Benefits of the Resurrection

Welcome to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. We're in a series called Passover to Pentecost, where Pastor Robert describes how the days after Jesus's resurrection changed the world. Today Pastor Robert is sharing three benefits of Christ's resurrection.

This is something you're not going to want to miss. So let's join Pastor Robert now. So we're continuing our series called Passover to Pentecost, 50 Days That Change the World. But today the title of the message is Benefits of the Resurrection. And I want to show you three benefits of the resurrection all found in Luke 24 that maybe you've never noticed about. So Luke 24 tells us the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Now you need to know that these are not two of the 12, the original 12 disciples that Jesus chose. These are not two. We know that because one's named Cleopas.

There was no Cleopas. Some have said, well, the second was Peter or John. The only problem is that it says that those two then went back and reported to the 11. And the 11 being after Judas has hung himself, after he betrayed Jesus, okay? So we know they weren't part of the 12.

They were probably part of the 70. Luke 10 says, and Jesus appointed 70 others also that were very well known because when Luke talks about him, he just says, Cleopas, like everybody knows Cleopas, you know? So they're not part of the original 12, but they're walking along the road. They serve Jesus. They walk with Jesus. Jesus appears. They don't recognize him. We talked about this last week.

They didn't recognize him after the resurrection. And he says to them, I'm just going to Texanize it. What are y'all talking about? And they said, are you new in town? Do you not know? But he said, do you not know the things that have happened in the last few days? And Jesus, it's in red, two words.

He says, what things? And they said about Jesus of Nazareth, how we thought he was the Messiah. And then he was crucified. And now they say he's risen from the dead. And some of the ladies said that they saw him.

Peter went, but he didn't see him. And they're talking about all this. And then he does something that you need to know is a benefit if you're a disciple.

So we're going to pick up the story there. Luke 24, verse 25. Then he said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?

Verse 27 is our key verse here. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them all the scriptures of things concerning himself.

So point number one, I changed the word expound a little bit to explain. So one is he explains. He explains the Bible to you.

This is the first benefit of the resurrection. Jesus himself is going to explain the Bible. He's going to explain he's going to expound the scriptures. Now I put the word explain because it's what the word expounds means.

And we don't use the word expound much. Here's the NIV version of verse 27. And beginning when Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.

Now I want you to catch this more than anything. If you're a disciple, if you believe in Jesus, Jesus will explain the Bible to you. You don't have to know homiletics and hermeneutics.

Some of you think thank God because I don't even know what those words mean. You don't have to know Hebrew and Greek, the original languages. You don't have to know the difference between exegesis and eisegesis, although I've explained that to you before. But let me tell you what you do have to know. You have to know Jesus.

But that's it. You just have to know Jesus. Now I need to know homiletics and hermeneutics. And I need to know the difference between exegesis and eisegesis because I'm called to be a teacher in the body of Christ. And whatever teacher you're sitting under will affect the way you read the Bible.

If you're sitting under someone who's prideful and arrogant, the church will become prideful and arrogant. So it's very important that I understand some of these things and I can tie scripture together. But my job is actually not to teach you the Bible. My job is to teach you how to study the Bible. My job as a teacher in the body of Christ is to say, okay, wait, we've got an obstacle of legalism trying to influence the church today. So I'm going to remove that obstacle and teach people about grace so that when they read the Bible, they can read it through the lens of grace. Let me show you this verse in Luke 24 verse 27 in the message, just same verse read, but let me show it to you in the message. Then he started at the beginning with the books of Moses and went on through all the prophets pointing out everything in the scriptures that referred to him. That's what he does. Pointing out everything in the scriptures that refer to Jesus.

That's what he did. Now, Moses said all the prophets, you got to know, he's referring to the Old Testament. Moses wrote the first five books. When it says all the prophets, it's talking about the major and minor prophets. That's the way they referred to the Bible at that time. You also need to understand that when the New Testament says the scriptures, other than a couple of times when it's actually talking about the entirety of scripture, which would become the New Testament, other than a couple of times when Jesus said, even the scriptures say, the scripture says, when Paul said, the scripture says, listen, every time they're saying, and the scripture says, they're talking about the Old Testament.

The reason I say that is because so many times we write that off. And the reason we write that off is because we read the Old Testament through the lens of law. But here's what Jesus does for his disciples after the resurrection. He shows up and he starts at Moses and he goes through the entire Old Testament and he says, let me show you grace. Let me show you how everything was pointing to the Messiah and grace coming. Let me show you me in the Bible. He might've actually showed him a scripture like this. Psalm 22 verses 16 through 18, they pierced my hands and my feet. That's Old Testament. I can count all of my bones.

In other words, none of his bones were broken. They look and stare at me. In other words, he's on the cross. They divide my garments among them and for my clothing, they cast lots. What do you think the disciples did on the road to Emmaus when Jesus said, look at this verse and they were like, we never thought about that. That's exactly what happened on the cross. That's what Jesus wants to do. He wants to go through and he wants to expand and explain the Bible to you. So the more you read the Bible, the more you'll understand it. The more you'll see Jesus through the whole thing.

Now remember, and I don't mean this statement disrespectfully. I mean it humorously and I've kind of cleared it with the Lord to make sure because I've said it before, but remember the same dude wrote the whole book. This wasn't written by 40 men. It was pinned by 40 men, but there's one author of this book and his name is Jesus.

There's one. So here's what Jesus wants to do. When you're reading along somewhere, he wants to say, now does this verse remind you of another verse you read maybe last week in your quiet time? Doesn't this remind you of Psalms? Doesn't this remind you of what you read in Malachi? Doesn't this remind you and he wants you to see the completion, the beginning of it and the fulfillment of it.

He expounds. So here's the benefit of the resurrection. Listen to me. This is incredible. You ought to be so excited.

You're about to jump out of your skin. You don't have to go to seminary to understand this book. You just have to meet Jesus.

You just have to meet the resurrected Christ and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he'll explain the scriptures to you. So one, he explains. Here's number two, he opens.

He opens. So now the two Emmaus Road disciples go back to the 11 and tell them, hey, we saw Jesus. And then Jesus shows up again, just shows up.

And then this is what he does for all of them. Then Luke 24, verse 44. Then he said to them, these are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me. And he opened their understanding of the scriptures. And he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures. He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures. Now that's New King James. The word understanding, most of the time it's translated mind. And the word comprehend most of the time is translated understand.

More times like 21 out of 24 and 24 out of 26 or something like that. Here's the reason I say that. Let me read it to you because I want you to understand the verse.

Here it is in the NIV. Then he opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures. Okay, I have a question for you. Would that be okay with you? Would it be okay with you if Jesus opened the way you think, your mind, your understanding, so you could understand the Bible?

Instead of reading a chapter before you go to bed and not have any idea what you just read. Okay, you say, Pastor Robert, I'd love for that to happen. Okay, listen to me.

It's already happened. This is what the resurrected Christ did for all his disciples. And we're disciples. He opens our understanding to understand, to comprehend the Bible. Okay, here it is in the message.

I just wanted to read these all in the NIV in the message. Now the message, verse 45, says, he went on to open their understanding of the word of God, showing them how to read their Bibles this way. Showing them how to read their Bibles this way. Showing them how to read their Bibles this way.

What way? The way that you see Jesus on every page. Because remember, it says he started with the law and the prophets, and he showed them every scripture that referred to him. Again, we talked about legalism and grace. If you don't read the Bible through the lens of grace, you'll never understand it. If you don't read it as a love story about God redeeming a fallen people, a sinful people. I mean, like when you read the story of Hosea and God tells him, go marry a prostitute. And then she goes back into prostitution and he says, go marry her again.

Bring her back in your house. This is what I've done for my people. It's all through. Again, I really want you to fall in love with the whole Bible. Now, just the New Testament, the scriptures. Now, the New Testament scripture too, it's inspired, it tells us about all scriptures given by inspiration of God.

So it's inspired as well. But this whole book is incredible. And you've got to read it this way. So if you believe in Jesus, he's opened your mind, and now you can understand the Bible. What if you don't believe in Jesus?

What if you don't believe in Jesus? According to the Bible, your mind has been blinded by the little g god of this world, Satan. Saint Corinthians 4 verse 3 says, But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded who do not believe. So if you believe, your mind is open and you can understand the Bible. But if you don't believe in Jesus, your mind is blinded. You can't understand.

So I feel like God always takes the truth and then he wants to kind of apply it a certain way for us. So how should we relate to people who don't believe in Jesus? How do we treat people that have differences in their viewpoints? Should we be angry at them? Should we argue with them? Should we talk down to them? Should we just leave them?

Should we just leave them alone completely? So this gives you a really good illustration because the Bible says they've been blinded. They're blind. They're spiritually blind.

So I want you to think about what if a person is visually impaired physically? How do you treat that person? When you see a person using a white cane, do you criticize them? You condemn them? You mock them?

Make fun of them? Or do you have empathy? If a person who's visually impaired bumps into you, do you jump down his throat?

No. You treat that person with kindness because he can't see. You treat that person with kindness because he can't see.

Are y'all following me? How should we treat people who are so strong in their opinions that are anti-Christ and anti-biblical opinions? We treat them with love, compassion, because they're blind. They can't see. And the only reason that we can see is because we believed and Jesus opened our understanding.

But their understanding hasn't been opened yet. So he explains, he opens, and here's number three, he blesses. Luke 24 verse 50, and he led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. So what does it mean to be blessed? Well, I know so many people relate this to finances, and I do believe that God blesses us financially and provides for us. But I want to give you a little different definition for being blessed. I think it means that things just work out. It's just all of us can give testimony after testimony of how we were in the right place at the right time. Or we thought that maybe this was what we wanted, and then it didn't work out, and then it didn't work out, and now we look back and we say, thank God I didn't get that.

Because it just seems like everything just works out miraculously like someone is planning it. James and Bridget, Debbie and I, one time were looking for a house and and we couldn't find anything. And then James said, okay, hey, I just want to one more try to the real, he said to the realtor, is there anything we wanted in this area? And maybe he said, maybe it's an older house, you know, maybe it needs a few repairs and, you know, maybe it's just older and maybe, maybe, but what we needed in this area, and maybe it just, just, just maybe it just came on the market or something, you know. And this realtor smiles and he said, while y'all were looking at this house, I got an email of a house that just came back on the market.

He said it was on the market one day, it sold, but the person who put the contract on it did not exercise his option in the 10 days, and today's the 11th day. And I just, just got the email right now and, and it's exactly what you described. We go and look at it and it was, it's 56 years old, okay, and we're walking around and I remember I said to James, I said, you know what this looks like to me? I said, it looks like a mid-century modern house. He said, dad, it is a mid-century modern house. He said, dad, listen, this, this house is almost as old as you. And they said to me, you know what that means?

It means it's going to take a lot of maintenance and repairs. But it happened to be that day that, are y'all following me? You got testimonies like that? That's what it means to be blessed. It's like everything just works out.

Okay, now, I'm telling you these three things, but I've got a, a, a clincher, a clincher, a clincher, a clincher for you, okay? As a believer, as a disciple, the resurrected Christ, these are three benefits. He explains the scripture to us. He opens our minds so we can understand and he blesses us. Is there anything though that believers could do to stop this flow in our lives?

And before you say no, yes, there is. Because Luke 24 and Acts 1 record the ascension of Christ. And right before he ascends, he has to again adjust the disciples thinking. Acts chapter one, verse six, therefore, when they come together, they asked him saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

Important words. And he said to them, it is not for you to know. Times are seasons, which the father has put in his own authority, but here's what is for you to know. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Okay, these are disciples.

They've spent 40 days, this is the 40th day, they've spent 40 days with Jesus. He has opened their understanding. He has explained the scriptures to them. He has blessed them.

He's lifted his hands and blessed them. And then they said, Lord, are you now going to let us rule and reign again? Are you going to let us be in charge? Are you going to build our kingdom? You're going to restore the kingdom to us? Here's what he says. No, no, it is not about building your kingdom. It's about building my kingdom.

Here's what he's saying. Why do you think I'm leaving you here? I'm about to float up in the air and I'm not taking any of you with me.

You want to know why? Because there are a whole bunch of people out there that don't know about the resurrected Christ. What you need to do is go tell them about me. Go tell them I died for their sins and I rose again. Go be my witnesses.

Go build my kingdom. Let me tell you what will stop the flow in your life. Let me tell you what will stop the daily manna, what caused the water from the rock to stop, what caused the rain from heaven to stop is when you start trying to build your kingdom instead of his kingdom, it all stops. It all stops. There's something kind of neat in these 50 days, 50 days that changed the world.

There's something that maybe you've never noticed about the 50 days. In Luke 24, it says they returned to the 11. In Acts 1, it says then the 11 got together and then they chose another one, Matthias, to take Judas' place. Before the resurrection, they were always referred to as the 12. After the Holy Spirit came in Acts chapter 2, they're always referred to as the 12.

But to these 50 days, they're referred to as the 11. You want to know why? Because one guy got concerned about building his kingdom and it was downhill from there. I have seen people that say, God, we want to build your kingdom. We want to build your kingdom. Do you know what the Lord does? He blesses them. He blesses them. And then it becomes about the blessing instead of about being a blessing.

And when that happens, I've watched the heavens shut. Because I'm telling you, the reason Jesus wants to point out scripture to you and he wants to open your understanding to scriptures and the reason he wants to bless you is because he wants his kingdom built on the earth. We want you to take a moment to think about what Pastor Robert shared today and listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. If you want to connect with us or check out some of Pastor Robert's other messages, visit pastorrobert.com. And if you haven't already, go follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, so we can be a part of your community. We hope you are encouraged by this message. Next time, Pastor Robert is going to share three keys to strengthening your faith in Jesus. Tune in with us then. Have a great day.