Easter - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. I mean, we knew who He was. We knew He was the Messiah. We believed He was the Son of God. We've seen all the things that He did, all the miracles that were performed. We heard Him speak. Then all of a sudden, the Sanhedrin lead Him to the Romans, then get Him convicted, and then Romans crucified Him. And now He's dead.

And all of our hopes and dreams went with Him. They're very disappointed with God. You ever been like that? Disappointed? Put together your own story?

Do that? I can't understand why the Lord let this happen. I don't know why this... We do this all the time. And that's where they find themselves. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Happy Easter. What's that mean? Happy Easter. I mean, everybody says it. I was watching a newscast this morning and a person signing off said, Happy Easter. We went through a drive through yesterday and the girl said, Happy Easter. What do we mean by that in the culture in which we live?

What's that mean? I mean, just think of what the culture has done to Easter. What is Easter here in our country? Chocolate bunnies.

Right. Marshmallow peeps. Easter egg hunts. These are Easter things. It's amazing to me when you think about this term.

Happy Easter. I'm all for being happy. I think that's a great idea, but.

I know better. People in our country aren't happy. This is one of the angriest times in my lifetime that I've seen in our whole country. Filled with a lot of rage and anger and insecurities, Covid's made everybody pretty insecure about this whole thing.

I mean, the whole idea behind this idea that it make you happy. Christians are not much better off. We should be, but we're not. We're not that happy a group.

According to Barna and others that when they poll us, they find out that the amount of depression and despair and all that within the church is about the same as it is outside the church. So we're not even really that happy. What's bothering us? You see, in a true sense, what is wrong with the view of life that we have? I mean, Jesus said, I've come to give you life and to give it to you abundantly.

Sounds great. How many of you are experiencing that? Not that many. I want you to open your Bibles to Luke 24. Luke 24. And you might find this story is a little bit of an odd Easter message.

But you shouldn't. Of all the different stories you find about Easter and they're repeated year after year after year, almost every Easter message starts out the same. We're either going to talk about the women that went at daybreak to see the empty tomb.

They went and they looked at it and they wanted to see what it was like, et cetera. They went back and told everybody and nobody really believed them. Peter and John went and John said he believed, but he just looked in the tomb. And we talk about those incidences as though that's what Easter is. But this story that I'm going to use today is the story where Jesus spends most of Easter. He doesn't spend as much time with anyone on Easter as he does these two men. These two men get more of his time than anybody else. You would think that he would be appearing to the Sanhedrin or the Pharisees or Pontius Pilate or someone like nice. He's going to appear for a long time with these two men. And what's amazing about these two men, they're followers of Jesus.

And I know you'll find it strange. They're miserable. They're very, very disappointed. They're in despair.

We could say they're probably depressed. On the first Easter. And so in verse 13, Luke starts out and this is a three part play. You have despair, then you have a dialogue, then you have discovery, despair and behold. Any time you see behold in the New Testament, it's edu and edu always means this is big. This really important thing I'm going to go for. He said, and behold, two of them were going that very day to the village named Emmaus.

First thing. Emmaus is a village that's about seven miles from Jerusalem. Terrain's rough, so to walk to Emmaus, it take about two to three hours, depending on your age.

But it's kind of rough terrain, but it's about a two or three hour walk. But notice it said two of them. Who are them? If you go back to verse 11. What you see there is this. It said, but these words appeared to them as nonsense and they would not believe them. It was the women who came back and told them the 11 disciples and the other followers what they had seen.

And it's this group of them these two men are part of. And it says then that they were talking with each other about all the things which had taken place. Now, this is a two and a half, three hour conversation. It's an imperfect verb.

An imperfect verb means it just continually action. There's no end point to it. They spend their whole time from Jerusalem to Emmaus talking. And they're all talking and you see it in the context. What they're talking about is basically I don't get it.

I just don't get the way this whole thing works. I mean, we knew who he was. We knew he was the Messiah. We believed he was the son of God. We've seen all the things that he did, all the miracles that were performed. We heard him speak. Then all of a sudden the Sanhedrin lead him to the Romans then get him convicted and then Romans crucified him. And now he's dead.

And all of our hopes and dreams went with him. They're very disappointed with God. You ever been like that? Disappointed? Put together your own story. Do that. I can't understand why the Lord let this happen. I don't know why this.

We do this all the time. And that's where they find themselves. And it says, and while they were talking and discussing Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them.

That's an interesting thing. Two guys walking along the path of Emmaus. And a third guy just walks up with him, starts walking with him. And you know that's always a little bit uncomfortable. He's just walking with us.

And it's interesting. Would that be who you would think Jesus should appear to on the first Easter? No. He doesn't want to appear to the religious leaders. They got him crucified. No interest in the Romans.

But think about it. Who was the first people he appeared to when he was born? Shepherds. So this whole idea is Jesus just picks these two guys out. And he's walking along with them. And then it says that, verse 16, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. It's a passive verb. It means someone from the outside prevented them from seeing who he was. Likely God here.

They're prevented. Remember, even when Mary Magdalene had seen him in the garden, she thought he was a gardener. So he's changed, obviously, in a resurrected body.

But they're not able to see him for who he is. And so with that happening, he said to them, what are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you're walking? Jesus, if you read the Gospels, Jesus loves to ask questions.

Even if you ask him a question, he'll almost always answer it with a question for you. And so Jesus said, what are you guys talking about? What's going on here?

And they stood still. And then they gave him, as you do, your sad look. It's just awful. My life's awful. It's just terrible. Looking sad. They're miserable.

Why? God hadn't met their expectations. God didn't meet my expectations. I know what I was expecting about from the Messiah of Israel.

God didn't meet him. And that's what's making me miserable. People don't change much over time. That's just the way we act.

You mean at a certain level, you know this. All of us have had days that we are all like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. You know, life stinks. This is terrible. Just the way I feel.

Looking sad. And one of them named Cleopas. Cleopas is a male name for Cleopatra.

Kind of an interesting etymology there. And it says, answered and said to him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things that have happened here in these days? Now, you've got to love this. This is a Resurrection Sunday. And listen to what the guy says to Jesus. How stupid are you?

I mean, how can you be this stupid? Everybody in the Passover from the whole Jewish world is there. Everybody was talking about Jesus from Nazareth. Everyone was aware that he was tried.

Everyone knew he was crucified. And you don't know anything about it? What's wrong with you?

It's kind of ironic, but kind of funny in its own way. Not realizing who you're talking to. Jesus might be pretty familiar with what really went on there. And he said to them, what things?

Another question. And they said to him, the things about Jesus. Notice the things about Jesus. He said, the Nazarene, who was a prophet, mighty indeed and word in the sight of God and all the people and how the chief priest and our rulers delivered him to the sentence of death. And they crucified him.

Wow. Is anything they said wrong? Notice what they said about Jesus. He's a Nazarene. He's from Nazareth. He's a prophet, the prophet Moses spoke of. He's mighty indeed.

And he was mighty in word in front of God and all the people. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Now, they're that right about it. Why are they so miserable?

You see, what still makes them miserable? Well, we'll see the reason right here in the next verse. But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel.

Indeed, besides all this, it's the third day since these things happen. We were hoping for more. We thought he was going to redeem our country, throw the Romans out and start the Davidic messianic kingdom worldwide. You see, that's what we thought.

He's the Messiah. And that's what we thought. And he was a big disappointment. And he's dead. And not only is he dead, but he's been dead for three days. He's dead, dead. And that's why we're so sad. Wow.

Interesting. Then they say something else, they say, but also some women among us amazed us when they were at the tomb early in the morning and they did not find his body. And they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Now, these are the Marys that showed up.

Sounds pretty impressive, don't they? The women came back and said, hey, guess what? We know he's alive.

They saw it was empty. Also, by the way, an angel told us. Now, there's an angel at the tomb.

So an angel told them that he's alive. So why are they miserable? They don't believe them at all. They don't believe it at all.

Why? Dead people are dead. What are the odds? How many dead people have you known that are alive? Ever known? Dead people are dead. Not only is he dead, but he's been dead three days. This guy is dead. All of our hopes, he's not met our expectation, are vanished. And all we have is someone who's dead.

That's interesting, isn't it? The whole point of our faith is a rebuttal of that statement. The whole point, the whole foundation of Christianity is a resurrection of the dead from Jesus Christ.

It's the whole thing. We're not a group that follows certain principles of life, certain practices. We do certain religious things. None of that matters except the resurrection from the dead.

That's the whole point. Paul said our whole faith is not only based on it, but in 1 Corinthians 15, he said, if Christ isn't raised from the dead, go home. There's no point to your faith at all, none. You see, he said, in fact, we are to be the most pitied of all people if there's not a resurrection. Everything about Christianity is about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's the only point. This is the one day in the year when we talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But think about it from this point of view. The culture recognizes Easter, and they say, happy Easter. Do you think the people in our culture are saying, look, you should be happy because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead? You never heard anyone say that in our culture. We're not, look, have an Easter egg hunt.

Kids will love it. That's what we say it's Easter about. No, Easter's about something so much more profound than that. Somebody has been raised from the dead.

Makes all the difference in the world. And in fact, if you do comparative religious studies, you've got all the religions in the world. Guess how many of them have a resurrected leader, us. That's the point of our faith. And these guys don't get it.

The women came and said he's alive. Some of those with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women had also said, but him they did not see, Peter and John. What are these guys missing? They only believe certain parts of what Jesus taught. They only believe certain things from the Old Testament.

That's all they believe. They're either ignorant of or decide not to believe in an awful lot of what the Old Testament taught. And not only that, but what Jesus taught. For the last year and a half, two years of his ministry, how many times do you read, Jesus told his disciples, his followers, the Son of Man is going to have to go to Jerusalem, he's going to be arrested, he's going to be tried and he's going to be crucified and he will rise on the third day. Jesus taught them that. And what's their response to his teaching? No, dead people don't rise.

That's why I'm so miserable. He hasn't met my expectation. Well, it's kind of interesting. They ask about this and now Jesus responds, no foolish man, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

He diagnoses their problem. What's their problem? They don't believe it. I don't believe it. I don't believe what the prophet said. You see, you might say, well, I don't even know I think what the prophet said. I just pick and choose what I want.

A lot like we do. I just pick and choose the passages I like and I'll leave the rest, go. Jesus said, no, you can't do that. He said, was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? Jesus said, don't you know anything about me being Savior?

Don't you know anything about, you don't know anything about this? First, twenty seven, one of my favorite in the entire New Testament, then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself and all the scriptures. Greatest Bible study ever done. Maybe an hour and a half, two hours walking with Jesus, and he explains from Genesis to Malachi everything that the Old Testament says about him.

I couldn't even imagine that he just starts. He starts in Genesis three, the first prophecy of the Bible, verse 15, Adam and Eve have sinned. And he says the first prophecy that the seed of the woman is going to be the destruction of the evil one.

You'll bruise him on his heel. Crucifixion, but he'll take you out. He goes on to Genesis six through eight. Noah's Ark, Peter writes that the true ark of safety is Jesus Christ. That's what the ark was.

How do I avoid the judgment of God? The ark. Genesis eight, after he gets off the ark, was the first thing that Abraham, I mean, excuse me, that Noah does. First thing he does, sacrifice to God. In other words, I may be delivered through the ark, but because of my sin, something's going to have to die. Genesis 22, Abraham offers up his own son, Isaac. Jesus is like, what do you think that's about? God the Father offering me up. Exodus 12, the Passover lamb. The way you were delivered from the angel of death was under the blood of the Passover lamb. He said, yeah, that's a picture of me.

Leviticus one to seven, all of the different kind of offerings they made, all five of them. He said, those all refer to me. Deuteronomy 18, Moses prophesies a prophet who's going to come. That's me, he said. He said, where were you on Friday?

They were probably nearby. How about Psalm 22? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And a description of his agony. Didn't you hear me cry that out in the dark for three hours?

You didn't hear it? That's me. David wrote about me. Psalm 69, you heard me say I thirst. That was written a thousand years before the event. Isaiah 52 and 53, my servant.

I mean, listen to what Isaiah wrote. Surely our griefs he himself bore. We bear our griefs and our sorrows and he carried them. He is stricken and smitten of God and afflicted. Pierce through for our transgressions.

Crush for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell on him. And by his scourging we are healed. And all of us like sheep have gone astray.

Each has turned his own way. And the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all on him. He said, that's me on Isaiah.

Guess the Zechariah 12, 10. One day Israel will look to him whom they had pierced. That's me. He goes the whole way through the Old Testament and says, that's me, that's me, that's me, that's me, that's me. And that's me, the Savior.

I'm going to have to suffer. I am the Lamb of God. Just what John the Baptist said when he inaugurated his ministry. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That's me.

Amazing. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com.

That's OnePlace.com. And you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. ... ... ...