Risen Indeed! Easter Sunday Message New Life Assembly April 24, 2011 AM Luke 24:1-12

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1 Risen Indeed! Easter Sunday Message New Life Assembly April 24, 2011 AM Luke 24:1-12 Main Sermon Point: Resurrection is the greatest evidence that God s power rests in Christ! Introduction We re so glad to have you all here for Easter Sunday, or as I like to call it, Victory Day. This is the day where we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the grave! His resurrection gives us hope laced with power to believe that God s promises are true and will come to pass for us! On this day of victory, we realize that the whole of the Passion Week was a victory for God, even though it didn t look like victory at times. The cross was a victory over the devil and sin, and the resurrection was victory over death and hell and the grave! Let s quickly take a look at a first-hand account of the resurrection of Jesus in Luke 24:1-12 this morning. I. Not seeing is believing (vv. 1-5). A. We plan on seeing what we expect. 1.Preparing for the worst is natural. a. The women going to visit Jesus tomb were there to properly bury Him with the right spices. The burial had been rushed on Friday, and there was now time after the Sabbath to properly prepare His body. b. But there was just one problem. The body was not where it should be. The first day of the week was Sunday, the first day of the Roman work week. c. Although these women were expecting to be able to add the proper spices to Jesus body in the tomb, they did not expect that the stone would already be rolled away. They would have probably asked for a groundskeeper to remove it. d. Instead, they got the surprise of their lives as the tomb stone was already rolled away. They had free access to Jesus body, but alas. it was not there! e. Application: How much do we really believe what God tells us, seeing it happen in our own reality? Many times, we can have a head knowledge and mentally ascent to our beliefs, but act as though we did not believe. These women heard many times Jesus say that He would be raised from the dead, and yet they came to properly take care of his dead body. What in your life do you say 1

2 with your head that you agree with, but find hard to live in a way that proves you believe it? 2.Discovering surprises is supernatural. a. While it is only natural to assume that a dead body is still in a tomb, the women are surprised to find that Jesus body is not in the tomb. It is empty. b. Now there are certain ways that you can take such findings. One possibility is that someone moved the body somewhere else. We see in other Gospel accounts disciples suggesting such things. c. Another possibility is that someone has stolen the body, which the Jewish religious leaders actually paid off one of the guards to say. But the disciples would not have had access to Jesus body. It was guarded with a Roman guard. d. Only the power of God in resurrection could have produced such a surprise not just for these faithful women, but for the whole of the Roman province of Palestine. e. Application: Are there times in your life when you are surprised by God? We tend to put Him in a box, think that we ve got Him figured out or know how He does things. But that is not the case. God surprises us because we don t have the capacity or the perspective to see that God can do infinitely more than we can even imagine or think of! What special surprise does God need to do in your life today? B. We find surprises in Jesus. 1.He s not where we think He ll be. a. These women expected to see Jesus in the graveyard, but they would not find Him there because He was not there, as the angels began to explain. b. The two men described by Luke are angels because of the dazzling apparel. That is a sign that something supernatural is going on here, and these men are actually angels come with a message. c. The women react in the common way throughout Scripture to these angels. They are afraid of them and they bow before them. The bowing was probably not in worship but in the sense of reacting in fear, like cringing or wanting to escape. d. Illustration: Jesus had constantly been showing up where He wasn t expected throughout His entire life. In fact, He came to sinners to save them, not religious people who think they don t need Him. Today, one of the rules of marketing is to go where you re most needed or to fulfill a demand, but Jesus went where 2

3 people didn t know they needed Him. And He s still surprising us today! e. Application: What about you. You are the church, and the church should be where Jesus was. Jesus went to those who didn t know they needed Him. Are we going to people who aren t even aware of their need? Are we ministering to the down and out, to the people who aren t looking for Jesus? Or are we going where we are accepted. Jesus didn t go where you would expect to see Him. And so we also should be going to people who don t fit the idea of needing Jesus. 2.We seek Him in the wrong place. a. The angels are actually perplexed by these women who show up to find Jesus in the tombs. They ask this interesting question, Why do you look for the living among the dead? b. Illustration: One of the principles of leadership and discipleship is that you cannot make what you are not. If you are not a leader, you can t make another person a leader. If you are not holy, you can t help someone else learn how to be holy. You only give away what you have. It s a principle that holds true for every area of life. You can t give money you don t have and you can t be someone you re not. So you won t find life in the dead. c. Jesus was not there because He had risen from the dead. He was no longer catalogued with the dead. He is with the living, and He who laid down His life, and picked it back up again, can now give it to those who seek Him! d. We seek Jesus because we are dead. But we find Jesus among the disciples who are living the Christ life. We don t find Jesus among the dead and sinful. The gospel message brings life because it is about the Author of Life! e. Application: Are you alive this morning? Because if you re alive, it is because Jesus is alive. We re not talking about a dead god this morning. Jesus is alive and His life brings us life. If Jesus was dead, we would be dead too! But because we have life, we know that Jesus is alive as well. Are you living the abundant life? II. Not sharing is doubting (vv. 6-12). A. We remember what Jesus has said. 1.We forget the words of our Lord many times. a. The women were there that morning because they either did not remember or did not understand all of Jesus references to resurrection. 3

4 b. They could have seen that there was no body and began to mourn because they could have thought that someone had taken the body of Jesus. c. It s so good that the angels were sent by God to explain to them what was going on. Sometimes in our lives, we don t understand what we should have understood when God speaks. d. Those are times when we need someone to make it clearer to us. That s why we have preachers and teachers, and that s why we have one another. e. Application: I love Scripture because God knew that we wouldn t remember everything that He has said and everything that He has done. So He wrote it all down for us to continuously remember. And remembering all of these things helps us to worship Him better! It also helps us to offer our lives unto Him as a sweet and savory offering. 2.We must be reminded of the great things God does. a. Jesus had been speaking of His death and resurrection throughout His ministry. All throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus again and again telling His disciples what will happen. b. And yet perhaps because they were so familiar with Him, they did not fully grasp what He taught and showed them. Jesus was quite specific about this message. c. It is when the angels remind the women of what Jesus had taught when He was with them that they remembered and I would say more likely began to understand what Jesus had already told them. d. Application: God helps us to clarify our understanding of what He has said in our lives. Sometimes God uses supernatural means like angels. Other times He uses His Word and His Spirit. There are so many different ways for us to be reminded of God s words and His teaching for our lives. Even other people can help us to understand what God has said to us. But we must be willing to listen! B. We testify to the reality of resurrection. 1.Such great truths about God must not be hidden. a. The truth of the resurrection is the most powerful truth in our arsenal as believers in Jesus. It is the power that brings the hope of Christ to our lives. b. The women did not hide the fact of the resurrection. They ran back to the disciples and told everything. We need to be talking about the resurrection. 4

5 c. The empty tomb and the fact that the body of Jesus was never found give an airtight case to the truth of the resurrection of Christ, and we have a Savior whose body is nowhere to be found because He s not dead! d. Illustration: There are so many different religions out there today. Nowadays, there is a veritable smorgasbord of possibilities. You can even mix and match in some cultures. And everyone gets a voice on truth. It s so wonderful, until we remind others that our God is the only one without a body. Everyone else honors the founders of their religion with ceremonial images and you can go to their tombs. There are bodies in those tombs, but Christ s tomb is empty! e. Surprisingly, the disciples do not believe the women! Even though Jesus had said all of these things, and the women are eyewitnesses, the disciples still don t see it! f. Application: But there are some that do. When we speak about our relationship with God and witness to others, not all will hear what we have to say. We have to get used to rejection as His followers. But if we choose to not speak and witness, then we will be hiding the greatest truth in the universe, that God has the power to give us eternal life in Christ! 2.Our testimony can be used by God to boost others faith. a. The women tell these disciples and that gets Peter and John headed to the tomb to check for themselves. Luke only mentions Peter, but we know from other accounts that John was also with him. b. Peter went to the tomb because of the testimony of the women. Testimonies are powerful evidences of the truth and they cause others to consider the possibility of what we are saying. c. When Peter got to the tomb, he actually went inside and looked around, checking out everything with a more open mind than if he had not been told that the body was not there. d. The linen cloths were the burial garments. A body without burial garments was quite a mystery for anyone to solve. Even if the body had been moved or stolen, the cloths would not have been removed. e. In another Gospel, we are told that they were folded nicely, which lends itself even more to Jesus resurrection. This look at Jesus resurrection is a powerful statement, made even more true by His appearances to the disciples after His resurrection. 5

6 f. Application: It is our job to bear witness to what we know to be true, to the resurrection and to all other truths about Jesus. It is through these truths and these testimonies that God can open the minds and hearts of those who don t know Him. Testimony allows people to consider the evidence that we bring. We cannot change their minds, but we can speak about what we have seen and experienced! When s the last time that you witnessed about Jesus? Conclusion As we look at the resurrection, we need not go far to verify its truth. In fact, I strongly suggest you read through 1 Corinthians 15 for more statements about Jesus resurrection. Today, I have focused on the fact that we must bear witness to that resurrection, and that in seeing what Jesus has shown us, we must then share what we have seen, or that we have not seen His body because He is not dead. Jesus life tells us that hope is still alive, and that we can hope in God to finish the work He began in each of us! Let us remember His resurrection on this day of victory! 6