His Resurrection is Our Source of Joy

[0:00] If you would take your Bibles and turn to the Gospel of Luke chapter 24.

[0:16] Luke chapter 24, if you're visiting with us, the black Bible in the chair in front of you, you can pull that puppy out and go over towards the back of that, page 69.

[0:28] 69, you'll find Luke chapter 24, we're going to do the first 12 verses. Three more weeks in the Gospel of Luke.

[0:40] And then I'll do a message the end of this month on revival again. And then we'll begin in the book of Acts. Which is volume 2 of Luke's book, so to speak.

[0:54] 72 weeks in the Gospel of Luke. And I don't know how many weeks we'll be in Acts, so... I don't know. Probably, maybe not as long.

[1:06] But we'll see. What'd you say? Y'all skip a lot, huh? Oh, I get you. Yeah, whatever.

[1:18] Just having fun. Nice to see Judy back. Welcome back, Judy Hopkins. Luke chapter 24, verses 1 through 12.

[1:28] We're going to read and then we'll do our study. But on the first day of the week at early dawn, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

[1:41] But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened that while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling apparel.

[1:52] As the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, they said to them, Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he is risen. Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day rise again.

[2:15] And they remembered his words and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now, there were Mary Magdalene and Joanna, Mary the mother of James, also the other women with them, were telling these things to the apostles.

[2:31] These words appeared to them as nonsense. They would not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only, and he went away to his home, marveling at that which had happened.

[2:52] You leave the station, going from zero to 128 miles per hour in 3.5 seconds. You shoot up the impossible height of 456 feet, and it is 90 degrees straight up.

[3:14] And once you get to the top, you'll be plummeting right back down in a 270 degrees spiral. Whew! That sounds like fun.

[3:26] That's at Six Flags in Jackson, New Jersey. The ride is called Kingda Ka. I should have put some pictures up there. They had some pictures. You go on the internet, and I'm like, oh my goodness gracious, this is a massive roller coaster.

[3:40] That would be so fun. Now, what if you climbed up those 45 stories in the air only for the ride to come to a screeching halt, or wait, better yet, you don't even climb that height.

[3:57] As a matter of fact, they shoot you off, and they stop the ride, and the operators, they say to you, thanks for riding Kingda Ka. Have a great day.

[4:10] You say, excuse me? Wait a second. I paid this money. I specifically came here to this Six Flags Park to ride this ride, and you're telling me this is the ride?

[4:23] And they say, oh yeah. That's the ride. Are you kidding me? What the heck? Where is the drop? Where is the going?

[4:35] What is it? 120 miles an hour? Where is that? Oh no, that's not the ride. This is the ride. You just go, and that's it. Friends, that's what it would be like if Jesus had not resurrected from the dead.

[4:48] It would be like a roller coaster with no drop. Six Flags in Los Angeles. Goliath, you go up, up, up, up, up.

[5:02] What if you went all the way up, and they sat right at the peak, and then they say, okay, thanks, you can get off now. That's what it would be like if Jesus had not resurrected from the dead. Last couple weeks was the climax.

[5:13] Jesus died, and now it's all downhill from here. because He resurrects. This drop, this resurrection drop, so to speak, is the thing that completely fulfills everything.

[5:29] It finalizes the good news of Jesus. And this is what makes the good news good news. This is the thing that gives us such great joy, gladness, happiness, fulfillment.

[5:44] It's this drop. This is the very thing where we go, yeah, this is it. It's the resurrection. If there's no resurrection, there's no yeah.

[5:59] Come, follow Jesus, and you will find forgiveness of your sins. He is now both Lord and Christ. He is the Son of Man. He is the Lord's servant.

[6:11] And what we'll see this morning, today, is that His resurrection is our source of joy and is our passion for evangelism. This resurrection, this is our source of joy, and this is what brings about passion for evangelism.

[6:29] This drives us to evangelism. It drives us to just tell others and proclaim it to people. You've got to ride this ride. This is phenomenal. His resurrection is our source of great joy and is our passion for evangelism.

[6:50] our passion to speak about Christ, who He is and what He's done, it culminates here.

[7:01] It's all fulfilled right here. God vindicated His righteous one via the resurrection. The climax was Jesus' crucifixion and His resurrection cinches it all.

[7:17] He was gloriously raised to life to reign as God's king. It's clear, Jesus' disciples and the women, they were not waiting for, they weren't expecting a resurrection.

[7:32] His disciples were disillusioned. And hearing about this resurrection, it brought a huge shift to their emotions. And when they saw the Lord for the first time, it transformed their absolute, total despair to hopeful joy.

[7:51] 180 degree turn. Friends, this is important. This event is what seals the Christian faith.

[8:04] It hinges here. it's the essential part of what we believe as Christians. It would be ludicrous to ride a roller coaster only to come to the very top and the ride stops.

[8:19] And it would be ludicrous if Jesus did not rise from the dead. If He had not raised, then He can't save anyone. There's no hope. As a matter of fact, Christianity is just another human approach to God if there is no resurrection.

[8:39] If Jesus are not resurrected from the dead, then we're just another human approach to God. We're just like every other religion or every other cult in the world.

[8:54] It's all equally the same then if there's no resurrection. There's no transforming power. There's no future hope. It would not be worth all the energy and effort that we muster up for this thing called Christianity.

[9:12] There'd be no point in us being here. There'd be no point in us coming together. There'd be no point in us singing these songs. Nothing. Why? We would have nothing to offer this lost world if there was no resurrection.

[9:30] Because a dead Savior is no Savior at all. And people say, oh, but look at Jesus, man.

[9:42] I mean, what an exemplary life. There's thousands of exemplary people in this world. Big deal.

[9:54] Is that what it's all about? He died, but he lived an exemplary life. Leave him in the resurrection? No, no, no, no. It's not about resurrection. He lived a really good life.

[10:06] That's it? Look, if that's the case, then why are we even here? But, if there is a resurrected Savior, then that means he truly cares.

[10:19] And that means he's fulfilled God's promises. And that means he is the hope that this world needs. He's the hope. Because how does one have a relationship with God?

[10:35] Through the resurrected Christ, the exalted chosen one. He is the door to new life because a resurrected Messiah, resurrected by God's power, is the only thing that makes relationship with God totally possible.

[10:51] He's the only thing that makes it possible. It's wrapped up in Jesus. There's life beyond the grave. There's life beyond death.

[11:05] What hope? What joy? This is all for real. One writer says this, quote, To believe in Christ is to believe not merely an example, brackets from Jim, as the liberal denominations teach today, continue on, but in the power of his resurrection to grant new life, end quote.

[11:32] New life to who? Sinners, rebels, outcasts, losers, us. This is a source of great joy in our Christian lives.

[11:49] Do you not have joy? Then you've forgotten. Do you lack joy? Then you've forgotten. You've forgotten the source of your joy. It's in the resurrection of Jesus.

[12:04] Look, if our joy has waned, if we're dealing with depression, despair, a joyless life, then we've forgotten the victory that is ours because of Jesus resurrected.

[12:16] You've lost sight. You've forgotten the joy that comes in the gospel, the resurrected Christ. He is our source of joy because he is resurrected.

[12:28] There's such great joy and such hope in that. Christian, where is your joy? Where is our joy? Resurrection-denying churches, as I said earlier, they like to paint Jesus as an example.

[12:44] Oh man, he was so courageous. Oh, he had such great conviction. Hey, he really loved poor people. And, resurrection-denying churches, they talk about spring at the end of winter, right?

[13:00] They talk about the butterflies that discard the cocoon and it flies out. Yet, they never use the R word. Resurrection, because they don't believe it.

[13:15] Look, we admit, none of the four gospels actually describe the resurrection because no one saw it happen. No one saw it happen. Yet, in all the accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there are common elements, the empty tomb, reluctant, doubtful disciples, women, they experience the first appearances and then a certain number of appearances after that.

[13:43] Yet, friends, understand, it's a true core historical event. It's not what the Germans called gesichter, or gesichter, which is embellished history.

[13:58] We're not embellishing anything. This is not opinion. It's fact. And it was this historical event that changed the disciples' view of what happened to Him at the cross.

[14:14] And it just turned their lives just upside down. It gave them such great joy. It gave them such great hope. And then they just wanted to it just wanted to propel them towards others and serve others and speak this gospel to others.

[14:31] That's what it does. But what about all these different aspects and different angles that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what do we say about that?

[14:46] Well, we take the view that they wrote independent of each other for the express purposes of complimenting each other. Liberal scholars are skeptical.

[14:57] They deny this because they deny the inerrancy of the scripture. And by the way, these are not Luke's views who redacted or who edited things to express his own theological perspectives.

[15:12] I know! I'll throw this in! This sounds great! You know, he didn't do that. But these are real, true historical events from the many different resources that Luke used.

[15:25] He said that in chapter 1. I talked to many eyewitnesses, I got their thoughts of what this happened with that, and he put it all together and there you go. That's what he did. He didn't just go, oh, this sounds good, I'll just write this down.

[15:37] People will believe this. Awesome. Peter, check this out. Paul, what do you think about this? Oh, cool. He didn't do it like that. He talked to eyewitnesses what he said in chapter 1. So let's look at the text now.

[15:50] That was a long introduction. Let's look at the text. There's two points I'm going to have. Remembering the gospel and then our source of joy and then proclaiming the gospel our passion for evangelism.

[16:02] First point, remember the gospel. It's our source of joy. When we remember the gospel, the good news of Jesus, how he lived for us, died on our behalf and rose from the dead, we have such great hope and joy.

[16:21] Our love for Jesus, the eternal Son, and the Father becomes deeper because His grace looms larger for us. Starting in verse 1.

[16:34] The first day of the week came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. I just want to do another side note here.

[16:48] Some believe that there's a discrepancy between what Matthew, Mark, and Luke said versus what John says. They say, oh, there's a discrepancy. And they're skeptical.

[17:00] Maybe you hear that on the History Channel. You know, when you watch something from the History Channel about the Bible, you always should be skeptical about the History Channel. They're always coming from a liberal viewpoint.

[17:10] And I mean liberal theologically, not in terms of political stuff. I'm not talking about that. Or you read about it. Oh, there's a discrepancy between Matthew, Mark, Luke, they said something different about John.

[17:22] You know, don't listen to that. There's plenty of ways to be able to explain the different perspectives, how they looked at things. I'm not going to take a lot of time to show this to you, but let me give you one example.

[17:34] In John's Gospel, John first gave his own experience. in the first few verses, when he ran to the tomb, and then he gives Mary's point of view. Even though actually Mary's point of view was first chronologically.

[17:48] John's just doing his first, and then he does Mary's later. That's one way to look at it. What's clear? The resurrection discovery, it began with a trip from these women.

[18:02] They find the empty tomb, and then Jesus' appearance to at least some, if not all of them. Remember, the four counts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, they all complement each other. They're looking at the resurrection from all different angles.

[18:15] And that's okay. We're okay with that. So now, to the text again, first day of the week, the women, they, that word they, it goes back to chapter 23, verse 55, now the women who had come with him out of Galilee, followed after, they saw the tomb, how his body was laid.

[18:37] They followed Joseph. They prepared spices. They were going to, they were going to return and prepare those spices. But then, they were trying to hurry, so they, they found the tomb.

[18:48] Okay, that's where he's at. Good. Okay, let's go back. Okay, Sabbath starts. Okay, we got to rest. And then the first day of the week, early in the morning, as it says, bringing the spices to stay prepared.

[18:59] So they prepared these spices. They're going to come to the tomb. That's the first day of the week, Sunday. Early dawn, the initial part of dawn, they wanted to anoint Jesus' body with the spices as soon as they could see.

[19:11] It's that part of, you know, when it's just coming light, but it's still dark outside. It's that part that they wanted to come as soon as possible. So it's clear, it's clear, that they had a mind to complete Jesus' burial with spices and perfumes.

[19:26] If they expected a resurrection, they wouldn't do this. Oh, he's going to resurrect anyways, Mary. Forget those spices. Awesome. Let's go. They didn't do that. Like, oh, he's dead.

[19:37] Okay, we've got to complete the burial. That's how they thought of it. They weren't expecting a resurrection. And feel the emotions too.

[19:49] There's depression. They're probably exhausted because they were crying. They're mourning over Jesus. They're just hopeless. When you take flowers to a cemetery, you don't expect to see an empty grave.

[20:06] You don't expect the casket to be gone. You don't expect the body to be gone. Verse 2, And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

[20:20] 3, But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. The rolled away stone. That's the first sign of Jesus' resurrection. It was like an invitation to come inside the tomb to anoint the body.

[20:31] Oh, great. Let's go. Wait a second. There's no body. Where is the body of the Lord Jesus? They found the open tomb, but they did not find the body. A major evidence for the fact of the resurrection of Jesus is that his body was no longer in the tomb.

[20:50] His bones will never be found because he was brought back to life. Oh, yeah, they come up with this thing called the lost tomb of Jesus. Some documentary film.

[21:02] What was it? I think in 2008, 2009, somewhere around there. The proclamation is that they found the family tomb of Jesus. And yet, there's archaeologists that actually said that the film makes a mockery of archaeology.

[21:16] Look, his remains will never be found because he has risen. He's risen indeed. But notice, they're perplexed.

[21:26] Verse 4. And it happened that while they're perplexed about this, open tomb, no body, this is weird. This is unexpected. They're wondering what had happened. Literally, from the Greek, it's this.

[21:38] They're utterly at a loss. So they're reflecting on this. They're at a loss. Behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling apparel, in bright clothing.

[21:53] Terms of a heavenly nature. Terms actually that were used to describe the shining garments at the transfiguration of Jesus earlier in Luke's Gospel. Same words.

[22:05] Why two? And these are angels. We'll find that out later. Why two? Because they displayed a two witness pattern to show the validation of the truth, to show the truth of the reality of what they're about to say.

[22:21] This validates it. There's two of us. Notice what happens. There in verse 5. As the women were terrified, they bowed their faces to the ground. They're standing in awe.

[22:32] They're fearful of these angels. They figured out these guys, they're not like just typical people. They're bowing to the ground, bowing as a way to recognize that these were God's divine messengers. They knew something was happening, but they weren't sure.

[22:47] Well, the angels would tell them. Next part of verse 5. They said to them, Why do you seek the living one among the dead? It was like a soft rebuke.

[23:00] What in the world are you doing here? Why do you seek someone who lives among those who are dead? What's the matter with you? I mean, do you look for live people in a cemetery?

[23:13] That's almost like what they're saying. It was almost like a duh type question. Jesus has been raised. Peter was saying in Acts chapter 2, it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him.

[23:32] And then notice verse 6, the classic line from the angels. He is not here, but He is risen. And by the way, ignore the margin note in your Bible which says some ancient manuscripts do not contain this.

[23:51] I don't know why they put that in there. For all you little techies out there, I'll give you the info. Only Biza is missing this. Papyrus 75, Sinaticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Family 1, Family 13, and the Byzantine manuscripts, they all have this.

[24:07] So I don't know why they put that in there. It's kind of like weird. But okay. And then notice what they say, the next part there in verse 6. He is not here, but He is risen.

[24:20] Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee? Remember what He said? Don't you remember? Did you forget? Recall His teaching.

[24:33] They're referring back to chapter 9, verse 22. Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day.

[25:00] They're referring back to chapter 9, verse 44. Let these words sink into your ears for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They're referring back to what Jesus said earlier in Luke's Gospel in chapter 18, verse 32.

[25:19] For you will be delivered to the Gentiles and be mocked and mistreated and spit upon and after they have scourged Him they will kill Him and the third day He will rise again. This should be no surprise to you.

[25:32] The Father had truly resurrected His Son. He has risen, passive. He was the one who raised Jesus from the dead by His great power.

[25:43] He said to you. He said to you? And then one of the most important passages in the chapter even in Luke's entire Gospel is Jesus summarized prediction that was now fulfilled.

[26:00] Notice, verse 7. Saying, that Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day rise again. that's exactly what Jesus had said.

[26:12] That's exactly what Jesus had predicted and it has come true. Notice how they called Jesus Son of Man. This was Jesus' favorite title to describe Himself.

[26:26] Now it's used by the angels to refer to Him. They're purposely calling Him the Son of Man. He is the Son of Man. And notice, Son of Man must be, guess what word this is?

[26:39] In the Greek, Dei, Delta Epsilon Iota, D-E-I, it must happen. This had to happen. Luke is known to use this word.

[26:51] This was, it is part of God's plan for Him. What happened to Jesus was not some mishap. Oops! Not an afterthought.

[27:02] It was not a side issue, secondary, not so important type thing. No, it was the highlight of God's sovereign plan for His Messiah.

[27:15] It was necessary, notice, there's three infinitives. To be delivered. To be crucified. To rise again. To be raised. He was given over to the hands of the Jewish rulers, even to the Romans.

[27:32] The rulers permitted to hand Jesus over to the Romans. They arrested Him and they sent Him off to the Romans who crucified Him. The Romans mistreated Jesus and killed Him by having Him hang upon a cross.

[27:46] And raised on the third day. Day one, Friday. Day two, Saturday. Day three, Sunday. By the way, that phraseology, three days and three nights, that was an idiom for three days.

[28:01] So somebody says to you, he wasn't there for a third night, that was an idiom. Come on. It's a figure of speech. He is the raised and exalted Son of Man.

[28:13] He was, is now, Jesus. The risen Christ. So not only was it God's plan for Jesus to be given over and crucified, but it was part of His plan for Jesus to be raised.

[28:28] The angels reminded them. Don't you remember? They reminded them of this great, joyful, glorious truth so they would proclaim this message to others.

[28:40] Speak it. Today, people like who use Jesus as a person to pattern their life after.

[28:53] He loved people. He was kind and He reached out. He was a true patriot. He was the best religious organizer there was. He was an earth lover. He was the first Marxist, the first social reformer.

[29:08] He was a great healer. He was a wise teacher. He taught us how to live life. He was nice to mean people. Is this what Jesus was all about? If so, then it looks like the angels missed it.

[29:22] Oh, those dumb angels now, come on! Yes, Jesus did some tremendous things and He said some tremendous things. He taught tremendous things.

[29:34] Yes. Look, His mission was to live, die, and be raised. His mission was to save sinners, rebels, losers.

[29:48] Us. What's this mission? It's not to be an earth lover. It's not to be the Marxist, the first social reformer. It's not to be any of those things.

[30:00] It was to live, to die, to be raised so that He can give new life to losers. sinners. And this same resurrection power is given to His followers to be able to live the life He wants them to live.

[30:20] Now that's even more amazing. His resurrection gives great hope to His followers so that we also will be resurrected. So not only Jesus resurrected, so that same power is given to those who follow Him, who trust Him.

[30:36] Same power to live how He calls us to live. But that same power is going to resurrect us. Do we have such great hope? As the Father vindicated His Son, so He will vindicate followers of His Son.

[30:49] I mean, man, we got it all. We've got it made. This is our source of joy. This is great joy for us. Our salvation is real. It's real.

[31:02] And notice the women, verse 8. Oh, yeah. And they remembered His words. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

[31:15] They recalled what Jesus said specifically about His resurrection. It all made sense now. And they were excited. We're going to look at verse 12 in chronological order.

[31:28] So we're going to go back to verse 12. But I want us to see that it's important and we see that here's Jesus' prophetic word. It's linked to this historical event of His resurrection.

[31:40] He predicted it. It came true. If Jesus had not been raised, then He's a fake. He's a liar. There's no joy. There's no hope. But if He has been raised, this is our source of great joy as Christians.

[31:56] And so, that leaves the next point. Since we have such great joy, when you have this joy, you can proclaim the gospel. You have a passion for evangelism now. This is for real.

[32:08] It's not just another spiritual path to God. Well, the Hindus got theirs and Islam and Shintoism, Sikh, you know, it's not, that's not like that, friends.

[32:22] There's one and only true God, the risen, resurrected Messiah. He is our source of joy. This is all for real. Now we proclaim the gospel. Notice, verse 9, they remembered and they returned from the tomb, reported all these saints to the eleven and to all the rest.

[32:42] They remembered Jesus' teaching and they responded by reporting these things to the eleven and the rest. They proclaimed these things to the apostles and the other disciples of Jesus. That's what they did. They were stoked.

[32:55] Look, when we remember the gospel, the good news of Jesus, and how it has brought us new life, it brings us great joy. So great is our joy that we want to reach out to others and proclaim this gospel truth to them.

[33:10] If we're not proclaiming, then the solution is not, well, you just have to go proclaim more. The answer actually is a question. The question would be, then, where's your source of joy?

[33:23] Is the resurrected Christ your source of joy? And the disciples here, they heard for the first time about the empty tomb, the angelic appearance, the proclamation of his resurrection.

[33:38] The women told them all these things that happened. And then notice the next verse, verse 10. Now they were married Magdalene, Joanna, married the mother of Jesus, excuse me, mother of James.

[33:50] Also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. So who exactly went to the tomb? Oh, just one person went. No. Two? No. At least three.

[34:01] Actually even more than that. He just names off a few. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, married the mother of James, and Joseph. Including other unnamed women.

[34:13] They're part of hearing the news of Jesus resurrected and reporting that news. So a group of them, they're telling them these things. It's not just one person.

[34:27] You know, they always give the, well, you know, there's no thing about the Bible, you know, there's one person, you know, the whole thing where you tell the story to one person that tells it to another and tells it to another and the first story doesn't end up being like the last story.

[34:38] It doesn't match together. It didn't happen like that. You had a group coming together, they see this thing, they go back and they report this to the disciples. That's how it happened.

[34:50] Oh, and by the way, there's another vital fact. This news first came to women. Now this, now for us, we don't get this. We have it in the 21st century.

[35:00] In the first century, this is a big deal because of the low status women had in the society. They were nobodies. Perfect. That's who God reaches out to.

[35:11] Nobodies. The ones that are thrown aside in society, God's the one who reaches out to them. Huh? That's good. Hmm.

[35:24] Verse 11. These words appeared to them as nonsense. They would not believe them. The proclaimed news was not accepted by the disciples at first. Well, actually, in fact, they thought it was nonsense.

[35:37] Idle talk is what the word means. Babble. You're nuts. You're crazy. There's actually a term that was used in medical settings of delirious talk of the very sick.

[35:54] You're screwy. Jimmy Stewart would say. Are you crazy? Look, everything we'd hope for regarding God's kingdom has been crushed and then you come with this story?

[36:06] What a crazy effort for you to challenge reality. Look, ladies, this is reality. Jesus is dead? Come on. You're emotionally out of your mind.

[36:24] Turn out that no one believed them. Except Peter. We'll see that in a little bit. And see, it's this reaction that gives way to the resurrection account.

[36:34] would any gospel writer have presented the apostles like this? They wouldn't do this. They'd say, oh yeah, we were expecting, oh, we knew that. We expected Jesus to do that.

[36:45] That's right. We already knew that. Thanks, guys. Okay. It wasn't like that. The gospel writers presented the apostles skeptically. This would be how most would react today.

[36:57] These disciples were not fit subjects to hallucination. We just want to hallucinate that Jesus was really alive. Maybe if we conjure that out, maybe it really will happen. They didn't think that was going to happen.

[37:13] By the way, for those of us who have not seen Jesus and we are attacked because we believe in Jesus, we can trust He is alive.

[37:26] People may ridicule us, mock us, deride us, make us feel stupid, try to bring evidence against His resurrection. The fact of the matter is, the fact of the matter is, Jesus is alive.

[37:43] He is. And as for these disciples that the women spoke to, they've forgotten the words of Jesus.

[37:55] They do not remember, which is why they were in such great despair with no hope. Are you here today and you're in despair? You have no hope?

[38:09] Do you not know Jesus? Are you someone who's not a follower of Christ? And you have no hope, you have no joy. It's because you're in absolute turmoil.

[38:22] And rightly so, because God should judge you. He will. God will judge you. He will judge anyone. Anyone who's outside of His Son, He will judge them.

[38:34] That's what we all deserve. All of us deserve that. We all deserve torment of hell. But God is gracious and kind and gentle and compassionate. He sent Jesus to live.

[38:46] He died and He rose. Turn away from your sin and put your trust in Jesus and you'll be saved. He will be your source of joy. He will be your source of such great hope.

[38:57] You will have hope in this life. That we suffer now. We have such great hope. For believers, for us as Christians, who live our lives in despair, depression, sadness, we have forgotten the joy that comes with the resurrection of Jesus.

[39:20] If we lack a passion for evangelism, a passion in our lives, it's the link to our forgetfulness of the awesome work of Jesus for us. We've forgotten. We've forgotten. As we looked at there in the Sunday school with the adults, our Bible study class, examine your heart.

[39:40] Remember the gospel. Repent of sin and see where your unbelief is short-circuiting the natural outflow of God's truth of the gospel displayed to you in the resurrection of His Son.

[39:54] Find your joy in Christ. He is your source of joy. Notice verse 12 which goes with the first point remembering the gospel.

[40:08] Peter rose and ran to the tomb. Stupid and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only or by themselves and he went away to his home marveling at that which had happened. He made physical effort to look inside the tomb.

[40:23] He saw the wrappings. Again, I don't know if maybe you have this in your Bibles. Verse 12 is in brackets. I don't know if you have that. Again, I don't know why they did this.

[40:38] Ignore the margin statement in your Bible about some ancient manuscripts do not have this verse. Again, for all you techies, it's only Biza that's missing it again.

[40:49] It's a test, again, Papyrus 75, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Washington even has it, Family 1, Family 13, the Byzantine manuscripts, they all have them. I don't know why they put that in there.

[41:00] But as far as Peter is concerned, this is the thing that perplexed Peter. No one would take a body and leave the linen wrappings there.

[41:11] You wouldn't do that. They would take the whole thing. And they don't do it, Jesus is alive! You know, that's what they would do. Not to mention the fact the difficulty in unwrapping the body like that.

[41:23] I mean, it wasn't like, you know, let's get a couple rolls of paper towels and just wrap them. That sounds like good. That's not how they did that. They had a huge sheet, sheets, and they would wrap them methodically and just, they'd take a lot of time.

[41:37] And then actually, we learn from John, they had the headpiece as a separate piece. It took a lot of time to wrap the body and the linen, they're still there. That perplexed Peter.

[41:53] That's why he went home amazed, marveling at the things that had happened. Jesus had not appeared to his disciples yet. They were stumped. Now the women, the outsiders, those crazy women, they're believing with hope.

[42:09] While the eleven and others, they're skeptically doubting. Yet Peter, Peter has yet to embrace, to remember the culmination of the gospel, which is the resurrection of Jesus.

[42:25] And he has yet to have joy in this event. And you're actually going to see that in the next couple of weeks. You're going to see that they will finally have joy. Right now, they're just, what? What?

[42:40] The road to Jesus' resurrection began with the empty tomb. It gave the first physical, tangible evidence that Jesus had truly risen from the dead. Next stop would be his appearances.

[42:51] That's what we'll look at the next couple of weeks. Their mourning was turned to perplexity, but then it turned to great joy. God's promised power has truly come, but the factual story, it's unbelievable.

[43:07] Here's the moment to reflect, to decide, to believe, not in a story, that you tell your friend, who tells the next friend, who tells the next friend.

[43:17] No, this is factual, historical truth. The resurrection is exactly what Jesus had promised. God had truly acted on behalf of the eternal Son.

[43:30] What seemed to be the end was actually a new beginning to new life. For it's only this resurrection that makes possible a right relationship with God. It's the only thing.

[43:42] It's only Christ. Not the saints, not the merits of saints, not the merits of others. No, it's only Jesus. Or as it's known by, in its Latin form, by the reformers, Solus Christus.

[43:56] Wait a minute, I think we sang that this morning. What was that called? Oh, that's right. In Christ alone. Everything that Jesus has said was true because of the resurrection.

[44:10] Friends, there really is a heaven, there really is a hell. There really is a judgment to come. Jesus will really return. The world will really end.

[44:21] And it's not all about this life. You will be held accountable. You will stand before God. Where do you stand with Jesus' resurrection?

[44:32] Have you turned and trusted in Him? Christian, have you forgotten? Have you forgotten the joy that is wrapped up in the resurrection of your Savior?

[44:45] have you forgotten what great hope we have as rebels who are now heirs of a kingdom? Remember this great news and may I give you a passion to proclaim the great news to others?

[45:06] Take a few moments and reflect and ponder of what we've seen in God's word, these 12 verses of Luke 24. maybe take time to pray. Ponder, maybe you want to read it through again.

[45:21] Read through your notes. Just take a few moments and just to think. We'll have a few moments of silence for you to think. And then we'll do our, continue our time of worship, worshiping and giving.

[45:33] We'll sing our last two songs in our closing prayer. Let's sit and let's think.