Easter 2021 Luke 7:11-17 Jesus is the Son of Man: Jesus raises the dead.

Easter 2021

Luke 7:11-17

Jesus is the Son of Man

Jesus raises the dead.

 

 

All right! Let’s go ahead and open up our Bibles to Luke chapter 7! As I say on an almost weekly basis, if you do not have a Bible, if you need one, please see me after the service and I will get one into your hands as our gift to you.

So, we have been walking the Gospel of Luke the last few months and seeing who Jesus is and what He came to accomplish. Luke gives his reason for writing this Gospel in Chapter 1, verses 3 & 4, writing: it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

          So, Luke has been investigation, interviewing witnesses and generally verifying the life and stories of Jesus as true and passing them along so that we may know that they are true.

We got to Chapter 7 a few weeks ago and we kind of took Chapter 7 out of order so that we could look at this morning’s story here in Easter Morning.

Leading up to this point, Jesus was putting his words into action. As he was teaching, preaching truth; grace, mercy, holiness, repentance, he was basically being asked, “Who are you to tell us…” This is a reaction we all have, when people tell us things we don’t want to hear or things that are hard to hear, our first inclination is to reject it and usually that is done by discrediting the one telling us the hard thing.

Jesus essentially responds, “Who am I to say? Ill show you who I am…” He says this is who I am, and this is the evidence of my power and authority. He showed so far in Luke’s Gospel that He had authority over sin by forgiving sins. He showed he had authority over sickness and disease by healing people. He showed his authority over weather and nature by calming storms and the wind. He showed his authority over the Scriptures by teaching and preaching a right understanding of the Word of God. And finally, as we see this morning, he shows his authority over life and death itself, by raising the dead.

So, lets go ahead and read this morning’s passage, Luke chapter 7, verses 11-17. I will be reading out of the English Standard Version, buy please read along for yourself in your preferred translation. We look at Luke’s account, inspired by the Holy Spirit as he records:

Soon afterward[c] he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus[d] gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” 17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

 

          Thus, says the Holy Word of God.

 

So, at the beginning of Luke 7, we saw that Jesus was in Capernaum. He and his followers went down to a town called Nain. Nain was about 25 miles from Nain, or about a day’s journey. As usual, he had great crowds and followers going with him. They had heard stories; they had heard his teachings and they wanted to see and hear more.

As the came to Nain, they “just so happened,” they “coincidently,” came upon a funeral procession. Remember, this was directly after he healed the Roman centurion’s servant who was, according to Luke, who was a Dr, “sick unto death.”

The man who died, the man whose funeral this was, was the only son of his mother. His mother had already lost her husband, she was a widow. This son of hers was all she had. In that time and in that culture, there was no retirement funds, there was no social security, there were no safety nets at all. There was your family and there was charity that was, by human nature, undependable.

So, this woman, had already lost her husband at some point, now lost her son, her only family and had nothing left, no on to help take care of her. She was grieving and the whole town it seems was there grieving with her.

Jesus comes across this woman and sees what’s happening. He tells here, “Do not weep.” He does not say this to rebuke her. He doesn’t sit as in, “Why are you weeping?” He says this not as a command, but because he had compassion on her. He saw her grieving and had compassion on this lady.

He went to the boy’s body. Touching a dead body would, of course, make him unclean. It was not something that was done. But Jesus was willing to do anything, he was willing to sacrifice for the sake of mercy. He touches the coffin and tells the son, “Young man, I say to you, arise!”

 

And he did!

 

Jesus gives the son to his mother. A gift she did not ask for. But out of grace, mercy, respect and compassion. This points us directly towards Jesus own death and resurrection.

Interestingly we see a similar story & miracle with Elijah back in 1 Kings 17. We are not going to read the whole thing but, in that story, we have a widowed mom who lost her son, and with mercy and compassion, Elijah, through God raised the son from the dead. The language between the two stories is very similar.

One commentator grabs on to that and points out that both the language and the results are similar. The mom in 1 Kings saw the Elijah was a man of God, a prophet. The people in Luke who saw this son raised form the dead recognized that Jesus was a man of God, they called him a great prophet. The commentator says: Jesus was much more than a great prophet. But ascribing such a title to him was the best the townspeople could do without further revelation. It was a spontaneous chorus of realization that messianic times had fallen on them.

          They were recognizing that Jesus was more than a man. Many would have recognized the allusions to the story or Elijah. But Jesus was more than a prophet. He was the fulfillment of prophets; he was the more perfect prophet.

People recognized Gods power at work through Jesus of Nazareth. They cried out in fear and worship, and this is key, they said, “God has visited his people.”

This is who Jesus is. Immanuel. God with us. God become man to save sinners. Immanuel, the name that Isaiah gave to the long awaited and prophesied Messiah. Immanuel, the name the Matthew showed us was fulfilled in Jesus when he was born in Bethlehem. Jesus is Immanuel. God with us.

Why is this important? It is because Jesus has the power over life and death.

Yes, Jesus came as an example to us, an example of how to live. But, thankfully, that’s not all. IF we think that, we fall into one of two mistakes. First, some so called churches teach that because Jesus came as our example that means we can do all the things that Jesus did hear on earth. This passage for example. They say that, because Jesus was our example, that through God, we can raise the dead. They are wrong.

They other mistake we fall into is that when Jesus came to be our example, as long as we try to live by that example, as long as we try to be good people, then that’s all that matters. If Jesus is our example, then all that’s required of us is to try to live up to that example of love and peace and goodness. This is what most of the world thinks. They are wrong.

There have been a lot of Good Examples through out history. Billy Graham, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, John the Baptist, David, Joshua and Caleb, Abraham. Some of our friends, family, my dad was a great example. But these people and their examples cannot save us, and Jesus’ example couldn’t save us either.

What the Bible clearly teaches, Penal Substitutionary Atonement, essentially, what we talked about last week, that our sins require the shedding of blood in order to receive forgiveness, is being rejected by may churches today. They say that Jesus didn’t actually need to die to save us. Instead, they say, we, as in humanity, killed him and his death on the cross was instead, an act of obedience. That obedience was an example to us. It wasn’t that Jesus died for our sins, but instead that our sins put him up on the cross.

Now, there is truth in that, but Jesus did not just come to be our example. He came to die for our sins. He came to give up himself, so that we might have life. All humanity has sinned. All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. This sin separates us from God. Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden to walk in perfect relationship with God. But their sinned separated them form God and we inherited their sin, meaning we are sinful and separated from God. The wages of sin is death. Sin cannot be allowed to continue unabated. It couldn’t just go as is.

Sin needed to be atoned for. All sin is sin against God himself. RC Sproul calls all sin Cosmic Treason. Sin created debt to God that needed to be paid for. When Adam and Eve sinned, God instituted a sacrificial system. Blood offering offered the temporary forgiveness of sins. This, and especially the Passover that we looked at last week, were types and foreshadowing to what Jesus came for and accomplished in the cross. The sin offering, the sacrificial system called for a lamb without blemish.

Jesus of Nazareth, truly man, truly God, was born and was, as John the Baptist pointed out, the “lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”  He lived the perfect life. He had no sin to separate him from God. He and the Father were one. He had no sin to atone for.

And so, his death, his shed blood on the cross was able and did atone for all of our sins. Big enough for all the sins of the world. Effective for those who, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ repent of their sins and trust in Christ alone for their salvation. Your sins are forgiven only through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

But the forgiveness of sins is not the only thing. God’s power of death is not the only thing. In fact, we celebrate Easter, not celebrating the death of Jesus Christ, but his resurrection. God has power of death and life.

Jesus literally physically died in the cross all those 2000 years ago. And if that was the end of the story, Paul says we are to be pitied. 1 Corinthians 15 is an incredible chapter. Not always easily understandable, but the point is this. We serve a risen God. We serve a living God.

We have the promise of life after death. We have the promise of the resurrection of the dead. Jesus is the proof of this. He is the fulfillment of this. Without that promise, none of this means anything. As Paul’s says, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Without the resurrection our faith is in vain. What faith could we have if there is nothing after this?

God rose Jesus Christ from the dead, showing that there is indeed a resurrection, that there is life after death. That there is something after this life. He shows us that through Christ and in Christ, with our sins forgiven that we will also be resurrected. We will have life and life abundantly. We stand before God and give an account for our sins and our life.  Only through the grace of God and his righteousness, Christ’s righteousness covering us because of his finished work on the cross, will we gain entry into the Kingdom of God. We will receive our heavenly bodies. We will spend eternity with Christ in eternal worship and glorifying the all Holy God if the universe for ever more.

Without the resurrection, all we have is a good, moral example of how to live life. With the resurrection we have eternal life and forgiveness. Death has lost its power. It has lost its victory and it will lose its sting. All of this is available, if you chose to follow Christ and trust him alone.

Some will say that Chris is one of the ways we can get to God. Some will say that we don’t need to be reconciled to God. I say that a plain and simple look in the mirror and at the world around us says otherwise.

Joshua led the Israelites after Moses died. Moses was leading them out of slavery in Egypt and bringing them to the land the God promised. As with human nature, the Israelites doubted and wanted to go back to slavery, where at least they were comfortable. They knew that life and so they would complain to go back. In Joshua 24:14 & 15, he challenges them, saying, “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

 

          Today is the day to choose. Do you believe that you can be good enough? Do you believe that you don’t need to be reconciled to God? Do you believe that your good outweighs your bad on the cosmic scales? DO believe that there are plenty of ways back to God, that Christ is but one?

Or, to quote RC Sproul, “OR are you convinced that Jesus Christ is Gods only so, the only one to provide atonement for our sins, the One whom God raised for our justification, the One whom God has appointed as judge of the whole world? Jesus will judge- not Muhammed, not Confucius, not the Buddha. Muhammed is dead. Confucius is dead. The Buddha is dead. Only Jesus has been raised and elevated to the right hand of God the Father, where he sits now as the King of kings and the LORD of Lords.

 

 

 

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

 

Let’s Pray.