Getting Back To Life Series

Lost and Found:

Getting Back to Life

Luke 24:1-12

Introduction

1. Welcome to Resurrection Sunday! We recognize the resurrection of Jesus annually, but also weekly, and also daily - right? There is no part of our experience with Jesus that isn’t connected to the resurrection. It is so crucial that if there is no resurrection of Jesus, nothing else matters.

As Dr. Luke leads us to the end of his gospel, here is the account of the resurrection

Luke 24:1-12

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,

3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.

5 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?

6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:

7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.

9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.

10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.

11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

12 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.

3. Peter Marshall “The stone was rolled away from the door, not to permit Christ to come out, but to enable the disciples to go in.” What a world-shaking discovery the empty tomb was!

4. We’ve been working under the theme ‘Lost and Found’ … and the resurrection promises new life when we’ve been found by Jesus.

5. THE RESURRECTION IS ALL ABOUT GETTING BACK TO LIFE WHEN WE’RE DONE BEING LOST.

1. JESUS WAS GETTING BACK TO LIFE

The Death, Burial, and Resurrection were a part of his natural vocabulary - it was a plan, it was his mission, and it was never in danger of being abandoned.

John 2:19-21 “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body.”

Matthew 16:21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer

many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

John 11:25-26 “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

The resurrection had a place in the sayings and teachings of Jesus. It was an unusual message and one the disciples didn’t always seem to understand.

Resurrection became the cornerstone of Apostolic preaching.

Acts 2:24, 32 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. … God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.

The message of the Resurrection was also about…

2. LOST HUMANITY GETTING BACK TO LIFE

-The Resurrection promises New Life!

Romans 6:3-5 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

The power of baptism is not in water but in connection to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus! His new life gives us new life! In Baptism, God not just teaching us that our sinful way of life has died and been buried… but in baptism God is also telling us that the grave cannot hold us. When Jesus comes again there is no tomb that will stop us from meeting Him in the air.