Sermon Tone Analysis

Sermon 1: What did Jesus’ death do?

Simple story; easy to understand// Most profound truth— Jesus Christ is alive from the dead

Simple story; easy to understand// Most profound truth— Jesus Christ is alive from the dead

As we come to the end of our long study of the gospel of Luke, this wonderful adventure with the Lord Jesus Christ, we find ourselves in chapter 24 this morning.

Chapter 24 of Luke, the last chapter and looking at a text that begins in verse 33 and runs through verse 43.

It is on the surface a very simple narrative, easy to understand.

On the other hand, it describes the most profound of all Christian truths that Jesus Christ is alive from the dead.

In the wonderful, simple words of Scripture, so simple that no one could possibly mistake them, we have the record of this profound supernatural event.

Verse 33 begins with these words, “And they … that refers to the two disciples who had met Jesus on the road to Emmaus … and they arose that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them saying, ‘The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.’

And they began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.

And while they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst.

But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing 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 that I have.’

And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.

And while they still could not believe it for joy and were marveling He said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’

And they gave Him a piece of broiled fish and He took it and ate it before them.”

Just before last Easter, some anti-Christian television journalists announced to the world, you will remember this, that they had discovered the family tomb of Jesus and the bones of Jesus were still in it.

Their leader calls himself the Naked Archaeologist.

I doubt that that’s a reference to the emperor with no clothes, but it seems to me to be a close connection.

This leader suggested that the discovery should not be disturbing to Christians.

To find Jesus’ bones was no problem because the Spirit of Jesus was still alive.

Obviously a bad theologian, he was an equally bad archaeologist and an equally bad journalist, since it took only a few days after the first appearance of this highly promoted National Geographic television network special for them to pull it off the air because it was totally debunked as a fraud and all further reruns were canceled.

Denying the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ has always been a major pastime for Satan and his emissaries and agents because they understand that if He did not rise from the dead, then His Word cannot be believed because He said He would.

Neither can the Bible be believed because it said He would.

Neither can the Apostles who wrote the New Testament be believed because they said He did.

And, in fact, the Old Testament can be rejected as well.

If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then Christianity totally collapses.

They understand that.

Non-believers, haters of Christ understand the importance, the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If it is true, then Christianity is true.

Old Testament prophecies are true.

New Testament testimony is true.

The words of Jesus are true.

The eyewitness testimonies are true.

The gospel is true.

Salvation is real.

God is God and they’re in trouble.

That’s why when it happened, the leaders of Israel who knew it happened and did not try to deny it, having been told by the Roman soldiers, told them, “Lie, don’t tell the truth, don’t tell anybody about an angel and a resurrection.

Lie and say the disciples stole His body.”

Bribed, that’s what they did, and that lie circulated.

Even unbelievers, Satan certainly, who manipulates unbelievers, understands that if the resurrection is true, Christianity is true.

If the resurrection could be disproven, Christianity totally collapses.

There have been, therefore, through the history of the church since the resurrection of Jesus Christ, countless, relentless, endless efforts to explain away the resurrection.

No one, by the way, has ever succeeded.

No one has ever broken the unbreakable chain of evidences that link the resurrection and make it clear that it is a fact of history.

To bring down Christianity, all you have to do is bring down the resurrection.

And then the Apostles become liars, the New Testament is a lie.

Jesus is a liar.

God is liar.

The Bible disappears.

The whole of the Christian gospel stands on the truth of the resurrection.

If it is true, everything else is true.

That is why Paul writes in Romans 10:9 and 10 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.

Salvation comes by believing in the resurrection which means you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead because He had offered a suitable fitting and perfect sacrifice for sin on the cross and God validated that in the resurrection.

You believe that the Old Testament prophecies of His death and resurrection are true as they are, you believe that the New Testament testimonies to His death and resurrection are true, the Bible therefore is true, the gospel is true and that is the means of salvation.

The resurrection is so critical that each of the four gospel writers focus on the reality of the resurrection.

And as I’ve been telling you, they focus on proofs.

They all four look at the empty tomb as an evidence of the resurrection, a pretty good one.

They all four look at the angelic testimony, the testimony of an unmistakable angel from heaven.

They all look at the witness of the women who saw Jesus personally, Mary Magdalene and the other women.

And they all include as an evidence of the reality of the resurrection the unbelief of the disciples and the apostles because one of the arguments is going to be, and always has been through history, the resurrection didn’t happen but the followers of Jesus wanted it to happen so badly that they virtually actualized it in their own minds.

They made it in to a reality because of such strong wish that it would come to pass.

It was as if it happened because they wanted it so badly.

All four gospel writers tell us there wasn’t one person among the disciples or the apostles who even believed Jesus would rise from the dead.

They not only didn’t want it, they didn’t expect it, they didn’t even believe it.

Each of the gospel writers then looks at these evidences.

Each of them from a little different angle, looking at different incidents of those things but all looking at these evidences.

Each of them give eyewitness accounts where unbelief was turned to faith.

Each of them tells us how people were transformed when they met the risen Christ, whether it was John telling us about Mary Magdalene, or Matthew telling us about the women on the road, or Luke telling us about His appearance to Simon, or Luke telling us here about His appearance, as does John, in the upper room to the gathered eleven and the others.

They all show us what a massive transformation took place when the risen Christ appeared.

These appearances, these experiences sealed the faith of the apostles who then went out preaching the resurrection with proof.

And they saw many believe and the church established on the Day of Pentecost with 3,000 and then 5,000 and tens of thousands more as the church began to move to what it is even this day, two thousand years later.

So Luke, consistent with the other writers, gives us eyewitness accounts of people who saw the risen Christ.

His accounts begin in verse 13 of chapter 24 with two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Just a quick review.

These are two followers of Jesus.

One of them is named Cleopas, the other is unnamed.

They have been with the rest of the disciples and the apostles in a location in Jerusalem.

We don’t know that location but they had gathered together there.

Why had they gathered together?

Fear.

John tells us, “For fear of the Jews.”

If the Jews had killed Jesus, they felt that they would soon be after them because they were the followers of Jesus.

You remember that before they ever came to Jerusalem for that final Passover, Jesus said, “I have to go to Jerusalem.”

And Thomas said, “Well we’ll go and die with You there.”

Before it ever happened, they anticipated it and they anticipated that if it happened to Jesus, it was going to happen to them.

They were going to get caught in the same net.

So now that Jesus is dead, they are huddled together somewhere in Jerusalem in a clandestine unknown place trying to sort all of this out.

They have heard the testimony of the women that the tomb is empty, that the angel explained to them He is risen.

They have heard the testimony of the women, Mary Magdalene and the other women, that they saw Jesus and He is alive.

They do not believe it.

They think it is nonsense.

And that’s important because they had no expectation of a resurrection whatsoever.

They didn’t even believe when they were told by separate people the same things.

They didn’t believe.

They thought it was nonsense.

They were gathered there somewhere in Jerusalem, two of them decided to go home.