SERMON - Standing on the Promises of God - 10th December 2023 - Righead and Hamilton URCs
God’s promises found in His Word - image from Google Image search
Click below to listen to the sermon being preached - Apologies for my voice - I had a dreadful cold and was losing my voice.:
Standing on the Promises of God
But as they were talking about these things, Jesus Himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.[1]
Have you ever had a friend who has wanted to do something you’ve thought was crazy? Perhaps they asked your advice, and you explained that you thought their idea was daft. Having asked for your advice, they go ahead and do whatever it is anyway, and predictably it goes wrong. “I told you that would happen,” you may have said. It was all so predictable.
As we can see from the opening verses of Luke’s Gospel, Luke had a specific purpose in mind when he was writing his gospel. In the opening verses of the first chapter, Luke writes “It seemed good… to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.”[2] Now, we don’t know all that much about Theophilus, sadly. His Greek name means God lover (Theo + philia), so we can assume that he was a man of faith. Whether this was Judaism or Christianity, we don’t know for sure. However, given that Luke is writing to help give him “certainty”,[3] it seems that he was struggling to come to terms with some of the teachings of the Christian faith.
In our Bible reading this morning, we become a fly on the wall in the room where the apostles were hiding in the hours and days after the resurrection.
We know, from John’s Gospel, that this was where they ran to hide, bolting the doors behind them,[4]4 after the events of Good Friday. Now gathered all together, they begin to talk “about these things”.[5]
So, what would they have been talking about? We join the narrative after the angels have appeared to the women, and after Jesus Himself has appeared to the two on the road to Emmaus. Given this, I think we can assume they would have been sitting around and sharing their stories – the angels appearing to the women, Jesus’ appearing to Simon,[6] and Jesus’ appearing on the Road to Emmaus, and then disappearing in a flash from the table.
These two incidents are interesting, not just because they are amazing, but because they are closely linked to this passage. When the two women encountered the angels at the empty tomb, the angel said, “[Jesus] is not here, but is risen. Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”[7] Then, as Jesus was walking along the Emmaus road, we read that “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”[8] This then feeds neatly into Jesus’ declaration to the gathered disciples, “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.”[9]
However, on all three occasions there was an element of surprise. When the women returned home and told of their encounter with the angel, we read that “these words seemed to them an idle tale and they did not believe them.”[10] On the Road to Emmaus, the two did not realise that they were in the presence of Jesus until after He disappeared, at which point they declare, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?”[11] They did not recognise Jesus because their eyes were closed.[12]
It is into this scene that Jesus appears. We are not told how He arrives, simply that “Jesus Himself stood among them”.[13] If, as we are to believe from John’s Gospel, the doors were still bolted, it would appear that Jesus simply appeared in the room – not something a normal person could do.
The disciples, startled, begin to think they’ve seen a ghost, leading to Jesus’ gentle chastising of them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?”[14]
Taking a brief walk through the Old Testament, we can see some of the prophecies leading up to this moment. In Genesis, we read that Eve’s offspring will, one day, crush or “bruise [satan’s] head”,[15] but that satan shall “bruise [the Messiah’s] heel”.[16] In the Psalms, we can read of the foretold suffering of the Messiah. Psalm 22 reads, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?… All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;… I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint”,[17] while Psalm 69 reads, “zeal for Your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen upon me… for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.”[18] Both of these Psalms clearly foretelling the events of Calvary, where Jesus cried out those words, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?… My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”,[19] moments later “someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to Him to drink”.[20]
In the account of the Passover, we read of the sacrificial lamb that is slaughtered to provide the blood for the doorposts,[21] and this idea of sacrifice is “developed throughout the rest of the Old Testament, in the description of the sacrificial system of the Temple, and then, following the destruction of the Temple, in the language of the prophets.”[22] Jumping forward through the prophets, we can read Daniel’s declaration that, at the time of salvation, “your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting torment”,[23] a clear picture of the resurrection to everlasting life that we are promised through Jesus – compare it to Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians:
For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.[24]
The things that Jesus declared, the things that He accomplished, and indeed will one day accomplish, are facts, friends. They are trustworthy. We are on safe ground when, to quote the old Sankey Song, we are “Standing on the promises of God.”[25] Furthermore, with all that Jesus had told them as they walked around with Him, it is sad that the disciples were so surprised at what they encountered. However, surprised they were – and doesn’t that sound like us today, friends?
Jacqueline and I will often talk about something amazing that has happened, sometimes it will be trivial, and sometimes verging on life-changing. We will often say things like, ‘I wonder how that happened’, before realising the answer is a three letter word – ‘God’. Perhaps you’ve had similar experiences in your life? Times where something has happened and the only reason you can think of is God? Friends, as Christians we are encouraged, exhorted, instructed, to trust in God’s sovereign promises. Furthermore, through the Gospel of Luke, we can see that Luke himself was trying to lead Theophilus to trust what he’d heard – that he may “have certainty concerning the things [he had] been taught”.[26]
Next, we must address an elephant in the room. Christ crucified and resurrected was described, in 1 Corinthians, as “folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”[27] Later on, Paul explains why so many Jews and Gentiles couldn’t accept it: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom”.[28] For many Christians today, it is easy to understand or accept Jesus the man, walking, talking, eating, teaching, but it is hard (verging on impossible) to believe in Jesus the Son of God, “incarnate in a span, incomprehensibly made man”[29] to quote the Wesley hymn. One of the ways that some people try and get around this is to imagine that, after Jesus died, He returned in spirit. However, Luke is very keen indeed to show the error of this thinking, both to Theophilus and to us today.
Maybe this was especially important because of his work as a physician. I dare say that anyone in the church today who has medical training will see the world differently to those of us without such training. We don’t know who or what Theophilus was – could he also have been struggling with the medical, anatomical, physical side of things? Perhaps this is what Luke wishes him to have “certainty”[30] about. We’ll never know for sure.
However, even though we don’t know why Luke focussed on this, we do know its significance. Jesus returned in bodily form, as He was prophesied to. His return was not just of his spirit, in the same way that we may say a beloved relative still lives on in us. He did not return as a ghost or, as one author once suggested, as a “Jesus of faith”. No, friends, He returned as a person. As flesh and blood. The whole Jesus.
There was nothing that death could hold on to. It wasn’t that Jesus’ spirit escaped the clutches of death but His body was left behind. No, Jesus arose in His fullness. “Death could not keep his pray, Jesus my Saviour… Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o’er His foes.”[31]
But how does Luke show or explain this to Theophilus (and us)? Well, he tells us of what Jesus did next. With the disciples thinking they’d seen a ghost, Jesus speaks and says “Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”[32] In John’s Gospel we have the account of Thomas who exclaims “Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the marks of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.”[33] And, as we’ll remember, to answer this Jesus drew near again and invited Thomas to do just this. He saw for himself, and believed. Jesus was back in body as well as in spirit. He was no longer dead.
But there was further proof as well. For “while they still disbelieved for joy and were marvelling, [Jesus] said to them, ‘Have you anything to eat?’ They gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate before them.”[34] Not only did Jesus have flesh and blood, but now he was eating as well!
Does this remind you of anything? If we turn to Mark’s Gospel, we can see how Jesus raised the little girl from the dead. After raising her from the dead, Jesus “told [those around Him] to give her something to eat.”[35] She, too, was back in body as well as spirit. A ghost has no need for food, but a body does. Jesus, like the little girl, was back in full. No question.
But what does this mean for us, as Christians? Particularly when we consider the world outwith these walls and see men and women, boys and girls, who have no interest whatsoever in Jesus, nor His resurrection, nor the eternal life He offers in His name?
Well, if (as we believe it has) Jesus’ promise to return from the dead has indeed happened, in body and in spirit, it should give us the confidence to also believe His other promise, which we read in those last verses of our reading today, “forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”[36]
Jesus tells the disciples to share this truth, that through Him we can find forgiveness, eternal life, far and wide. Jesus Christ, the one who overcame mankind’s greatest enemy, death itself, also offers us the promise of everlasting life. And we can believe that He is speaking the truth, as indeed were all those who came before Him to foretell of Him.
As we considered at the beginning, the whole Gospel of Luke is primarily written as an encouragement for Theophilus, a man about whom we know so little yet to whom we owe so much. For Theophilus is you and me, friends, the people who have heard and “been taught”[37] but are still in need of “certainty concerning the things [we] have been taught”.[38]
This encouragement and exhortation to Theophilus, is an encouragement and exhortation to us too. As Christian men and women, we can have faith that God’s promises will always come true. We can trust what we read in this book, described at the Coronation as “the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; this is the royal Law; these are the lively oracles of God.”[39]
Furthermore, as Christians we can also trust that Christ’s return from the dead was just that. It was no party trick, no half-successful attempt. Death, through the power of the Cross, was defeated once and for all. Death could not hold on to one part of Jesus – He overcame it in its entirety. “Death could not keep its pray”,[40] to again quote the hymn. And, through our faith in Him, death no longer has dominion over us either.
Lastly, as Christians we can trust the words of Jesus at the end of our passage, that we may obtain “forgiveness of sins… in His name”.[41] Not only does death no longer have control over our lives, but in Jesus Christ we can find forgiveness for the sins that at one time would have separated us from God. Jesus Christ, through fulfilling the prophecies spoken of Him from the beginning of creation, suffered at the hands of wicked men (as satan bruised “His heel”[42]) but, in the end, overcame the power of sin and reunited God’s people to Him, “bruis[ing] the head”[43] of satan once and for all.
Dear friends, we can believe the promises of Scripture, we can trust that Jesus really returned and rose from the dead, not just in spirit but in body too. Thanks to this, and through Him, forgiveness of sins is made possible to all who believe.
Luke wrote this so that Theophilus “may have certainty concerning the things that [he had] been taught”,[44] and I declare it to you for the same reason. Grab hold of this certainty and apply it to what you read and what you have been taught.
Let us pray:
Dearest and most loving heavenly Father,
We give You thanks that, in Your Word, we find promise after promise concerning Your Son Jesus Christ and all that He would achieve on the Cross. We thank You that, in Your grace and mercy, You have called and chosen us to be beneficiaries of the redemption of the Cross.
Give us the certainty that Luke offered Theophilus, that we may hold fast to “the things [we] have been taught”,[45] and through this certainty may know eternal life in Jesus Christ.
This we pray in the power of Your Holy Spirit. Amen.
Books cited:
Taylor, William. Luke. Volume 2, Part Two, Luke 9:51-24:53. Tain, Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 2018.
- [1] Luke 24. 36-37
- [2] Luke 1. 3-4
- [3] Ibid.
- [4] John 20. 19
- [5] Luke 24. 36
- [6] Luke 24. 34
- [7] Luke 24. 6-7
- [8] Luke 24. 27
- [9] Luke 24. 44
- [10] Luke 24. 11
- [11] Luke 24. 32
- [12] Luke 24. 31
- [13] Luke 24. 36
- [14] Luke 24. 38
- [15] Genesis 3. 15
- [16] Ibid.
- [17] Psalm 22. 1, 7, 14
- [18] Psalm 69. 9, 21
- [19] Mark 15. 34
- [20] Mark 15. 36
- [21] Exodus 12. 6-7
- [22] William Taylor, Luke. Volume 2, Part Two, Luke 9:51-24:53 (Tain, Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 2018), sec. 43.
- [23] Daniel 12. 1-2
- [24] 1 Thessalonians 4. 15-18
- [25] Standing on the Promises of Christ my King; Russell Kelso Carter.
- [26] Luke 1. 4
- [27] 1 Corinthians 1. 18
- [28] 1 Corinthians 1. 22
- [29] Let earth and heaven combine; Charles Wesley.
- [30] Luke 1. 4
- [31] Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Saviour; Robert Lowry.
- [32] Luke 24. 39
- [33] John 20. 25
- [34] Luke 24. 41-42
- [35] Mark 5. 43
- [36] Luke 24. 47
- [37] Luke 1. 4
- [38] Ibid.
- [39] Wording used by the Moderator of the CofS as he presents the Bible to the newly crowned Monarch.
- [40] Low in the grave He lay.
- [41] Luke 24. 47
- [42] Genesis 3. 15
- [43] Ibid.
- [44] Luke 1. 4
- [45] Ibid.