This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to day four of Luke, week chapter five. Chapter 24,
this is resurrection day. This is the day that we celebrate together.

This is the story that we've been looking forward to. What Jesus did for us on
the cross is quickly followed up by what Jesus does for us in the resurrection.
The good news of what only he could do.

Luke 24, we're going to take two days to look at this chapter. I thought if there
was any chapter in the book of Luke, then I wanted to take two days to look at,
it is the story of the resurrection. So let me read for you, Luke 24, verses one
to 12.

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the
spices they had prepared and they 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 two men in clothes that gleamed
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. Remember how he told you, while he was still with
you in Galilee, the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men,
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 them like nonsense.

Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of
linen lying by themselves and he went away, wondering to himself what had
happened. The resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, before we talk about the details of this day, what does the resurrection
mean? The resurrection means that the power of God is available for our lives
today. The resurrection is more than just a good end to the story of the cross.

Isn't that wonderful? He died for us, but also he got something good at the end.
He was resurrected.

Paul, the apostle Paul tells us that if there is no resurrection, there is no
hope. We're without hope. The cross by itself is meaningless without the
resurrection.

Jesus died for our sins on the cross, but he showed that he had the power to
defeat sin and death in the resurrection. Dying for our sins has no hope unless
he has the power to defeat sin, and he does. He defeated it because he was
resurrected from the dead.

The penalty for sin is death. Jesus paid the penalty on the cross, but he also
destroyed the penalty in the resurrection. He did both.

When I look at what Jesus did in the cross and when I look at what he did in the
resurrection, the challenge in both of them is how will I respond? The
resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is one of the most historically attested, if
not the most historically attested event in all of human history. The question
is, what am I going to do about it?

You look at the first responses to the resurrection, and it tells us a lot about
our own faith and how we get to the place of faith. Look at these women who
first went to the tomb. What's the first thing that they did?

They wondered. They went and there was no body there, so they wondered, they
were confused. And then they began to hear the message, something has happened
here, some angels appeared.

And their second response is they were frightened. So the good news for them,
the hope for them began with confusion and with fear. The shocking truth is our
first response to the news of the resurrection is often not hope.

When you first hear it, especially if you first hear it as an adult, your first
response is often not hope because you realize this changes everything. This
means I've gotta let go of a lot of old ways of thinking, a lot of things I've
been hanging on to. This changes everything.

So more often than not, our first response to the story of the resurrection is
confusion, is doubt, is fear. First they wondered and then they were afraid.
What caused the breakthrough?

What caused them to go from being confused, from being afraid to realizing
there's been a resurrection here? There's a new way of living that's promised
here. Third thing that happens to these women is they remembered the words of
Jesus.

They remembered his words. Verse eight is one of the most powerful verses in all
of the book of Luke. They remembered his words.

When you look at the words of Jesus Christ, and we've looked at them together
all through the book of Luke, and you remember what he has said, that has the
power to transform your thinking, to help you to see the resurrection for what
it really is. The way to experience the truth of the resurrection is to look to
the one who was resurrected, Jesus Christ. Remember that he had promised that it
would happen.

And then not only did he promise that it would happen, he accomplished what he
had promised. You remember his words. And then out of that, the fourth response
of these women is they couldn't help it.

They told. They went and told the 11. Judas has already left the disciples.

He's already died by this time. So they go and tell the 11 remaining apostles.
Now what happened to those 11?

Same thing that happened to the women. They go through the same process. First
thing, they would not believe.

First thing, Peter runs to the tomb. He looks in and he wonders. They begin with
confusion and with doubt and with fear.

If your first response to the resurrection of Christ has been those feelings,
that's the normal human feeling. Because something deep within you knows this is
going to change everything. And we get a little afraid of that.

And we wonder, could this really be? Such a great promise, could it really be?
Jesus really was resurrected.

He really did die and he really was resurrected. And that shows us that this
promise really is real. So the question is, how are you going to respond?

The question is, what is the resurrection going to mean for your life today? As
we've gone through the book of Luke, you may have gone through this book
thinking about whether you're going to make a commitment to Jesus Christ of some
kind. Build a relationship with him, start a journey with him.

If you've gotten this far in the book of Luke and have not yet made that
commitment, now is the moment, now is the time. When you hear the story of the
resurrection, you don't want to read any further than that and think there's going to
be any more than that. So right now in your heart, would you just say, Jesus
Christ, yes, yes.

I want to break through my doubt, I want to break through my confusion, I want to
break through my fear, I want to live the life that you have for me. Jesus Christ,
yes, I want to follow you. I ask for your forgiveness in faith that it can be
given because of what you did on the cross.

I ask for your leadership and power in my life in faith that it can be given
because of what you did for me in the resurrection. Let the resurrection become
real in my life today. Now as you prayed that prayer just now, I want to let you
know God heard it.

He heard your prayer, he responded to that prayer because just as the
resurrection is real, God's presence in your life is real right now. You may
have prayed a prayer like that already, maybe a week ago, maybe a month ago,
maybe 30, 40, 50 years ago, I don't know. But if you did, you know that the
truth of the resurrection doesn't stop being real when you pray that prayer, it
starts being real and now it needs to be real every day of your life.

So the question is, how does it become real today? How do you trust in the truth
of the resurrection for your life today? You might need to pray a prayer
something like this.

Jesus Christ, I want to trust in your life and not my life today. I want to trust in
the life that you have to give rather than the life that I think I can make.
Lord, you've created me, you've made me, you've put me in this world.

But I, like everyone else, strayed from you, I got away from you. But now I've
come back to you, whether recently or a long time ago. And the question is, how
am I going to follow you today?

How am I going to live for you today? Let me live the resurrected life today.
That's the life of hope, that's the life of faith, that's the life of trust.

That's the life that knows you broke into history, that knows that you were
resurrected from that grave on the third day. Lord, I have doubts, I have
confusion, I even have fears right now, even though I may have been a believer
for a long time. But the resurrection is still real.

So today, let the truth of the resurrection overwhelm my doubts and confusion
and fear. Let me remember your words today. And whatever my feelings, let me
live your words.

Let me live the truth of the resurrection today. Just as the resurrection
happened 2,000 years ago, I pray that the truth of it would be lived out in my
life today. And I ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to see how the truth of the resurrection becomes personal to
some who had not yet believed.