bewildered. And they began to do the same thing among themselves that the two men on the road to Emmaus were doing with themselves.
01:00:56
They were conversing. They were reasoning. They were reasoning.
01:01:02
That suggests perplexity, disputing, trying to make sense of it all as they talked and bounced ideas off of one another and thoughts off one another.
01:01:13
Yes, yes, when the crisis is going on inside of you, it will eventually come out on the outside.
01:01:21
It'll affect what you talk about. It'll affect how you talk about what you talk about. It'll also,
01:01:28
I think, clearly from verse 17, affect the expression on your face.
01:01:36
Jesus says, what have you been talking about as you walk and are sad?
01:01:42
You're sad. It affects the tone of your voice.
01:01:50
I've indicated that already, but notice that Jesus picks it up. He picks up on that tone.
01:01:56
He comes up behind them as they're walking along. He hears not so much what they're saying, but He hears how they're saying what they're saying.
01:02:06
He hears the tone of the conversation. And that raises a question.
01:02:12
What are you talking about? Why are you talking like this? And why are you sad?
01:02:20
Why are you sad? So the outside observer, in this case,
01:02:25
Jesus, He can tell by the expressions of the voice that there are troubled souls who are in His presence.
01:02:37
He can also not only hear it, but He can see it in their face. Why are you sad?
01:02:43
There is a sullenness in His demeanor. Maybe you read this and look in a mirror or listen to yourself.
01:02:57
A crisis. You hear the expression of your voice as you declare the perplexity.
01:03:07
You proclaim the challenges and the confusion of your mind, and you look in the mirror, and you see the sullenness in your own face.
01:03:18
Yeah, I think that German pastor was wise in his counsel, saying, yeah, we don't know who this person is, so here's a good piece of advice.
01:03:25
Put yourself there. Maybe we need to put ourselves there when we reach such a crisis of faith.
01:03:34
How is such a crisis resolved? Answer, Jesus. Jesus.
01:03:41
The crisis is resolved as in verses 15 through 17,
01:03:47
He encounters you. And notice, this is sheer grace. Sheer grace.
01:03:55
These two are walking along. They're having this conversation. They're sullen. They're at this critical point, and Jesus, in His grace, shows up.
01:04:07
He comes and encounters them. And listen, in His grace,
01:04:13
Jesus comes to you, and you may not recognize Him at first, just as they didn't, because He may come to you in a form you don't expect.
01:04:24
Oh, don't make a one -to -one comparison here, a parallel. I don't intend to communicate that.
01:04:31
But what I do intend to communicate is this, that sometimes Jesus, in His grace, encounters you through the counsel of a friend, a loved one, a spiritual counselor, one who knows
01:04:47
Jesus intimately. And He comes to you in that person's voice, in that person's words, as that person shares with you
01:04:59
His Word. Because Jesus always comes in His Word.
01:05:07
Don't expect Jesus to come to you by His grace in some kind of a vision at the foot of your bed or anything like that, as if you're going to have an
01:05:17
Emmaus Road encounter with the physically resurrected
01:05:22
Jesus. No, no, no. I don't mean to imply that. Don't go away from here saying that. But what
01:05:28
I do say is that Jesus uses His Word, and He uses
01:05:33
His Word. He comes to you through His Word as His Word comes to you on the lips of those who care for you and love you, maybe in unexpected form.
01:05:45
But He comes. He comes in your perplexity. He comes in your perplexity.
01:05:52
You and I, in our crises of faith, we can be so focused on our perplexity, so absorbed with our concerns and our needs and our desires and our pain that we can't initially recognize that this is the voice of Jesus speaking to me through His Word and through His people.
01:06:16
I don't recognize it. I can't. But He comes, and He encounters. Sometimes before He can be recognized and His Word accepted and heard,
01:06:29
He has to confront us. That's what Jesus does. He hears from them, hears their perplexity, hears their confusion, gets that they are in this crisis of faith.
01:06:44
And what Jesus does not do is telling, I think. He doesn't just say,
01:06:50
Oh, yeah, that's really too bad. You know, maybe you should drink some herbal tea and you'll feel a little better.
01:07:04
Maybe you're not getting the right vitamins and supplements. Maybe you haven't gotten enough rest the last couple nights and you should just go home and go to sleep.
01:07:13
It's not what He does. What does He do? This is what He does. Ready? Bam. You see it?
01:07:22
Look at verse 25. How would you take this? Oh, foolish ones,
01:07:30
He says. Foolish ones. Here's the thing. The crisis, what have these guys been expressing?
01:07:40
What has Cleopas been expressing for the two of them? He's been expressing that we are in this crisis of faith because our expectations haven't been met.
01:07:51
We're in this crisis of faith because of what our chief priests, our religious leaders did to this prophet of God and how they turned him over to the
01:08:02
Roman authorities and what those Roman authorities... Jesus says,
01:08:09
Look, I'm not buying any of that. The crisis of your faith is not due to the failure of the religious leaders or the gruesomeness of cruel injustice.
01:08:26
Jesus puts the responsibility for the crisis of their faith squarely where it needs to be, on their shoulders.
01:08:36
Oh, foolish ones, He says. Now, here's the thing.
01:08:43
Do we not tend, in our own crises, do we not tend to look for all kinds of other people to blame?
01:08:53
Circumstances, situations, things that have happened to me or things that somebody did or I had a bad childhood, whatever.
01:09:04
We want to put the blame out there somewhere.
01:09:10
And that is not to say that people haven't done wrong out there. The chief priests were wretched guys.
01:09:18
The Roman authorities, they were guilty of injustice.
01:09:24
But that's not why there's a crisis of faith here. The crisis of faith is that, as Jesus said, you are foolish individuals.
01:09:37
Why? Let him go on. He says, you are slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
01:09:51
He confronts these men for their personal responsibility coupled with their selective faith, their selective faith.
01:10:05
You see what Jesus is saying here? You were eager to believe all of the positive things in the
01:10:12
Bible. You were relieved of all the good stuff about what the Messiah was going to do, how
01:10:18
He was going to bring in peace, how He was going to bring in tranquility, how He was going to rule and reign. You were eager to believe all of that stuff, but you were not willing to believe all of the prophecies about a suffering
01:10:32
Savior who would die and then be raised again.
01:10:38
Yours is a selective faith, He says to them. And I would suggest that so many times we come to a crisis of faith because of a partial faith, a selective faith.
01:10:57
We pick and choose the things in the Bible that we want to believe and that we focus our attention on and we like to hear.
01:11:07
And then some of the things we don't like to hear happen. Then we struggle.
01:11:16
Oh, the crisis is resolved as He then confronts you. And then thirdly, notice that the crisis is resolved as He corrects you in verses 26 and 27.
01:11:27
Jesus goes on to say He doesn't leave them there. He doesn't leave them under the conviction of the confrontation, no.
01:11:34
And He won't leave you there either. He comes to them and He says, Oh, listen, ought not
01:11:40
Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? He corrects you by giving you a correct understanding of Himself, of Jesus.
01:11:50
Why was it that Christ's suffering was an ought thing? Why ought
01:11:57
Christ to suffer? Oh, fly to Isaiah 53 and read the prophecy of the suffering servant.
01:12:07
He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
01:12:15
The chastisement for our peace was laid on Him. All we like sheep have gone astray.
01:12:21
We have turned every single one of us to His own way. But the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
01:12:28
This is why He ought to suffer. Because if He did not suffer, all our iniquity would still be ours.
01:12:39
There would be no suffering of chastisement for our sin, except for our own suffering, eternal suffering.
01:12:48
So this is why He ought to suffer. Jesus confronts, but then
01:12:54
He corrects, giving an accurate view of Jesus, of Himself, and why
01:12:59
He had to come and why He had to die and be buried and rise again on that third day.
01:13:06
And then He gives a fuller, fuller understanding of the Bible in verse 27.
01:13:12
Look at what He says. Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.
01:13:22
Gives accurate understanding of the Bible so that that distorted thinking could be cleared up.
01:13:32
J .C. Ryle does a wonderful summary of what Jesus might have taught.
01:13:39
Listen to what he says. He says, Christ was the substance of every Old Testament sacrifice ordained in the law of Moses.
01:13:47
Christ was the true Deliverer and King, of whom all the judges and deliverers in Jewish history was but a type.
01:13:56
Christ was the coming prophet greater than Moses, whose glorious advent filled the pages of prophets.
01:14:03
Christ was the true seed of the woman who was to bruise the serpent's head, the true seed in whom all nations were to be blessed, the true
01:14:11
Shiloh to whom the people were to be gathered, the true scapegoat, the true brazen serpent, the true lamb to which every daily offering pointed, the true high priest of whom every descendant of Aaron was a figure.
01:14:26
These things, or something like them, we need not doubt, were some of the things which our Lord expounded in the way to Emmaus.
01:14:34
Let it be a settled principle in our minds, Ryle concludes, in reading the
01:14:40
Bible, that Christ is the central son of the whole book.
01:14:46
So long as we keep Him in view, we shall never greatly err. And there's the problem, isn't it?
01:14:53
So often in our crises of faith, we have lost view of Jesus.
01:15:01
He's not the central son of our lives. So long as we keep Him in view, we shall never greatly err in our search for spiritual knowledge.
01:15:11
Once losing sight of Christ, we shall find the whole Bible dark and full of difficulty.
01:15:19
The key of Bible knowledge and the solution to the crises of faith is
01:15:29
Christ and Christ Himself. So Jesus resolves as He corrects.
01:15:36
And in this resolution, when the crisis is resolved, notice what Jesus gives you.
01:15:43
He gives you new sight, verse 31. Then their eyes were opened, and they knew
01:15:50
Him. They recognized Him. When the crisis is resolved, Jesus gives you a new understanding, a new insight, a new recognition of who
01:15:59
He is. He gives you a new clarity in verse 32. Did not our heart burn within us as He talked with us on the road and while He opened the
01:16:07
Scriptures to us? Now we see clearly. He gives a new energy, verse 33.
01:16:15
They rose up that very hour, and they returned to Jerusalem. The very hour is already dark.
01:16:23
They had a seven -mile trip to go back to Jerusalem, but that was okay. Jesus has solved and resolved the crisis of their faith, and now there's a new energy.
01:16:38
And with that comes a new sympathy at the end of verse 33. They found the eleven and those who were gathered together, and they wanted to share this news, but guess what?
01:16:48
They had their own news to share. There's a new sympathy with those who also have come to faith in Christ, the resurrected
01:16:57
Christ, the risen Lord, a new sympathy. And then a new eloquence
01:17:02
He gives when the crisis is resolved. They told about the things that had happened to them on the road and how
01:17:09
He was known to them in the breaking of bread. And finally,
01:17:15
He gives, when the crisis is resolved, a totally new spirit, a spirit of joy.
01:17:22
Do you not see this in verses 32 to 35? And compare those verses with verse 17.
01:17:29
Verse 17, they're walking along, expressing the crisis between themselves, their perplexity, their confusion, their discouragement, their utter despair.
01:17:41
They're confessing it to one another, and their countenance is sullen. And not now.
01:17:50
Not now. Jesus has come. Jesus has confronted. Jesus has corrected.
01:17:57
Jesus has resolved the crisis. And with that resolution comes joy.
01:18:05
Comes joy. How about you today? Right now.
01:18:11
Right now. Do you identify with these two souls in their downcast, sullen perplexity?
01:18:22
In a struggling crisis of faith of some kind? It's a crisis of faith.
01:18:28
Listen, Jesus is the answer to that crisis. Ask Him. Ask Him to open your eyes to see.
01:18:38
To correct your mind and heart to understand and to believe.
01:18:45
Or perhaps you can instead identify with these characters as they're running through the darkness, heading back to Jerusalem in joyful excitement because you know, you know
01:18:58
Jesus is alive. He's alive. The risen, conquering
01:19:05
Son. And you can sing with joy and rejoicing in your heart,
01:19:11
Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son.
01:19:19
So our Father and our God, I pray, bless these thoughts to our hearts.
01:19:25
Give us the joy and rejoicing in knowing the risen, risen
01:19:31
Savior is the conquering Son, we pray. In Jesus' name and for His sake.
01:19:37
Amen. Would you take your hymnal, I'm sorry, your song book, your
01:19:43
Resurrection Sunday song book, turn to number six. Number six and stand with me as we sing joyfully, triumphantly,
01:19:53
Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son. Thine be the glory, risen, conquering
01:21:49
Son. Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son. Thine be the glory, risen, conquering
01:21:56
Son. Thine be the glory, risen, conquering
01:22:09
Son. Thine be the glory, risen, conquering
01:22:27
Son. Bring us safe through joy, risen, conquering
01:22:46
Son. This is the victory, last one.
01:23:00
Before we close, a few reminders, next Lord's Day. We have the Growing in Grace group, the young, married, single adult group, meeting for home fellowship time here at the church in the evening hours.
01:23:15
It's also an opportunity for the rest of us to gather for home fellowship groups and invite somebody to come to your home and to join with you next
01:23:23
Sunday evening or any time after the morning service for that matter. And then secondly, if you're age 60 on up, we have our next seniors' luncheon a week from Tuesday, April 9th.
01:23:36
There's a sign -up sheet on the Foyer Bulletin Board regarding that. And then I want to mention that next
01:23:41
Lord's Day in the adult Sunday school class, I'm going to be starting a series.
01:23:47
Initially, I was just going to be focusing on depression and basing that series from the book
01:23:56
Out of the Blues from Wayne Mack. But the more I got into that and started thinking about it and so forth,
01:24:03
I realized I need to step back. We need to step back a little bit and get a bigger picture and talk about a theology of suffering.
01:24:12
We're going to deal with suffering in general first, and let that be a segue into a more narrow focus just on that one subject of suffering we call depression.
01:24:24
So I'm going to start that next Lord's Day in the adult Sunday school time at 930. I hope you can make that.
01:24:31
Let's close in prayer. And now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our
01:24:38
Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, and in whose name we pray.
01:25:00
Amen. Lord bless you. May you have a great rest of your resurrection Sunday.