Jesus Is Greater Than Our Confusion - Russell Winfield | HTB Live Stream

uh good morning church good afternoon Church it is good to be with you Headmaster in chicken wings what a kind of introduction hey but it is it is so good to be here with you this morning and I hope that we are going to have some fun together looking at the scriptures understanding uh what message God has in store for us today he is risen those three words he is risen what three life changing words this morning I would love to ask you do you feel like your eyes are open do you feel like your

heart is burning inside of you do you see that all that life has to offer and does it excite you we are at the beginning of a four-part series we're launching today called Jesus is greater and we're going to be looking at this in all sorts of ways but looking at the post-resurrection experiences the post-resurrection experiences that Jesus made to different disciples at different times and asking well what does that mean for our lives today what does that mean for our lives today today I'd like to look specifically at how Jesus is greater than our

confusion have you ever felt confused this is the sermon for you let's pray Jesus we thank you so much uh that through your spirit you are here present with us and Lord we ask that you would open our eyes that our hearts would burn as we discover something new about you as we discover something that will change the way that we view the world and live our lives we pray that you would open our eyes in your name Jesus amen I really do find myself confused quite often in fact more than it's probably natural I

find myself confused over complicated things but also things that you may find very simple I've got two children and my youngest is a a little girl she's four years old and she has long hair and you can tell by looking me that's never a problem I've had to struggle with personal long hair and so each day when it's my turn to get her ready then I kind of look at her and I think how am I going to get her hair looking remotely presentable to the world outside and be ribbons there and there'll be bows

and all of these things she looks at me I think with pity now that I'm going to try and do this but she'll look at me and I'll try and kind of mash kind of the hair into something which is slightly respectable and we'll get her ready and I'll take her downstairs and I'll show her to her mommy and I'll say look how does she look and my wife will say well she looks okay but you put her dress on backwards and I'm like oh yeah everything seems to confuse me about this little girl but

we are so easily confused I find in all sorts of different ways the other day I was just in front of the Victorian Albert Museum just around the corner from here and I was in front of it and some uh family just stopped me and they said excuse me could you tell us are we on the right way to Bingham Palace and I said well kind of yeah if you carry on along this road but you've got a long way to go and I could see they were quite confused by this we're thinking it was

just around the corner but I was like actually you you've still got quite a long way to walk you might want to phone ahead and let them know you're running late confusion is all around us it can leave us quite stressed at times I don't know if You' ever felt that when you feel confused it can increase your stress levels the times wrote an article just this week and it asked the headline was this why are we all so stressed out why are we all so stressed out and the article said this from the moment

we wake our brains are engaged whether we're scrolling so social media before breakfast paying bills online on the train platform or asking Siri to dial a friend in the car we're just constantly occupied the article goes on to say that actually what we should move towards is being task negative task negative it sounds delightful doesn't it it means just having less to do less tasks that will actually take up our time Forbes Magazine estimates that 850 53 million sorry billion dollar was spent last year on what's known as the attention economy that means $853 billion

do was spent to get your attention and my attention fixed on something that people want to sell us or tell us or for us to hear about there's a huge economy out there there's a huge amount of interest in capturing our attention but the impact of that attention economy the impact of it is not always positive it can lead to diminished Focus how many of you ever felt that like when you're looking at one thing but then you're distracted by something else that when you go and then do that it leads it leads and you're

just constantly distracted it can manipulate Our World Views and in some cases it can lead to damaging relationships that where attention is being fought over it can lead to an increase in our confusion we struggle I'm going to read a passage for thought is now and the passage is from Luke's gospel we're going to be in a very final chapter of Luke Luke chapter 24 and what I'd love for us as we read this I'd love for you just to notice where you think the confusion is taking place where In this passage do you notice

confusion and then we'll unpack it together so if you've got a Bible it's on page 1061 or it'll be on the screen above me or if you've got your phone you can look it up we're going to be in Luke chap 24 reading from verse 13 all the way 3 to verse 35 now that same day two of them were going to a village called emus about 7even miles from Jerusalem they were talking with each other and about everything that had happened as they talked and discussed these things with each other Jesus came up and

walked alongside along with them but they were kept from recognizing him he asked them what are you discussing together as you walk along they stood still their faces downcast one of them named cleopas asked him are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days what things he asked about Jesus of Nazareth they replied he was a prophet powerful in word and deed before God and all the people the chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified him

but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel and what is more it is the third day since all this took place in addition some of the women amazed us they went to the tomb early this morning but didn't find his body they came and told us they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said but they did not see Jesus he said to them how foolish you are and

how slow to believe believe all the prophets have spoken did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself as they approached the village to which they were going Jesus continued on as if he were going further but they urged him strongly stay with us for it is nearly evening the day is almost over so he went in to stay with them when he was at the table with them he took

bread and gave thanks broke it and began to give it to them then their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he disappeared from their sight they asked each other were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us they got up at once and returned to Jerusalem there they found the 11 and those with them assembled together and saying it is true the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus

was recognized them by them when he broke the bread Tom wri describes this chapter Luke chapter 24 as a masterpiece within a masterpiece it is a beautiful passage of scripture that when we read Luke 24 we are seeing a masterpiece painted in it we hear Luke describe the resurrection as a historical Paradigm shifting event the resurrection is not an idea the resurrection is not an ambition we don't kind of say Jesus is risen as something that we think maybe happened but we are stating in a historical fact Luke is telling us like it or not

this happened how are you going to respond what does it mean to you that he is risen this morning I want to say again that Jesus is Alive he is risen he conquered death and that should change everything it should change for us our Direction it should change our meaning it should change the way that we recognize who Jesus is as we read this story as we read about this journey towards emus I want us to notice some of these moments where actually confusion does seem to weigh heavily on these two disciples they get a

bit confused about various things and I just want to point each of these out and begin to ask well what does that mean for us today what does that mean to us living in 2024 as we're trying to work out what it means to be a follower of Jesus the first thing the first thing that we notice in the very first verse is there seems to be some confusion over the direction that they are traveling confusion over the direction they are traveling verse 13 says now that same day two of them were going to a

village called emus about seven miles from Jerusalem Luke in writing his gospel the whole gospel moves towards Jerusalem the whole time it's he got this sense of movement that everything is moving towards this culmination in Jerusalem even at the very beginning Luke Chapter 2 where Jesus is dedicated in the temple his parents take him to the temple in Jerusalem to be dedicated in Luke chapter 9 Luke says that Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem so we can really see everything is moving in that direction the week of Calvary all the events leading up to the

crucifixion they take place in Jerusalem so we've kind of been conditioned as we read this gospel as we read this and we understand it everything seems to be moving towards Jerusalem everything is getting closer to Jerusalem and now we meet these two people and they're going the wrong way they're leaving Jerusalem so why is that what does Luke want us to see here what what are we meant to be noticing well we don't really know why clear pass and the other disciple we don't quite know why they were leaving Jerusalem it may be that these

early Christian followers who had gathered in Jerusalem the 11 disciples the women the others who were kind of around maybe it beun to fracture a little bit that group maybe after that third day their struggles it became that little bit more difficult and they beun to fracture a little bit or maybe just clear pass and his friend they said you know what we've been in Jerusalem quite a while let let's go and clear our heads let's go on a nice walk let's go on a seven mile walk to Emmas and so maybe they were just

there just trying to clear their head of everything that had happened or maybe it was more serious maybe Cass and his friend had given up everything to follow Jesus and now Jesus was dead they thought and so maybe they were thinking well what should we do now is it time to return to our old life truth is we don't know the only clue we're given the only thing that the passage tells us is that their faces were downcast they were filled with disappointment they were filled with grief and their confusion was increasing there confusion over

what was happening the second thing I want you to notice is there's confusion over recognition confusion over recognition the passage told us they were kept from recognizing him that is Jesus they were kept from recognizing Jesus this seemed to go beyond just recognizing physically but recognizing these moments that they'd spent with him recognizing what had happened over these past few days recognizing ing what the scriptures said because after they have described Jesus of Nazareth to Jesus of Nazareth if you listen carefully to the passage their faith moves into the past tense they're likely heartbroken they

say things like he was a prophet They Crucified him we had hope that he was the one everything now is moved into this kind of past tense and as that sense of heart Brokenness there's that sense of confusion that they don't know why what has happened has happened they did not recognize him they did not understand who he was and they did not understand why did he have to die confusion reigned all their aspirations all their hopes everything that they' put into following Jesus they thought now lay dead and buried the conversation continues these disciples

who don't recognize Jesus begin to tell him things that it seems like they don't understand the third is there is confusion over meaning when you look at these few verses what the disciples say it's accurate they say you know Jesus lived and then he died they they they get that bit right they have all the data but it seems like they're missing the meaning you can see everything you can see a full picture but not fully understand it and that seems to be what's happening in this passage they have the data but they do not

have the meaning they hoped for a messiah but their Messiah the Messiah that they hoped for was somebody who was going to come in and ride in on a warhorse and destroy all of Israel's enemies and yet they say they crucified him this one we hope for they killed the question they should have been asking now is not did he live and then die but did he die and then live did he die and then live that is where the question is you see the problem does not seem to be in their head knowledge but

their heart they need that understanding confusion rained and the people felt lost now you may relate to some of these moments there may be areas in your life areas in your faith where you felt confusion there may be moments where you felt confused by what's taking place in the world maybe you felt at times you know my life I thought it had Direction but now I've kind of gone off track and I'm not sure the way I'm meant to be traveling or maybe you're not even sure you're on the right track and you'd wish you'd

gone another way and so you begin to ask those questions that the disciples have got of where are we going where am I headed what is this life all about or maybe you have a sense of not being sure of who Jesus is that you would like to find out more but you you find it confusing you find it confusing that the savior of the world would be killed and so you've got these questions like well what do I do with this information what do I do now or maybe maybe you've been around for a

while and you've heard all the information you've heard the talks you've read the word but it's just like something is not clicked into place you just feel like I just feel like there's something that's not working for me something here just doesn't quite make sense to me and it's like you're missing the key the key that could just unlock your confusion the key that could just unlock the meaning or the recognition or the direction of your life what I want to suggest to you and what I think the scriptures suggest to us is the resurrection

is the key to unlock all of those things knowing that Jesus is risen will unlock our understanding of who Jesus is will help us recognize what Jesus is doing and give direction to our lives I want to show you this in just a couple of ways the first just for a moment imagine you were walking on the emus Road in fact I don't know if there is an emus Road in London let's say you're walking on the Brompton Road and as you're walking on the bromton road you and a friend you're just walking along and

you're talking and and you're looking downcast you're looking a little sad and as you're walking along somebody comes up to you a stranger comes up to you and says hey what are you two talking about you you look quite sad and you look at this person slightly Inc in credulously and you say have you not heard have you not seen the news the the world is at War artificial intelligence is taking everybody's jobs social media is frying everyone's brains the political system is struggling many people in this country and in the world are struggling just

to meet the basic needs all our hopes all our dreams they've all gone sour have you not heard and the person stranger may look back at you and they may say something like this come on now come on do you not know that Jesus is risen do you not believe that Jesus has a plan do you not believe that it this very moment he is at work in this world through his spirit that the father's heart breaks for his creation for he loves all that he has made do you not know do you not know

you see if you are downcast about anything if you are downcast about the state of the world if you are downcast about the state of your life the resurrection is good news for you because he is risen it offers us meaning the first thing the resurrection will give you meaning you see the resurrection gives and it's a promise for meaning for every single life nobody sits on the message of the Resurrection as soon as people find out they want to go and tell other us when people hear that Jesus is risen I think right I'm

going to tell that to somebody else it is a historical Paradigm shifting event what that means is it changes everything the resurrection is the hinge point of History it is the moment when everything changes you see the resurrection brings together head and heart it brings together understanding and application and it can give meaning it can give meaning but when we have meaning we have to talk about it one of the things I'd love for us to notice in this passage is that people speak to each other it's not like a London Underground people actually speak

to each other it's incredible they want to share what's happening they want to share about what God has been doing because they dared to believe that Jesus is greater than they ever understood this was not a dead man walking nor was it a dead man talking this was God in flesh Jesus is risen and that they begin to realize changes everything Deuteronomy 6 tells us that whenever uh we stand up whenever we're walking along the road whenever we lie down or get up we should be speaking about God we're encouraged to do this all the

time to speak to each other to share what Jesus has been doing to share the good news that he is risen those are the conversations that we're encouraged to have as iron sharpens iron So speaking about Jesus speaking about the resurrection it will sharpen your soul it will sharpen your soul Hebrews tells us we should spur each other on Thessalonians says we should encourage each other and build one another up the idea being that when we speak to each other when as Christians we share the good news of what Jesus has done it will transform

us it will change the way we think about the world it will change the way that we think about our life and the meaning that has so speak about the resurrection I don't know if you are uh into murder mystery novels or kind of who done it books but if ever you've read one of those books something like murder on the Orient Express or death on the Nile or any of those you read the book and then when you find out the great reveal at the end you find out who the killer was then you

can go back in that book and you can begin to spot the clues that were scattered throughout the book you begin to say Ah that's why that happened or I didn't notice that before or whatever it might be you begin to spot on every page every chapter Clues scattered pointing to that great reveal or you may remember a movie released back in 1999 called the six sense the six sense was a famous movie but it's a kind of movie that you could only see twice really the first time you see it you watch it and

at the end it has this great reveal and spoiler alert here the Great reveal is that Bruce Willis the character that he plays is dead I have just spoiled that movie I apologize if you're going to watch but what happens is then you can go back and watch the movie and everything else makes sense because you know how it ends everything else begins to slot into place what I want to suggest to you is that when you know that Jesus is risen then you can read the Bible and everything begins to slot into place when

you know that Jesus is risen you can go back and you can spot all the clues in the pages of scripture and that is what Jesus is doing for the disciples here he's taking them back through the word and pointing out all the places in all the ways look this is how it reveals who he is and what he came to do when we know Jesus is risen it and brings us recognition if you are confused about Jesus the resurrection is key to make sense of both who he is and what he did Jesus points

to the Scriptures it says beginning with Moses and all the prophets and then he begins to unpack it that must have been the best Bible study ever in fact there'll probably be Never As Good a Bible study as that one that Jesus gave on that road on that day to those two disciples you see Jesus is greater than anyone dared imagine they were hoping that somebody would come along and Conquer their enemies but Jesus came as an obedient servant who was humiliated who was rejected who was killed and yet in the resurrection in conquering death

he brings Redemption not from deadly enemies but from Death itself Jesus is risen that is the message of good news for the world because when you know Jesus is raised from the dead then you know Jesus for who he truly is he is the author and perfector of life and so finally the resurrection it can offer us direction if you're confused in life about direction if you're confused about the trajectory of your life the resurrection is an anchor point it is a moment it is a an event an historical event which can give your life

Direction you know people often sense God before they can articulate what it is they sense you know you may have felt this yourself before you became a Christian you may have felt that sense of I can sense something but I don't quite know what to ascribe it to we see that in these two disciples these two disciples they they don't initially know who Jesus is but what's interesting is they don't want to be without him when he Intimates to move on at the end of that walk to Emmas they say no no no please Jesus

stay with us they encourage him to stay for a meal it's through that meal that their lives were turn around the whole direction of their lives now they practically they headed back to Jerusalem which is quite a commitment when you think about it cuz they'd walked seven miles to Emmas now they were going to walk seven miles back to Jerusalem and I often wonder to myself what did they talk about what did CLE pass and that other disciple talk about as they walk back to Jerusalem because I don't know about you but I'd be getting

excited to tell all my friends back in Jerusalem great news Jesus is risen and so they must have kind of talked between themselves and said you know should we should we kind of burst into the room when we get back to Jerusalem and tell everyone just Jesus is risen or should we kind of break it to them gently we don't want to shock them and say maybe we'll tell them we've been on a walk to a mayor and somebody appeared to us and we had this great Bible study like how should we do it and

so the two of them must have worked it out and they had their plan but then what the passage tells us is when they get back to Jerusalem they go back to their friends and before they can say anything their friends would say to them hey guess what Jesus has risen Simon Peter's seen him the women must have been sat there thinking told you so we could have saved you a 140 m round trip but I don't suppose they cared for a moment I don't suppose they cared who shared the news What mattered is not

who got to say it but the fact is that it was a reality the fact is that Jesus is Alive and that was the only thing that mattered because now their life had Direction You See Jesus is greater than anyone dared hope earlier this week as I was thinking and praying and preparing this passage um I knew that there was a painting by uh an artist called Caravaggio and Caravaggio painted the supper at emus which is going to appear on the screen in a moment and this painting I I Googled it because I wanted to

get an image of it and you know when you Google something it also tells you how to get to it sometimes well I Googled it and what was interesting is when I Googled the superus by AIO Google Maps said this is 7 miles away I was like oh that that feels a bit of a coincidence doesn't it and so I thought to myself and then I tried to persuade the family but they were having none of it I was like I'm going to walk there I'm going to walk there and I'm going to see this

painting and so I did that so I W it's it the National Gallery and so I walked to the National Gallery and I went in and I sat down quite exhausted sat down and I looked at the painting and the painting is fascinating because it kind of draws you into it the artist kaju has painted it in such a way where you feel drawn into it there's almost like a space at the table for us there's a space where you can just see and the two disciples sat down on either side the one in green

is just gripping onto his chair because they've just been told the amazing news they've just had their just seen Jesus break bread and their the scales have fallen from their eyes and they realize he is risen the only reason Jesus was at that meal is that the disciples urged him strongly to stay you know they could have walked to emus and got to the end of it and got to that Bible study and said okay we're done now we're going to go to our home see you later Jesus will never presume on our Hospitality unless

we invite him in Jesus will never presume on invitation unless you invite him in Jesus must have wondered were these two disciples going to be tired of him bored of him and I think in this week after Easter as we're thinking about what does it mean for my life what does it mean for me that he is risen that is a question that we can ask ourselves because as Jesus is risen we ask ourselves are we going to invite him in are we going to say actually Jesus it's okay keep on walking I've got it

from here I've got the data I'll take it but instead we can invite him in we can say Jesus come eat with us Jesus Come Fill Me Fe be part of my life speak to me help me recognize you give my life Direction give my life meaning for each of us we might respond to that in a number of ways for some of us if we do not know Jesus then we can simply invite him into our lives it may be that as you are wrestling with your questions as there's confusion still that you want

a place to do do that and on the 15th of May starting here in the morning or in the evening or online Alpha will begin where you can come along and you can ask your questions you can begin to be open and begin to just bring your questions into a safe space but maybe you're here and you need do know Jesus can I encourage you and bring you back to that point I made earlier that the disciples and everybody else never sit on the news of the Resurrection they talk about it with each other if

you're here today and you're part of a small group part of a connect group or if you're not could I encourage you to join a connect group join with other Christians and encourage each other and spur each other on with the good news about Jesus with the good news that he is risen we can build each other up in that way and it can change our lives you see Jesus is greater he is greater than our confusion for he is with them amen