Luke's Gospel

Turn in our bibles to Luke chapter 24. It should come up on the screen as well. It's Luke chapter 24, and it's the first 12 verses. And we've been working our way through Luke's gospel for some time now and it's just been such a wonderful, such a wonderful blessing. To go through this just fantastic message of the lord Jesus Christ.

And here we are in Luke 24 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices that they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly 2 men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground.

The men said to them, why do you look for the living among the dead? He's not here. He has risen. Remember how he told you while you were still while he was still with you in Galileley. The son of man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners be crucified.

And on the third day be raised again. Then they remembered his words. When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the 11, and all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the others with them, who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women because their words seemed to be like nonsense.

Peter, however, got up and ran to the tune. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away wondering to himself. What had happened. So reads God's word. Good evening, and welcome in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My name is Ben. I'm a trainee pastor here at the church. Welcome if you're joining us on the livestream. This is an amazing passage to read tonight, isn't it, of of all night. So let me just pray and ask for God's help The sermon is all about listening to the lord and what he has said, and we'll see as we look at his word, why that is so essential.

So let's just pray together before we start. Father, we thank you for this passage. That when we come to the tomb, it's empty, you're not in it. The grave is empty. And because of that our graves will be empty too.

We will be raised to new life as the Lord Jesus was So we pray as we see this story, we would listen to your word. We would be reminded of what you have said and we would take it to heart, we would take it seriously, and we would receive it really joyfully as well in Jesus' name, amen. Okay. Right. Let's see if this is going to work.

Yep. I'm going to start by showing you a couple of pictures. Just by way of hands? Has anyone seen this before or knows what this is about? This picture?

This cartoon? Carrie does? Yep. Safron does because you were in the last sermon. Yep.

This picture okay. Just give yourself a few seconds to look at it. What on earth do you think is going on here? Do you have any clue what this might be about? There's lots of animals, there's iron man's face there.

I mean, what on earth is going on here? Kinda looks like a kid's cartoon book or something, doesn't it? Well, let me tell you what this this means. This is a picture depicting the Thai cave rescue from a few years ago. If you remember that, There were 13 boys part of a football team who with their coach got stuck in some caves in Thailand.

And their football team was called the wild boars, So there's 13 wild boars there depicting the the boys. And the elephant is their coach, and he's got the football there. And iron man represents Elon Musk, because he got involved and wanted to help, and he's kind of known as the real life iron man. And then all the different animals and things represent I can't remember what they are. I'm really sorry, but they all represent different organizations and people who helped with the rescue of these kids.

Now if you if I hadn't told you that, you probably could have stared at that for a long time, couldn't you? Going, what on earth is going on here? It looks crazy. How about this 1? You might recognize that this is a banksy.

It's got that trademark kind of graffiti look to it. There's actually a banksy graffitied in 2014 in Clapton on C and Essex. And I think the message here is clearer than the last picture, isn't It's some kind of satirical, anti racist message, isn't it? It's showing how ugly racism is and how it really shouldn't be part of the well, our country, the world, to be honest. But there was someone who misinterpreted this, and they complained to the council, and they said there's a racist graffiti up in in on this building.

Alright? We have to take it down, it's horrendous. So can you see how even when something is even clearer, there's still room if there's not an explanation for it to be misinterpreted? Now, segueing from banksy to theology, this is actually a really important theological point, believe it or not. That when God has acted in history, when he's got his graffiti spray can out and painted and done things and acted, He's also spoken to explain exactly what he's doing.

In fact, his actions and his words are so closely linked you you can't really distinguish them from 1 another. If you think about Genesis in the beginning, God said, let there be light. And there was light. His speaking was his acting, his doing. And then think about Jesus, who was called the word, The word of God becomes flesh and comes into our world.

God's actions and God's words are united, and it's actually a great comfort to us, particularly on this night. And it's why we can have such confidence in what God has said. God has promised he will safely deliver us to the Golden Shore. And so the same God who promises us that is the same god who spoke creation into being, who sent the word into the world. We can trust God's promises because as he speaks, he act Take we run into major problems, therefore, don't we?

When we separate God's words from His actions. We have a God who acts as he as he speaks and speaks as he acts. So we run into major problems when we separate his words from his actions. Take the Easter story is just an example we've been looking at over the last few weeks. We've seen we've walked with Jesus.

Haven't we? We've walked with him to the cross. We've walked with him into the grave, and now we're here and the grave is empty. If we remove God's word from Easter, we end up with just kind of a supermarket decoration version of Easter, don't we? We get the the sort of the bright colors, we get the chocolates, We get the vague sense of new life.

You get lambs and chicks and things like that, and it's completely empty really, isn't it? If you remove God's word from who Jesus is, then we just end up with ideas like, oh, he was a good man, or he was a prophet. Or, you know, he's just a myth, didn't really even exist. People just made him up. If we remove God's word from what the cross means, then people come up with ideas, and this is serious.

People some people think that the cross is just an example we should follow. Of sacrificial love. Look how Jesus gave up his life for us, and that's an example for us that we should go and do the same for others. When we separate God's words from his actions, we end up putting words in his mouth, and we say, oh, this is what God means by Easter. It means chicks and lambs, and it's it's an it's a good example.

Something you can wheel out in a school assembly and, you know, teach us to be nice to each other. There are also many times when we see what God has done, but we don't we don't even put words in his mouth. We just there's just silence. We don't know that anything has been said about it. So my favorite example of this is the Double Rainbow Video on YouTube.

If you've seen it about 10 years ago, it must be longer than that now. Like 43000000 views on on YouTube. You've not seen it, maybe you go and watch it, not the live stream people you've got carry on watching this. But this this video, there's a guy and he's in Yosemite National Park in America, which is this amazing, beautiful place in America. And he's on the side of a hill, and it's raining, and across in the valley is the most incredible rainbow you've ever seen in your life.

And this guy is just he's just pulled away. He's just blown over by how beautiful this rainbow is, and he's he's there just going, whoa. Oh, my gosh. A double rainbow all the way across the sky. And he says, it's even starting to look like a triple rainbow.

And it's a really funny video because he's just pulled over by its beauty. And actually, he ends up weeping, and he's crying. And he's and he's just he's just weeping and weeping. With the beauty of it, and I watched it again recently because I was thinking of it for this sermon. And I actually realized it's a really sad video.

I used to watch it and laugh a lot, but actually it's really sad because as he's weeping and he's seeing the beauty of this thing, He keeps repeating to himself. What does it mean? What does it mean? And he's there crying. What does it mean?

He he can hear the faint echo of some important thing that it's trying to tell him. He's like, this has to mean something, but I don't know what it means. I actually think it would be an incredible evangelistic opportunity to sidle up to the sky at that point and be like, hey, mate. Let me tell you exactly what that means. That is God's covenant to you.

God says, this is the sign of the covenant I'm making between me and you. He's not gonna flood the world again, though it deserves to be flooded. He's gonna pour his grace and his mercy on people who don't deserve it. That's what that means. And it's all possible because of Jesus.

Let me tell you about Jesus. That would be great, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, that's not how the video ends. It's just him weeping. But that man saw something that God had done, but he did not know what God had said, and so he's just left wondering, what does it mean?

What does it mean? Now, that is exactly what we see in this evening's passage. We see men and we see women, and they're coming to the empty tomb of Jesus and not listening to what God has said and not remembering what God has said, they're just left wondering to themselves, what does it mean? They're even in tears like this man in Yosemite. So as I said at the start, as we look at this passage, let's see the importance of listening to Jesus, listening to what God has said to us.

Because, you know, it's good news for us, isn't it? That God hasn't just given us a rainbow This beautiful thing that communicates something extraordinary and not explained it to us. It's good that he's not given it to us and not explained it to us. That's a double negative. It's good that he's given it to us and explained it to us.

And it's good that he's given us an explanation for this empty grave. And that's what we see tonight. So let's get into this and see what it's all about. So we start off with the women, In the story, who were the last to leave Jesus when he was placed in the tomb, we see that in verse 55 of the previous chapter, in chapter 23, it says this. The women who had come with Jesus from Galile followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it.

Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes, but they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. So they've seen Jesus slayed in the tomb. They've gone home immediately and prepared the spices, which was something you did to anoint dead bodies in those days. It was a way of sort of honoring, it was a tradition, it was what you did to kind of pay your respects, that sort of thing. But the next day was a sabbath, so they weren't allowed to go because that would be work.

So they have to wait. The whole can you imagine them, the whole day of the sabbath, sort of watching their watches and and tapping their feet and going, when will this day end so we can go and do this? And you kinda see that in verse 24 of of chapter 24, verse 1 of chapter 24. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, as soon as they were able to, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They were devoted to Jesus as soon as they could, very early in the morning.

They wanted to serve Jesus. But we can see from these passages that they weren't desperate to go to the tomb to meet. And alive Jesus, they were desperate to go to the tomb to see and anoint the dead body of Jesus. In verse 2, it says they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the lord Jesus. So first of all, they're coming to the tomb of spices.

This is not something you did for a live people. You didn't spices on your mate to show them honor, you only did this for dead bodies, so they're fully expecting Jesus to be dead. They're also in Mark's Goss boards recorded that on the way to the tomb, they're asking each other, who's gonna roll the stone away? It's this massive heavy lump of rock. We can't do it, so who's gonna do it for us?

So as they're coming to the tomb, they're expecting it to be shut still. And thirdly, when they get to the tomb, they're looking for the body of Jesus. They go into it. They thought, hang on a minute, we saw Joseph lay it the body here. Now, look, bodies dead bodies don't move.

That's not what they do. It should be exactly where it was laid, but on seeing the stone rolled away on not being able to find the body, they're confused. And they're wandering to themselves. What does this mean? What does this mean?

We see that in verse 4. While they were wondering about this, so they're wondering. They stood at the tomb, they're looking for clues, But it doesn't make any sense to them. And and actually, some of them are distressed in John's gospel, Mary Magdalen is weeping outside of the tomb. And there's these Theories coming to her mind, maybe someone's stolen the body, maybe someone has taken our precious Lord Jesus.

We don't know where he is. They were expecting Jesus to be dead, They're expecting them to be in the tomb, and they're expecting the tomb to be sealed shut. But instead, they're outside the tomb, and they're in tears, wondering what does it mean? The interpretation, thankfully, for the women and for us, as well. We're not left like this man in Yosemite just without an answer just in tears.

Because in the second half of verse 4, we've got 2 angels who appear to the women, and they explain exactly what's going on. So verse 4, while they were wondering about this, suddenly 2 men in clothes that gleam like lightning stood beside them. In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here.

He has risen In other words, you're looking for a dead man. You've got spices. You were talking about how the tomb was gonna be opened. You're looking for a dead man, but you shouldn't be. He is alive.

And you're looking for him in the tomb. He's not there. He's risen. But crucially, this is not just their interpretation of what happened. This is not just God sending to Angeles to the tomb to go.

You know what? There are gonna be some confused women. Can you just go and explain to them what's happened? And then the angels arrive and go, oh my goodness. I don't know what's happened.

It looks like the tomb's clearly open, the linen's there. So it looks like Jesus is alive. So that's just what we'll conclude, and that's what we'll tell them. That's not what's going on here. In verse 6, they say to the women, remember how he told you, While he was still with you in Galile Lee, the son of man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners be crucified, and on the third day be raised again.

So they're saying, remember what the king told you, Remember what Jesus told you. Remember his words. I'm not gonna tell you what this is about because Jesus has already told you, So cast your minds back to then, he himself said on the third day, he would be raised again. He told you that more than once, but you've forgotten, you've not understood. And therefore, you're looking for a dead man when you should actually be looking for the living 1.

Verse 8, then they remembered his words, which is exactly what the angels wanted. It doesn't say then the angels convinced them with their logical and sound argument, or then the angels brought some new information that explained exactly what was going on. No. They just delivered the king's message. Remember his words, they say.

His words are the answer to your wandering. So women, let's have another go at this. Why is the tomb empty? Because Jesus said he would rise from the dead. He said he would defeat death.

He said he would be the living 1, and rise the dead. Why is he not here? Because he said he would rise from the grave. Deja vu, this is not the first time in the bible that something like this has happened, where people are left wondering what on Earth is going on because they've forgotten God's words, In Matthew chapter 22, the sadducees come to Jesus, if you know this story. If you were part of the Mark drama all those years ago, that we did that, This is this really funny scene where there's this woman, and she has 7 husbands who run at her and die halfway down the aisles.

It's quite funny. But this is a question sadducees asked Jesus about marriage and the resurrection and Jesus' answer to them is this. You are in error because you do not know the scriptures. Or the power of God. And in verse 31, he goes on.

But about the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what God said to you? I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He's not the God of the dead, but of the living. So, sadducees, you are wrong on 2 accounts, 1, because you do not know the Scriptures, and secondly, because you have not read what God said to you, which are both really the same thing. You do not know the scriptures, and therefore you do not know what God has said to you.

And that's why you're left wondering these things going, what does it mean? Because you don't know the Scriptures. Right. Back to the gospel of Luke. In verse 9, we see the first evangelistic talk ever given.

So Michael Ott's Glem scrivener, this is the origins. The women have remembered Jesus' words, Angeles have reminded them, remember what Jesus said, and now they're rushing back to tell Peter and the others. So in verse 9, it says, when they came back from the tomb, they hold all these things to the 11 and to the others. This is the first resurrection sermon ever preached. It was Mary Magdalen, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.

The first sermon ever preached about the resurrection, how is it gonna be received? Unfortunately, we read in verse 11, it wasn't a very effective sermon because It says, but they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Nonsense. Now, I looked up the Greek word for nonsense here, and the word it's the only time this word is used in the bible. But the words carries connotations of like an incredible tale, like an unbelievable tale, an overly embellished story.

So they're they're they're listening to the women. Yes. You've come back from the tomb. Okay. The stone was rolled away.

Well, that's a bit odd. That's a bit odd. And the body wasn't there. Hang on a minute. No.

That's ridiculous. And the linen was there, no, sorry, don't believe that. That's a load of nonsense. That's a load of nonsense. It was wildly outside of what they would have expected to happen, It was wildly outside what they were expecting to happen, so it was just nonsense to them.

But there's another detail here that I think we need to notice which sort of ties into what we've been thinking about. The reason the disciples did not believe is because of their words. In verse 11, but they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense. The women's words seemed like nonsense Now whose words were the angels encouraging the women to remember at the 2? Jesus's words.

So the disciples should have taken or left this message. The tomb is empty. Jesus seems to be risen from the dead. They should have taken that message, not at the women's words, but at Jesus' own words, they should have weighed up what was being said to them against what Jesus had already said to them, but The same problem. They are also in error because they do not know the scriptures and have forgotten what God had said.

But there's something about this story, as Peter sat there listening to it, it's like the rainbow. He's going, this I don't know what this means, but there's something here. This is I can hear something faintly here. And so in verse 12, he gets up and he sprints to the tomb. And when he gets there, bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves.

And he went away, wondering to himself what had happened. So here we are. Again, at the empty tube, we've run there, we sprinted, we're bending over, we're looking in, We see the strips of linen, and we're wondering what it all means. What does it mean? We're back to square 1.

Without Jesus' words in his ears either, Peter is in exactly the same position as the women. And he goes off by himself wondering what had happened, as if like, oh, hang on a minute. No. No. No.

No. No. I Give give me give me 10 minutes, and I'll be able to figure out what this means. Give me give me 10 minutes, and I will be able to interpret this. It's kinda like that cartoon at the beginning.

Even 10 minutes, you would not have been able to figure out exactly what that was going on about. So us, It's easy for us, isn't it, to sit in judgment of the disciples and go, come on, Peter, mate. Come on, mate. Remember you should remember what Jesus said. He'd said it to you loads of times.

But I wanna ask, how much are we like Peter, really? How often do we find ourselves seeing things that happen in this world, and we wonder what on earth do they mean? What on earth is God doing? I mean, just think about our church at the moment, the sickness and the death that we've experienced in our own church over the last few weeks even. When all around us is sickness and death, do we ever like the women and like Peter just in tears?

Just go, what does this mean? Well, here's an example of how this applies to us. When you hear that there were strips of linen lying in the empty tube, what does that make you think of? Do you just think, well, hang on a minute. The dead bodies were wrapped up in linen.

So if if if the linen's taken off, then that means Jesus is alive. Right? Because you wouldn't wear them when he was alive. That that's what that means. Right?

Or do you do you think Do you look at those strips of linen and go, I have no idea Why is that such a weird detail? Like, the smell of the tomb is not recorded, the color of the flowers outside of the tomb is not recorded, but hang on a minute, they tell us that the linen was there. What is that about? In leviticus chapter 16, We read about the instructions that God gave Moses for the day of atonement, which was the day that a sacrifice was made as an at an atonement for the sins of the people. It was a sin offering for the people.

And as part of the instructions that God gives for that day, he he says that the priest conducting the sacrifice should put on a linen garment before entering the Holy of Holy. Lining garment. Yeah? Starting to ring some bells. And here's the important bit.

Once he was finished, and the blood had been sprinkled, sacrifice had been accepted, the people since had been atoned for, then the priest would take off the linen garments and leave them in the place of sacrifice. So he would take them off, fold them up, put them down, and walk out of the place of sacrifice. It was a sign that the sacrifice had been accepted, that the sins were paid for, that the job was done, that the linen was there, If it had been half done or some people since hadn't been accepted, then the linen wouldn't have been taken off. He would still be doing you would still be going, atoning for the sins of the people. So when we run to the tomb, we bend over, we look in, and we see the strips of linen there.

We're not just meant to go, what does this mean? Why is this included here? Oh, maybe it just means Jesus is alive. We are meant to conclude that, but we're also meant to think back at what God has already said. Remember what he told you.

The sacrifice has been accepted The payment has been made. The atonement has been completed. You you sit there now and you think, well, my sins are too many to count. All of them were paid for on the cross. Otherwise, the linen would not be there.

The linen's there when the job's done. And that's why Jesus can rise. Sin and death have been defeated. The war is over. The price has been paid.

That's a great example, isn't it, of how when we understand more of what God has said, we all understand more of what he's done. When we know what God has said, we'll know more of what God is doing. So let me just ask us, is it just a case simply knowing the words that God has spoken? So Peter, women. If you'd got to the tomb and you'd remembered this in your mind, you remembered what Jesus had said.

Is that all you need to interpret the tomb's emptiness? If you heard Tom Sweetman's sermon this morning, He asked this question as well. He said, we wonder sometimes why when 2 people hear the same sermon, 1 of them goes away, understanding it, and trusting in the lord, believing in what God has done in the other person, who just sort of bounces straight off him. How is how is it that when they hear the same thing, they come to different conclusions? Well, the answer is that knowing what God has said is only 1 side of coin.

The other side of the coin is the spirit illuminating the truth of what God has said to us. So this is a spoiler for the upcoming sermons in the next few weeks. But in verse 31, we see Jesus opening the eyes of the disciples. In verse 31, then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. A little bit further on, verse 45, it says, Jesus opened the mind of their disciples so they could understand the scripture.

Verse 45, then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures. So there are 2 ingredients you need. To understand this empty tomb. First of all, you need to know what God has said. The scriptures.

Secondly, you need the spirit to open your eyes to the truth of what he has said. So women, outside of the tomb, you're there, you're crying, you got theories about who's the body of Jesus, don't wonder what it means. Remember the words Jesus spoke to you. Peter, don't go off by yourself trying to figure out what it means as if you might be able to figure it out, go to the father and ask him to illuminate the meaning of it by the spirit. And us today here in this room and watching online, if we want to grasp the joy of the empty tomb the linen that's placed down, isn't it?

The fact that the job is done, our sins have been paid for, then we need to come and hear what God has said about it. He has said death is defeated. He has said the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same spirit that is in us who believe, in Marsha who believed in the Lord Jesus. The same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead is in hurt. So this picture of Jesus's empty tomb is just a picture of Marsha's empty tomb.

This tomb is a picture of your empty tomb. If you believe in the Lord Jesus. So my goodness. Let's hear what God has to say. Shall we?

If he's got the words of eternal life, Let's commit to come into church. Let's commit to come into our home groups. Let's commit to opening the bible as we hear the word of the lord. Look, especially if we feel like Peter or or or the women. Sometimes we think, well, I can't just can't understand it, so I don't wanna bother coming to church.

I don't wanna bother opening words. I don't get it. That's the complete opposite of what you should be doing. The words the words that the lord has spoken are the words that you need. To understand.

I think, look, sometimes you don't want me here. Look, I'm just Ben. Yeah. I'm a human as well. Sometimes we want an angel to come and appear to us.

Don't we? We're like, I'm fed up of Ben Pete Tom preaching. Every week, it's 1 of them. In fact, last week it was Tom and Ben. This week, guess what?

Is Tom and Ben. I want I want an angel to come down and tell me the words of God. Well, guess what? If an angel came here today, they would say, please open your Bible to Page, 717, we're going to hear the word of the lord. Remember what Jesus said.

That is what an angel would say if they were here today. So I wanna say to you, make sure you're involved in the church. Make sure you're listening to the word of God when it is opened. If you're anything like me, I said this to Carrie this morning, I said, is it just me or is it getting harder to watch sermons online? I'm getting livestream fatigue.

Well done, livestream people for for listening if you still are. But if we stop listening to the Word of God, then we're gonna be like these people at the empty tomb. What does it mean? We're gonna be like that man in Yosemite, just bullying our eyes out, not listening to what God has said to us. Let's be people who remember the word of the lord, and look finally, just to wrap up.

If you're hearing these things and you don't believe them, you go, it sounds good. I mean, it sounds great if I'm honest, but I just can't I'm not a person of faith. I wish I had your faith. I don't believe it. If that's you, then why don't you ask God to reveal the truth of it to you?

There are 2 ingredients you need to understand the empty tomb. 1, you've just had. You've heard the word of the lord. The second thing is you need the lord to open your eyes to the truth of it. That could be a dangerous prayer, couldn't it?

That could be a dangerous prayer. God, I don't believe in you, but would you open my eyes to believe in you? That's what he has shown us in his word. You need to know what he said, and you need him to open your eyes to the truth of it. So all of us, wherever you are outside this empty tomb, if you're in tears, If you're suffering, if you're grieving, if you're struggling to understand some of the things that are going on in this life.

If maybe the Christian story just seems too good be true, then pray with me now. I'm gonna pray just to finish. Pra with me now that God would speak to us through his word, and that by His spirit, he would open our eyes to the truth of these things. Father, we thank you for this story we thank you for the empty tomb, what an amazing picture it is of our empty tomb if we believe in the Lord Jesus. Thank you that the same spirit who was in Jesus, who raised him from the dead, who walked him out of that grave is the same spirit who was in us who believe.

Father, we need your word, so would you speak to us? Would you help us to commit to coming to church, to listening to the preaching of your word, to coming to home groups, to opening up the scriptures ourselves, father, help us not to grow tired of these things. And father, when we do these things, please would you by your spirit, open our eyes and our minds to the truth of them. Because without it, we'll just say, what does it mean? So father, would you help us, please, in Jesus's name, amen.