“Expected by No One!”

Faith Baptist Church

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What a good Wednesday morning to you. I just want to remind you that tomorrow evening, we're not having any kind of a service this evening, our normal midweek time, but we are having a service tomorrow evening, a

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Maundy Thursday service, and in that service we basically take the events of the evening of the

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Last Supper, the betrayal, the arrest of Jesus, and actually go through the time of the crucifixion.

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We do that through the course of the evening and commemorate the Lord's table together, have some hymns, do some scripture reading, just a really good service to prepare our hearts for this coming

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Sunday. So if you're in the area, courageous, 7 o 'clock tomorrow evening for a

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Maundy Thursday service. Well, this morning we're reading in Joshua chapters 1 and 2, the last chapter of Luke, and then

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Psalm 68. Obviously, this is Resurrection week, or Resurrection Sunday coming up, so Luke 24 deals with the resurrection, so let's focus on that for a few minutes this morning, shall we?

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And one of the most unexpected things about the resurrection, the resurrection account, is that the resurrection was so unexpected.

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Let me explain. We're reading in chapter 24, and the women come to the tomb on Sunday morning, and their purpose is to anoint the corpse, the dead body, of Jesus with spices and so forth that weren't able to be done thoroughly and completely in the embalming process by Joseph of Arimathea on Friday.

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So this is what their purpose is. They're not expecting to come to an empty tomb. They come expecting to embalm the body of Jesus.

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But when they get there, we read in verse 2, they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, and they went in and they did not find the body of the

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Lord Jesus. Now at that point, you would think they'd say, well, of course, he said he was going to rise again, but no, it says, and it happened as they were greatly perplexed about this.

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They were greatly perplexed about this. Well, they get the explanation, the women do, that he's not here, he's risen, just as he said.

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And they tell him, remember, the angel tells them, remember how Jesus spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying the

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Son of Man must be delivered, crucified, the third day rise again. This is exactly what has happened. And so they're excited, and they run to tell the disciples in verses 9 and 10, and in verse 10 tells us it was

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Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles.

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And you would have expected that the apostles would say, well, of course, that's what he said was going to happen.

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That's not what happened. Verse 11 says, their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them.

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They weren't expecting a resurrection. And then you have the account of these two men on the road to Emmaus, and they're troubled over all that's happened over the course of this past weekend.

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And they're talking about that between themselves, and the resurrected Jesus walks up to them and, you know, kind of goes along with him and says, what is this you're talking about along the way?

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What's this conversation you had? Why are you so sad? Why are they sad? Because they didn't expect a resurrection.

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How do we know that? Because they replied to him and said, do you not know the things that have happened there in these days?

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Well, what things, Jesus says, what things? He's testing them. And they answered, well, the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, that he was a prophet, mighty in deed 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.

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And here this next statement is a telling statement, because they say, we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem

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Israel. In other words, they're communicating that they're not hoping that anymore.

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Their hope is all gone. But then they express this perplexing announcement.

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It says, indeed, besides all this, today's the third day since these things happened, and certain women of our company arrived at the tomb early.

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They astonished us. When they did not find his body, they came saying that he had seen the vision of angels who said he was alive.

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And we just, we don't get it. We don't get it. Jesus had to take the time to show them from the

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Scriptures that this is exactly what should happen. Now, isn't it surprising that it was so surprising to them?

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Because when we get further on in the text, in Luke 24, verse 44,

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Jesus appears to his disciples and he says to them, these are the words which I spoke, his perplexed disciples, who were not expecting a resurrection, who didn't understand what was going on.

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He comes to them and says, these are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the

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Psalms concerning me. And he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the

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Scriptures, that that which they did not expect should have been completely expected, because it was all prophesied in the

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Scriptures, and Jesus himself had told them exactly what was going to happen.

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And yet, they missed it. They missed it. You ever wonder sometimes, what are we missing?

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What is it that God has told us through his Word and is telling us through the Scriptures that it's just kind of going over our heads?

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Maybe sometimes it's going in one ear and out the other. Maybe it's going in the eye gate, passing through the brain, but doesn't find lodging.

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You ever wonder that? Oh Lord, open our eyes that we may see.

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Open our ears that we may hear. Our Father and our God, we do thank you that this account is given to us here, because in this account we find that the disciples are just like we are.

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So much we miss, how much we're not paying attention, and how desperately we need you to open our understanding.

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Oh Lord, please do so, we pray. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your