Indeed, he is the fount of every blessing and because he is, we now turn to his word and I would invite you to turn to your Bibles to Luke, chapter 24, and I will be reading for you verses 46, excuse me, 36, 343. If you do not bring your Bibles this morning, let me invite you to re-sport into the rack in front of you and there's a few Bible there and feel free to open that Bible and turn to page 923. Keep that Bible open, as you'll need to have a reference to the text during the course of the sermon. A holy thing happened when the Emmaus Road, Jesus appears to his disciples, follow along with me as I read Luke, chapter 24, 36 through 43, and while they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and he said to them, peace be with you, verse 37. They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, why are you troubled and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I, myself, touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. When he said this, he showed them his hands and feet and while they still do not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, do you have anything here to eat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and he ate it in their presence. Indeed, this is the Word of God. That anthem comes from Psalm 121, I will lift up my eyes into the hills, when it is coming with my help, my help is coming from the Lord who made heaven and earth and it goes on to say that he does not slumber and he does not sleep and what a great comfort that is our children go to bed at night and they sleep and we as parents are unable to stay up and watch them every moment. We must sleep too, God does not have to sleep. It is meant to be very, very comforting in the prophet Isaiah. He uses it another way and he says God does not slumber and he said God does not sleep towards the nation of Israel and her waywardness and her sins. What does the God think about our country now? As we have moved away from foundational principles upon which this country was built that were biblically basis, we have moved away from that. As we have screened to the heavens that we are autonomous and that we will do what we want today. What is God think about that? This God who gives us life and breath every day. I told you last September that in the 20th of September 11th that I thought God had fired a shot across the bow of our nation, you know, and he sent warnings to Israel, warning after warning after warning to turn from their direction is a year later. What difference has it made in our lives? What difference is his warning made? People is tied for God's people to pray, to really pray and grant for God's mercy, and we look back at that tragedy from last year from September 11th, 2001. Tomorrow at noon, Tuesday at noon, Wednesday at noon, there will be a service in the sanctuary. A service, three services, they're based on the theme of those services will be 1 Chronicles 7, 14. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will heal their land. Tomorrow the Reverend Sandy Wilson, Senior Minister of Second Presbyterian Church will speak from this puppet with a message entitled Humboldt under God's mighty hand. It's a great title. On Tuesday, Dr. Bill Bulk Knight, Senior Minister of Christ, United Methodist Church will speak on prayer, a call to prayer, from the Book of Daniel. Come and join us for those services, Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, it is time that the people of God come together and pray and will he intercede and listen to what he has to say. The services will be brief enough for you to leave work and get back to the lunch served beforehand at 11.30 in the fellowship halls of the Bible, or afterward, either one. It's time I pray that each of you, this is a good time for our church family to come together in an unusual way. Now let's turn to the passage we read with Ed from Luke chapter 24, beginning with verse 36. Jesus is standing there, so he's first appearance to the disciples as a group, as that same Jesus is in our midst this morning. Let's pray and ask him to talk about to us his appearance in that room to those disciples. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, our pray in these next few minutes that you would make the resurrection of Jesus Christ more real to us than has ever been in our lives. Father, I pray that we will see the risen Christ as we've never seen before. I can't cause that to happen, nothing my life and not in these lives, but he's able to speak that way. And we pray that you would open our ears to hear his voice in Jesus' name. Where were you, Quinn? I once asked someone where he was when John Kennedy, the President of Kennedy, was killed. He told me exactly where he was, and then he said, you know what, I remember with more clarity where I was when I heard Buddy and Holly had died. For him the day Buddy Holly died was indeed the day the music died. Some point of our lives that would never be otherwise remembered is forever remembered because a history making event came slamming into our lives at that moment when I was studying this passage. It hit me. The resurrection is the Mount Everest of all of history, and it hit me. Does anyone yet, does anyone, it is, it has to be, the Mount Everest of all of history yet. Does anyone remember where they were when they first came to believe in the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and they came to grips with it for the first time. We will remember where we were when President Kennedy was killed. We will remember where we were when the planes hit the, can't twin towers. Some few will even remember where they were when Buddy Holly died. But who remembers where they were when the reality of the resurrection first seized them? Why don't we remember? Maybe it's because we really don't believe it. I think it's more likely that we accept it, that we do believe it, but we just accept it as just another well-known gospel truth, and we've lost the hugeness of it. Where were you when? Okay, the disciples knew, let's look back at this for just a few moments, unless pray that God answers the prayer that we pray a moment ago, that He would show us the resurrection that we've never seen before, that it would become just that important. First I want you to see a world altering event, look at verse 37, they were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost, verse 41, and while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, a man that they knew was dead, a man that they knew had been buried, a man that they knew had died, was standing right there in their midst, why were they white with fear? What they saw was impossible, why did they think they were seeing a ghost? Because dead men don't walk around with the living, why couldn't they believe it because the living was unbelievable, imagine you go to a funeral, some of you have been to a funeral this week, or what if you came home to the funeral, you had seen the man's body, you had seen the casket buried, what if you came home to the funeral, and the man was sitting there in your living room, I don't think you would say just a minute, I'll get you a drink of water, or how about a drink, you stay with supper, if you were to ask one of the disciples, what was the greatest day of your life? The disciple would not have said, the first day I saw and met Jesus, the disciple would not have said, the greatest day, that's easy, it was the day he called me to be his disciple, he wouldn't say that, he would have said, the greatest day of my life was the first time I saw Jesus after he came from the grave, my world changed, my world was shot in forever and ever altered. Folks, if the resurrection of Jesus is true, then it forces one to a radical and different world in like you, you cannot simply walk by the resurrection, say, well, he was raised from the grave, and be the same afterward as you were before. If you understand, it must change you, change your whole world in like you, Dr. Rollo May was one of the best known psychologists of the twentieth century, he was born in 1909, he died in 1994, he was a man with religious interest from his earliest days, he attended seminary and then briefly served a congregational church as a minister. However, his absorption with psychology, took him from the pulpit, he studied psychology under the existentialist theologian Paul Killick. Now, Rollo May did not believe in the realities of the events of our salvation, he certainly did not believe in the reality of the resurrection. He was a prolific writer and one of his works entitled, My Search for Beauty, he speaks of the time that he was visiting Mount Athos Greece. He was going about and he stumbled across a Greek Orthodox church, which was participating in an Easter vigil. It was Easter Eve and there was this long service going through the darkness of the death of Jesus to the time of the resurrection. Finally, they came to the moment from which they had been waiting and the priest stood and said to the congregation, Christ has risen and the congregation stood and responded in mass. Christ has risen indeed when Rollo made stood and said those words with the congregation. He said he had a thought that he had never had before. He said, I thought, what if he had risen? What if it were a trend? He said he thought that everything would be different? Nothing could possibly be the same ever again. He could never look at life in the same way. No one could death would not be the end. There would be a completely different future. Rollo May didn't believe in the resurrection but he did recognize what a shocking thing it would be if it were true. I think it's ironic that many unbelievers like Rollo May grasp the shocking significance of the resurrection. When many Christians who swear they do believe it missed the profound implications. We need to stand there with those disciples in that room this morning and we need to stand there with them until we are shocked. We need to discover the incredible nature of the resurrection in a very real way. The most life-altering day in our lives should not be the day we graduated from college or the day we got married or the day our first child was born. In a very real way the most life-altering day in our lives ought to be the day we realized the truth, the reality of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. I want you to look at these disciples were never the same again. I want you to look at this and see first a life-altering event.
We say we believe it. If I had stood in this morning with Rollo May and said I don't believe in the resurrection you would have thought that you should get out of the pulpit John you don't belong there but if we're so bent on defending the reality of the resurrection why isn't the largest thing in our lives? A world-altering event. Secondly I want you to see a physical resurrection. Look at verse 39. Now just from this point on you've really got to think with me. If you're going to if you're going to go in and out you'll never get this but if you're hang with it you'll see something back you'll see what was really happening. A physical resurrection verse 39 look at my hands and my feet it is on myself touch me and see a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have when he said said this he showed them his hands and his feet and while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement he asked them do you have anything to eat? They gave him a piece of royal fish and he took it and ate it in their presence. Jesus made sure that they were not hallucinating in their grief. He was not an apparition. Listen to his words that's what this passage is about. He says look at my hands, look at my feet it is I you know the one you knew look at it he says touch me here Peter, judge touch me and see he even said ghosts don't have flesh and blood you know this was not a figure and they could just stick their hands through it. Ghost don't have flesh and bones. We read look at it he says he showed them his hands and his feet he not only said it once he said look at my hands and he said you're not looking they just stood there dumbfounded and he said look he took their hands he said look at my hands look at my feet he's showing them the scars from the nails give me something to eat what was that about was a hunk trick no he was saying apparitions don't eat real pieces of the fish apparitions eat imaginary dream of someone eating fish out of your fridge you go the next morning all the fish go no they're still there they were imaginary fish in your dream these were real royal fish and Jesus took and he said he ate it in their presence that signited they saw him eat it why did Jesus go to such links to show them the physical reality of his resurrection and why did Luke lay out this part of the resurrection record in such detail remember Jesus was there with the disciples 40 days there were many episodes from which Luke could choose why this one and why the detail because Jesus knew and Luke understood that the physical nature of the resurrection was essential to understanding the reality the significance and the impact of the resurrection one of the explanations that has been made at every single age please don't think there's anything new in our day one of the explanations that has been made in every age to make sure the resurrection was palatable to take it and remove it from its supernatural place to make the resurrection palatable was that the disciples they just saw a vision and they saw it because they just wanted to see it so badly they wanted to see Jesus so much that they could feel they felt his presence they were seeing visions that weren't there well let's look at the passage notice they were not expecting to see him they were not yearning to see him in fact they were petrified when they saw him and these were no vague feelings here feel my hands let me have a piece of fish there are quasi-Christian books that are heavily into devotionalizing and spiritualizing our deep and profound theology and faith I was reading one of these books recently and the author spoke in a very touching way of when her husband died she was devastated she felt forsaken she felt alone after the funeral she went to her house and she said that she was comforted because she felt the spiritual presence of her husband and she was writing this saying you know this is a a Christian thing I read that and I was so mad I cussed and threw the book there's such a thing as Christian cursing says Lucid and if you can read something like that and not curse something is wrong with you folks that was not a Christian thing the disciples were not simply feeling his presence that's not the message of scripture and that demeans the message of the resurrection they he was not that they felt his presence through the power of his memory in their lives he was standing right there before him just as he stood before flesh and blood they could touch it he ate and he drank with them it was a physical resurrection and the next time someone tries to spiritualize it you must say no no no you'll see why that's so important in just a moment Dr. Fleming Rutledge is an Evangelical Episcopal Rector in her book The Bible in the New York Times she spoke of her friend who had lost her husband he had died from heart disease chronic heart disease they were a middle-aged couple and his long illness had given her time to prepare and when the actual time came or his death and he died there was no crime she seemed stoic probably relieved however when the funeral home came to take his body from the house she began to weak and then she began to cry and then she began to sob the nurse practitioner who was there reminded her she told the whitey name it's only his body they're taking his soul has gone to be with the Lord and the wife sobbed all the more and shot back at the nurse but it is his body I want that's not a pagan statement that's the cry of a Christian think about it when Jesus died his soul was with the Lord when Jesus died the father knew the soul of Jesus was not enough God said I want his body in the resurrection the father was saying it's his body I want the gospel does not stop with our souls go to be with the Lord that is true our souls go to be with him to be absent from the bodies to be present with the Lord but the Bible does not end there what says there's going to be a resurrection and we're going to receive resurrected bodies the gospel says to that lady you shall see him you will touch him he will touch you you look at this passage and you see a world altering event and you will miss everything if you miss that it was a physical resurrection and finally I want you to look at this passage and say a physical redemption he was redeeming the buy of Jesus from death now I want to show you how large that is turn with me you don't turn to any other passage you don't know the Bible look it up in your next we you want to see this turn with me to Romans chapter 8 it's just overlook Luke John acts Romans easy to find the big book Romans chapter 8 verse 18 Romans 8 verse 18 now read along silently as I read this I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed one day in us the creation that all of creation waits an eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed for the creation was subjected to frustration not by its own choice but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself would be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time not only so but we ourselves who have the first fruit to the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons the redemption of our bodies and you see two things in that passage first you see that the physical resurrected body of Jesus is a prototype for our physical resurrected body just as he was raised we will be raised but there's more look at it his resurrection the physical resurrection of Jesus for shadows the complete physical redemption of all of creation just as God is not content to have just the soul he will resurrect the body neither is he content just to redeem man alone out of creation he will redeem the entire physical creation folks having his beyond our comprehension you know we really can't know the details of our resurrected body Jesus body was different in some ways we'll look at that next week but we can know this about the resurrected body John the apostle tells us in first John that when he appears we know that we shall be like him whenever resurrected body like is in the same way we cannot know the details of heaven but we can know that in heaven God is going to redeem this physical creation that's what it says very clearly no in in in every age the church is trying to overspiritualize the faith right after the ascension right after the ascension there were the nostics the nostics taught that not only that the physical our physical bodies those flowers this desk everything physical they taught was not only insignificant they taught it was really inherently evil you know what that's continued right down to our present day in the 20th century the spiritualistic fundamentalist just just took everything that was physical and just dumped it in the garbage can and if they didn't say it was evil they at least said it's insignificant don't don't we you know what we've always thought when when when when we've heard about that there's more to life than just bread we we we thought that what God was doing was just trashing the physical and saying that and and and saying that I don't think Canada was fishing now God made this world people and he says one day I'm going to the physical resurrection is a resounding no to the nostics and to the spiritualistic fundamentalist or devotionalist this passage in Romans is around it resounding no to the nostics it is if God knew what they and their heritage would say and he laughed and he threw it in their face and he said I'm not only going to raise Jesus in a physical body I'm going to raise all of you in a physical body and I'm not only going to that do that I'm going to redeem all of the physical creation he laughed and he threw it in their face I'll redeem the body and I'll redeem the mountains and the trees and the streams and the oceans I'll redeem everything from painting to dancing he was saying I'm not letting Satan and sin and evil have the final say over my creation any part of my creation now that physical redemption creation has two parts a part that is right now and a part this future I want you to think that with me for a minute just the right now how is the Christian here let's say we're pagan and we've become a Christian and we're thinking through this and we say all right how am I supposed to respond to the creation to the everyday world around me my work my family my children my wife everything from eating apple pie to playing golf to sex whatever how am I ready to respond to this physical creation in Genesis chapter one God makes the whole creation says it's good and he makes man may made a different creature than all the other man made in his image and he says this now just listen to this is what God did this were God's first words to Adam and Eve God blessed and said to them be fruitful increase in number feel the earth and subdue it root over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the year and over every living creature that moves on the ground I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it they will be yours for food and all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground everything that has a breath of life in it I give every green plant for food and it was so and God saw all that he made and it was good
God gave man a mandate in our prayer this morning we said in the prayer but we said you did not make man for the world you didn't say to the world here's man you made the world for man that's a message scripture God gave man a mandate in this physical world he was to be the caretaker not just the garden re-scripture he's the caretaker every day everywhere to be a caretaker for the widows and orphans and brothers and sisters now I want to ask you a question is God ever remove that mandate no in fact we say we've taken the resurrection and we've thrown out the physical and clung to the spiritual when it's the physical resurrection said that gives this physical world meaning God's never remove this mandate this resurrection sanctifies it puts a circle around it in the entire the entire first chapter 15 chapter 1 Corinthians it's about the resurrection and it is a long long chapter you know what the bigger last verse says the later verse very last verse it's not about heaven it says therefore because the physical resurrection is true therefore no this that your labor on this earth is not in vain that your labor in this physical world means something that was how the apostle Paul summed up the resurrection every action in this physical world whether you're reading a book to your five year old or you're cooking in the over your family or you're building a new computer you're working in a sleep kitchen in all of this God is using his people to redeem creation right now the redemption has started it started the day he came forth from that grave what did Jesus say did he tell the disciples all right Peter John y'all sit tight here don't dare you know get to this sanctuary get to the temple sit under the stained glass stay in there and sing hymns sing hymns and pray don't you dare get out and do anything in this world until I return because this world is too evil this world is too bad there's nothing you can do about it just leave it alone and one day I'll come back and deal with you know you didn't say that in the physical resurrection of Jesus the redemption of this world has already begun that's why we're here remember at the beginning of the message I asked where were you when John Kennedy was killed I remember exactly where I was just like you remember you where you were I was walking in to my house to my parents on a 15 car history in Bristol Virginia my friend my college friend John Allen Howard was with me how do I remember that because a huge world-shaking event slammed into my life at that exact moment and I remember the small event because of the big event you know what that's exactly what the resurrection does to us every day if we walk through the world that resurrection slams into whatever we're doing and says this has eternal meaning God sanctified it let me tell you you've heard me say it a thousand times if you enjoyed a glass of wine before you were a Christian you all enjoy it ten thousand more after you became Christian why because God sanctified it me said it's important it's huge God made it and you just applied out of everything across the board whatever it is the big event makes us little physical events extremely important that's the that's the redemption that's taken place right now the redemption's already begun God's physical redemption deserve but the physical resurrection of Jesus as a guarantee that it shall also be completed look at verse 21 of that Romans 8 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage of decay what does that mean that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage of decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God God was saying just as I raised up Jesus from death I will raise up all my creation from death as I was writing this and thinking through this I listened to a message by Tim Keller and he said something I had never he applied this in a way I had never thought he said Tim Keller by the way as a senior minister of Redeemer prison between church in Manhattan the PCA has a large growing church in the middle of of Manhattan New York and Tim is the senior minister there and he said that he and his wife had always wanted to dance they're not dancers they don't know how to dance that they'd always wanted to learn to dance but you know what happens he was a young man working on his doctorate and because of his academic precedence because of children because of planning a church in New York they just never found time to learn to dance and he said you know that they look at it now and they're out of shape and they're older and it's just something we can't do and he said we can't just say if such things when we get old well that is something we will never do the times is past and that part of our life is over forever and we will never do this thing or that thing remember the beer commercial I'm gonna go around once in life you got to get all the gusto you can that's pagan thinking let's eat drink and be married and get all you can because tomorrow without that's not the gospel thanks what this passage is saying and what the resurrection of Jesus says is that we have an eternity to revel in God's re-creation whatever is on your list to do that you have it done that you can't do that is too late to do God's gonna not gonna let you leave it undone
Johnny Erickson thought he you know heard the quadriplegic what's her message one day she will walk she will run and she will dance the quadriplegic will climb mountains people this is not behind the sky by and by we've let the world come along and say that but it because the world believes that death is the end Jesus is standing there physical with his disciples I'm not gonna redeem my body I'm gonna redeem your body I'm gonna redeem all of creation that's the message of the gospel those of us who have been artistically challenged will be able to paint like Michael Angelo only drained of painting I will finally be able to sing and acquire without being told by James to mount the words this morning what is it you think that you've missed or that you're missing are you going blind slowly are you thinking and that's it the time of sight is over listen just as God will not let death have our bodies he will not let death have our lives whatever it's wasn't this morning you think if this forever you haven't they could rock and bird was badly burned over 95% of these bodies when he was a tiny infant I will not tell you the story it's just he sick but it was by the ranged father this little infant was burned and somehow in God's severe mercy and grace this baby lived operation after operation literally thousands of operations they asked him about the extreme pain of his life when he was seven years old it was his birthday and he said this he said I'm alive and then he repeated it I'm alive and said it again I'm alive I didn't miss out and that's wonderful wonderful enough for me you know what that's something just that's just a small little glimpse a token of what it's going to be like on that great day what will you do with that resurrected body that death tried to destroy what will you do with God's redeemed recreated world what will you do I think there will be an excitement even far beyond what they would drop and burn say this is I'm alive do you hear me death I'm alive I'm alive and as we look across that great new creation that has been redeemed we will be able to say and I have not missed out