1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word, as we continue our Summer Sermon Series, Defending the Christian Faith, is taken from Luke 24:36-48, it’s entitled, “How Do I Know He Lives?” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Sometimes people think that unbelievers’ most important question is whether there is a God. Not so! The most important question is whether Jesus rose from the dead. You could spend a lot of time trying to convince others that God exists. But, even if that effort were successful, they still would not necessarily know that this God loves them. Merely to believe there is a God is not to believe the Gospel. When asked about his authority, Jesus said: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19; see Mt 12:39–40). Jesus rested his claims on his resurrection. From the fact of Jesus’ resurrection, you have only to take a short step to discuss its importance in the forgiveness of sins for all and for the eternal life of believers. Today’s sermon and the next two will focus on the central apologetic topic, the resurrection of Jesus.
3. The hymn “I Serve a Risen Saviour,” written by Alfred H. Ackley, asserts that it’s possible to be confident that Jesus lives because we know he lives within our hearts. But, this answer is inadequate. Once a Lutheran Pastor was discussing the Christian faith with a college student who said, “You’re saying I should stake my whole life and future on Jesus, but how can I know?” If the Pastor told her, “I know he lives within my heart,” what do you think would have happened? She might have said, “Well, he doesn’t live in mine.” End of conversation. She could have written off Christ’s living in the Pastor’s heart as a case of heartburn.
4. You can’t directly demonstrate to anyone else that Jesus lives in your heart. You can’t use some spiritual can opener on your heart and show him there inside. You can’t show the risen Savior to someone else in this way. “For out of the heart,” Jesus said, “come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Mt 15:19). As a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit, yet “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal 5:17). This tension can also keep us from thinking as straight as we should.
5. In Luke 24, two disciples walking to Emmaus ended up talking with the risen Christ. Their hearts burned within them, but that didn’t enable them to recognize who was at their side (see Lk 24:13–32). How do we know that Jesus lives? We need something besides assurance that he lives within our hearts. When these disciples on the road to Emmaus finally recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, they rushed back to Jerusalem to find the eleven. While they were giving their report, Jesus stood in the midst of the whole group saying, “Peace to you!” He invited them to touch him. “For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Then he asked, “Have you anything here to eat?” (Luke 24:36, 39, 41). He ate a piece of broiled fish. If you asked these people how they knew that Jesus lives, they could have said they knew from the touch of his body.
6. In eating that piece of fish, Jesus showed them that they were not hallucinating. Today people still try to dismiss Jesus’ resurrection as some hallucination. But, no hallucination consumes fish, probably leaving a few bones behind! Jesus was alive, raised from the dead physically, so he could touch and be touched. Earlier that day, Mary Magdalene had touched Jesus at the empty tomb. What Jesus told her was not “Don’t touch me,” but instead, “Do not cling to me” (Jn 20:17). I imagine that in her joy Mary was giving Jesus a big bear hug. She really could touch him.
7. How do I know Jesus lives, and how can I point others to his resurrection? We know from the Bible that Jesus lives. Even as Jesus stood among them on that first Easter, He took His followers to the Scriptures. I invite you to think of the Bible in two respects. First, note that it includes eyewitness testimony that Jesus lives. Second, see it still more as God’s own Word. These two points fit together quite well. Let’s consider each in turn.
8. People may not consider the Bible to be the Word of God, but they can still understand the importance of eyewitness testimony. Eyewitnesses might be wrong, but isn’t testimony from eyewitnesses preferred to guesses from people who have only an indirect grasp of the facts? The more eyewitnesses, the better! The New Testament includes writings from several eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus. The apostles Matthew, John, and Peter all saw Jesus in our text. Paul saw him later. Early church testimony indicates that Mark wrote up the recollections of Peter (see 1 Pet 5:13). Luke points out that he did research with eyewitnesses (Lk 1:1–4). Knowledge of many events in ancient history rests on far fewer sources, maybe only one, and maybe not an eyewitness source at that. Hardly any ancient event stands out as so well as the resurrection of Jesus. If you deny what can be known concerning his resurrection, to be consistent you would pretty much have to give up the rest of what can be known about the ancient world.
9. You ask me how I know that Jesus lives? Witnesses saw him alive after he had died. Their testimony has come down to us in the Bible. They wrote things like this: “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses” (2 Pet 1:16). They didn’t gain much by saying so. No, they had everything to lose. Eventually this testimony cost almost all of Jesus’ apostles their lives. If the apostles had simply made up the resurrection story, isn’t it remarkable that not one of them withdrew his story that he had seen the risen Jesus, not even when threatened with death? “You are witnesses of these things,” Jesus said, and they didn’t forget (Lk 24:48). Who gives his life for something he’s made up?
10. We know from the Bible that Jesus lives, since the Bible includes eyewitness testimony. Peter said, “we are witnesses to these things.” He added, “and so is the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:32). This takes us to the second respect in which to consider the Bible. For, inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Bible is God’s Word. We know that Jesus lives from the Bible, and the Bible is the Word of God. Not everyone will share this understanding, but Christians do. Think of what Paul wrote to the Church at Thessalonica: “That when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the Word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thess 2:13). Because this word comes from God, it packs his power.
11. At the heart of this Word of God, stands the incarnate Word, Christ himself. In the text from Luke 24, Jesus said, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). Jesus began opening their minds to understand the Scriptures. He was leading them to see what had been there all along, centering in himself and his saving work. As one veteran professor put it: cut the Old Testament anywhere, and it will bleed with the blood of Christ.
12. The Old Testament told of the coming Messiah in many ways. It would be impossible for a single individual to come along and fulfill even some of what the Old Testament had foretold about the Messiah. Jesus fulfills it all because he is the eternal Son, promised and sent by God the Father to be your Savior. Not only did he “suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,” but also “repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:46–47). By this proclamation, God creates saving faith in sinners.
13. Jesus didn’t do what he did so it would be hidden away. He brings forgiveness and salvation home to people by his Word and Holy Spirit. When God works faith in people, they begin to regard the Bible as Christ himself regarded in the Old Testament. They recognize the Bible as not only reliable human testimony but still more as God’s own powerful Word. In the Bible, God himself addresses me in judgment and grace, giving repentance and forgiveness. This towers over everything else in our lives! Christians know that Jesus lives from the Bible, which is God’s Word.
14. The Lord doesn’t stop there. The Bible says that on the night when he was betrayed, Jesus gave his disciples bread and invited them to eat it. “This is my body, which is given for you,” he said. “Do this in remembrance of me.” He then gave them wine to drink, telling them that it was the new testament in his blood (Lk 22:19–20). Through his Word, Jesus provides this meal and invites you to it. You have eaten his body and drunk his blood in his Supper. There, you have had the touch of his body.
15. It’s not the local touch that people experienced in his Easter appearances like the one in the text, in which he occupied space. “He can still employ this mode of presence when He wills to do so, as He did after His resurrection and as He will do on the Last Day.” But while “in the bread and wine in the Supper” he “neither occupies nor yields space,” he nonetheless is present bodily, and quite genuinely (FC SD VII 99–100). He remains flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, giving us all the treasures he won for us on the cross as he gives us his body and blood. Don’t expect to go into this right away with someone who asks you to give a reason for your hope in Christ. You can’t put a consecrated wafer under a microscope to demonstrate the Lord’s bodily presence. But don’t forget the blessing and encouragement he gives as your mouth receives his own body and blood.
16. Not only does Jesus live for you, he also comes to live in you. Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn 14:23). Yes, Christ promises that he and the Father live with Christians. So does the Holy Spirit: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ ” (Gal 4:6). The living God does live in your heart. But this won’t make for an apologetic tool. You can’t show anyone else that Jesus lives because he lives in your heart.
17. We know that Jesus lives from the Bible. It includes eyewitness testimony, which can be pointed out to unbelievers. Through the message of repentance and forgiveness in his living and life-giving Word, God bestows saving faith. He did this for you. He can do it for others through you. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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