What things?

He is risen. Amen. Father, we thank you for the uniqueness of the Christian Gospel.

There is no tomb occupied with the remains of our Lord Jesus. Death could not keep its prey. Jesus my Saviour, he tore the bars away.

Jesus my Lord, we praise and bless you that the right hand of the Father is one who bears the marks of crucifixion and whoever lives to make intercession for his own. Accept our love and our gratitude in his name and all the people of God said, Amen. This morning's reading is from the Gospel of Luke chapter 24 verses 13 to 35.

Now that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked 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 only a visitor to Jerusalem and do 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 our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but didn't find his body. They came and told us that 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 him they did not see. He said to them, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. Did not the Christ 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 acted 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 and returned at once to Jerusalem.

There they found the eleven and those with them assembled together and saying, it's 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 by them when he broke the bread. So Wendy Millard, she's going to tell a little bit about how she became a Christian.

From as far back as I can remember, I've always had an awareness of the spiritual, supernatural side of life. My mother took me to Sunday school regularly for a few years until I was about 12. However, I don't remember any impact made by this.

I was always attracted to the mystical, becoming involved in astrology initially. I developed a comfortable set of beliefs which incorporated the idea that we all live a number of times, developing spiritually a little more in each life by learning these particular lessons that life taught. This new age philosophy, among others, appealed to me and I dismissed the church at the time as being outdated.

As I grew up, I continued in my mystical beliefs, visiting several clairvoyants who assured me of all sorts of future happenings which have mostly failed to materialize. I had no real plans for my life and drifted into marriage, having two children within the first three years. I was fairly successful in my career and returned to work for financial reasons between and after having the children.

The pressure became too great at home and soon after my second child was born, my husband left me for someone else. I have carried on working, bringing up the children on my own. Since being divorced, I have had a few unsuccessful relationships.

Two of my sisters are Christians and in March last year, one of them moved in with me. I was then exposed to her life, her Christian friends and their beliefs. I couldn't accept Christianity at first.

To me, with my more broad-minded approach to spirituality, it appeared too simplistic. I was continually bombarding my sisters and friends with questions, maintaining that I too had prayers answered by God. I couldn't see where Jesus fitted into the question.

I had to admit though that they had something extra which I didn't have and I was very curious to know more about it. One Sunday night last July, my sisters and a friend came back after the evening church service. Once again, I started asking questions with the three of them valiantly trying to answer me.

After a while, it was suggested that we should pray and that I should make a commitment to Jesus. Nothing had been further from my mind. However, they maintained that by taking this first step of faith, my questions would in time be answered, adding that Christians have always got questions anyway.

So we prayed and followed several days of my wondering quite what I'd done and what the consequences were. The rest of 1990 saw gradual progress in my Christian life. I came to the tab each Sunday and attended discipleship classes to learn more about the Bible.

Although I still had barriers inside, I found that a lot of my moral attitudes changed and I was amazed at times to see that I would firmly believe something that only a few weeks previously I had not been able to accept. I read the Bible more and continued to ask questions. Since the beginning of 1991, my faith has deepened and I have developed a personal relationship with God which I didn't have before.

I see many positive changes in my character as God has been working in me. Before becoming a Christian, my self-confidence depended largely on my physical appearance and being nice to people. It would be too important what other people thought of me.

Since then, God has released me from a lot of these dependencies that I'm more secure in myself. I'm learning to trust God more in difficult situations and find that he always responds and helps me. I have renounced my former beliefs in astrology and the occult since I can see the emptiness and the danger of dependency on them.

My sisters and I have started regular prayer sessions and received many valuable answers to prayer. I can say without a doubt that my first step of faith, that of accepting Jesus into my life, has changed my life completely. It is more fulfilling and I'm becoming a more whole person.

Let's have Ben now. Ben was going to be baptised last November but he was involved in a rather horrific motorbike crash and we're so glad to have him back and that he's spared from any serious permanent damage and he healed very quickly. So he's now going to come and tell us how the Lord met with him.

I grew up in a family which had quite a few problems when I was young and this left me feeling quite hurt inside and I felt lonely and I built up a wall where I couldn't return to my parents because what happened was they had a lot of problems and I felt unloved and worthless. It really did hurt inside and it really didn't get to me and I would cry in my room and feel very lonely, upset. I grew up and grew into a sort of a very rebellious child.

I wouldn't really listen to what my parents said or what the teacher said or what anybody said because I wanted to feel important. I wanted to feel that I'm in control and I can really do what I want. I really wanted respect and wanted to be loved and cared for.

I mean I wouldn't do anything. It just caused me and everybody else a lot of grief and I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused people. It just got really worse and worse and I got more and more rebellious as I wanted to have control over what I did and I wanted to have respect.

This sort of finally sort of ended up me being sent for psychiatric help when I was about 10 because the teachers couldn't really put up with me anymore and this made me feel even more sort of worthless and hurt. It really sort of degraded me and I felt so useless. I felt I sort of hated myself for what I was and what I did.

I would sort of go to bed at night and I would lay there in the dark and think, you know, why am I doing these things? Why do I hurt people? This carried on. I just wanted to prove myself. I made sure that I always came first and it didn't really matter that much that other people got hurt because I really wanted to be respected.

I felt so worthless. When I was about 14, I sort of was very rebellious before then and I wanted to feel on top because I could put other people down and I could sort of be the main man and sort of look important but at 14 I sort of changed my attitude and sort of instead of having people look at me and think I was good, I tried to work hard at school and I tried to prove my worth through that. I did work very hard but it was the same motives but it just changed emphasis.

It became more respectable and I did work very hard and I sort of changed my circumstances because the teachers were pleased with me and they put me up and they sort of changed the people who I was around and I saw this kid in my new class who said he was a Christian and it was pretty shocking really because people used to go up to him and moan at him and tell him how awful he was but he didn't really retaliate at them. He didn't sort of strike back and that was so surprising because I couldn't really understand how he could take this abuse and not sort of lash out. Then when I was about sort of 16, a couple of years ago, quite a few months, I became quite concerned about God.

It worried me because I found that sort of competing and trying to be on top didn't make me feel very worthwhile. I was just serving other people. I was just, even though I thought I was in control I think and I was in charge, I was really just serving the people around me.

I just sort of, I had to do really what they wanted as well and I became really concerned about God. I don't know why, it just sort of happened. I thought there's got to be a point to all this.

I want to have some sort of point in life. I want to do something which is worthwhile, which pleases me because nothing else really in life really just pleases you. He asked me to come to church one evening and I remember the evening quite clearly.

It was pouring down with rain and I got my bike and cycled here and I sat, what did I say, I was just up the back there on those steps near my dad up there and I sat there and that's how he packed me for the day and this man at the front, just down there in his sack and he was, there's a man who escaped from sacks anyway and he was saying that sin traps you, you have no freedom in your life and I felt that this was so true, it really did hit me hard. I knew it was true, I didn't just sort of suspect it to be true, what he was saying and it really did hit me that my sin, all the hurt inside and all the things I've done wrong was really my problem and I really really had to do something about it and then they have a request where they sort of tell you to make a response or come forward or something and I didn't and it sort of shocked me and then the person who asked me, I sort of, I felt that I had to go and talk to him afterwards that God had really spoken to me and it was really a powerful word and it really was true, it really did and I went up to him and said, I don't know what I said to him but I must have said something dramatic because then we went through the back, just through there and he had this track and he's reading this sort of this little bit of the bible telling us about the beliefs and even though I'd not really known what the beliefs were, he's reading, I was saying I know that, I know that, I know it's true and then he's reading through the track and he got to the end and I prayed the prayer at the back, committing my life to the Lord Jesus and I sort of felt God, he sort of came upon me and I was filled with joy and I was so happy because he really loved me and he really thought I was special and that really meant a lot to me and I remember being really happy, really joy, I don't know if the drums are here but there's a drum set down there and I remember coming through and thrashing on these drums and for ages and ages and it's just so happy and and the Christian life has been good, I mean it's so satisfying to have a goal in life, to have something to aim at, to have a real God who you can pray to and you can give him your problems. My God, he changes my attitudes, I mean I care for my people, I care for my family and I care for the people around me a lot more than what I used to before they were really just there to get something else out of, to get sort of a buzz.

I even find myself sometimes sort of having something to do with people who before I couldn't really stand and that's quite surprising. He heals you of all your hurt and insecurity, all the pain you've had before and loneliness, he comforts you and he takes that away from you and I've never really regretted the step of faith and I wouldn't really discourage anybody else from making it because it's really the best life anybody can live. That's the testimony of every Christian, I live, I live because he is risen, I live, I live with power over sin.

202 in the orange books, it'll be on the overheads, let's stand. Because he is risen, I live, I live to worship him, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, because you're alive, because you're alive, because you're alive, I live. Long time ago we read from Luke chapter 24, let's go there again shall we, because here you've got a story of, here you've got a story of two men who were very despondent as they set out on the road, the road to the village where probably they lived, I reckon they had a cottage there, the village is called Emmaus, it's seven miles west of Jerusalem and these men were absolutely devastated.

You might find it hard to enter into Easter joy, you came into the tab, you saw the flowers, you saw the children, you've listened to these testimonies, you heard some fairly enthusiastic singing and you felt, well I can't lock into that, you see I lost my loved one a little while ago, I've just lost my job or some tragedy hit me. Interesting isn't it that these two who were setting out on the road to Emmaus too were utterly disillusioned, disconsolate, depressed people. The only thing that can take you into Easter joy is to know what they, imperceptibly at first but later on very wonderfully realised, that they weren't walking alone, they were travelling towards Emmaus, west I told you of Jerusalem, the sun was setting, they were walking into a sunset.

That's a very antipathy of Christianity because Christianity doesn't claim to direct you towards the sunset, it claims to direct you towards the sunrise, so what turns sunset into sunrise? Well my argument is this, you need to know the company of the Lord Jesus. So he dogs the footsteps of these two, they don't know he's there and then suddenly in Aramaic fashion, I mean by way of culture, divorced from our culture in England, he said, what are you two talking about? They told him, Jesus is a great consoler, when you're mourning what the Lord Jesus will do is allow you to talk to him, he's a great counsellor. It's good to let your sorrow have a tongue where sympathy has an ear.

He doesn't call these men by name, he could do that but our Lord has got a different way of dealing with a variety of circumstances, when the bejeweled tearful woman is in the garden of Gethsemane a little while, sorry the garden of resurrection a little while before, our Lord staunched the tears by just saying, Mary and immediately it all made sense. But you see these men are a different kettle of fish so to speak, there is unbelief to deal with in their hearts, so he doesn't say their names, he could have done that and immediately resolved their problems, instead of which he asks them to tell them what it is that they're so very concerned about and they don't understand, are you the only visitor and only a visitor to Jerusalem, verse 18, and you do not know these things that have happened there in these days? Are you the one exception to having information about what is so public that in every bazaar they're talking about this? Jesus wasn't done to death in a corner. If they'd have had newspapers it would have been headlines, if they'd have had the radio it would have been the first thing that hit you when you switched it on, Jesus has been killed but he doesn't know, this man who draws alongside.

So they say, don't you know about the things that have happened? And Jesus verse 19 says, what things? That question will reveal to them their need, it will reveal to them their lack of understanding. It's not a question that he asks because well he requires information, obviously he got all the information, he was the central character in what they were talking about. Neither is a sense of mockery, even gentle mockery, Jesus doesn't handle circumstances like that, he puts up the question what things because he wants to sharpen in their understanding just what has happened because you see there are two negatives about these men and then there becomes one positive and I reckon those negatives are represented in the congregation this morning.

The first one is this, they had an inadequate conception of Jesus and the second was that they had an inadequate grasp of the scripture. An inadequate conception of Jesus, the Sunday Telegraph which, sorry the Sunday Express which I don't read but today is carrying an article saying that one third of people in the United Kingdom according to a recent opinion poll taken over this past weekend do not know what this weekend is all about. One third, they don't know what Good Friday is.

Jesus is always concerned about knowledge you see because the gospel that he came to present is not just to the emotion, it's directed first to the mind and it matters to Jesus what is thought about him and so when he says what things then they have to put into expression their creedal statement, their belief of Jesus. Well, about Jesus of Nazareth they say, distinguishing him from other Jesuses because there was more than one man who had the name Jesus but only one man who came from Nazareth with that name. He was a prophet, very powerful.

What he did was so significant that well he spoke with an authority that the religious clergy don't generally speak with and he had a power that they don't have. What's more they went on to say some rather remarkable rumours have cropped up about him. In addition, some of our women amazed us, verse 22.

It's an interesting word that word amazed. I was checking it up in the original language earlier today. It actually means blew our minds.

You didn't think they got a word like that in the Greek language but they have. What these women had to say was so staggering it blew our minds and here's a little bit of male chauvinism in Judaism in those days because it was certain women who said this, they were disposed not to accept that as evidence. See, Jesus is teasing out from them what they understand about him.

What things? What about Jesus of Nazareth, the great prophet? Well, we've been expecting a lot of things concerning him but, you know, it had all faded into the background. This is the third day. As though lurking still there is the recollection of what he said about the third day.

But nothing's happened. He that believes should not make haste. It's not the end of the third day.

It is the third day. But you see, the problem with these people is, with these two men, is this. They have an understanding of Jesus but it's not a full understanding.

It's not a saving understanding. You ought to know more of Jesus than just he's a historical figure. That he's a good man who did remarkable things.

Or that some people said that astonishing happenings occurred after his death. It's important. It's okay as far as it goes but it doesn't go far enough.

It doesn't set the sun to sunrise position. It doesn't stop the immerse road from becoming darker and darker and darker. For that was the experience literally of these men and it was their experience spiritually too.

So Jesus wants to turn their sunset into sunrise. So he puts the question, what things? They had an inadequate grasp of him. What's more? They had a totally inadequate grasp of scripture.

The authorized version is a little cruel. It says that our savior said, fools. Actually, it's a little softer.

When he deals with them, he says, how foolish you are and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Some people say they believe certain things but don't act on them. We were doing some work just across the tab throughout the afternoon yesterday.

Stopping people, asking them about Good Friday. Only two people, at least in my experience, were rude. Everyone else was prepared to stop.

In fact, I asked one elderly gentleman. I said, I'm the pastor of the church here. He said, I'm sorry, I haven't got any money.

Don't know what that says for me. One lady said, well, you know, I believe. I used to go to church, and she got some lovely children with her.

And I said, you still believe in Jesus? And she said, yes. I said, you sure, my love? She said, yes, I believe that Jesus is the son of God. I said, when were you last in church? When did you tell your kids? You see, there was a belief, but it never worked through into practice.

These were Orthodox Jews. They believed the prophets. But if you believe the prophets, don't you remember that David said of the Messiah, he would have pierced hands? And David said, thou wilt not leave thy holy one to see corruption.

You believe the prophets? And didn't Jonah illustrate in being entombed in the belly of a great fish three days the experience that Jesus said would be the end of his human life before his resurrection? As Jonah was in the belly of a great fish, even so shall the Son of Man be in the belly of the earth? Did they not hear Isaiah saying that after the death of the Messiah, the soul of his righteous one would be satisfied, because his death would have an atoning value for those who put confidence in him, and after his death would come a mighty resurrection? Our Lord Jesus is concerned to correct the basic inadequate grasp of these people how foolish you are. Don't you know, my friends, that we moderns are fools? Here is this word of the eternal God, inscripturated in a book that you can read. You can never change your depression to elation, your despair to hope, without you take the tissues from this divine box of handkerchiefs and wipe your eyes with the promises that are contained, that are replete within it.

God speaks to you through His Word, but so often you are like the young lady who said to me across the road, the town hall, I reject Christianity and all that rubbish. It does not make sense. And then I said, when, my dear, did you read the Gospels? She said, I have never read the Gospels.

So, I said, how can you reject what you have never read, pass judgment on what you have never considered? And she was skewered on the javelin of her own logic, but she would not admit to the problem in which she found herself. What fools we are when we dismiss the blessed Scriptures that are in our houses and we do not ever turn to them. Someone has said that reading the New Testament was like an electrician going into an old farmhouse to rewire it and discovering that all the fuses were alive.

When you read this book, it speaks to you of Him who is brought back from the dead. It speaks to you convincingly of a man who changed the opinion of disciples who were so depressed and despondent, who on one occasion appeared to 120 people, who transformed the minds and the lifestyles of ordinary folk to the extent that He established a church which had a power that even the Roman and the Jewish authorities could not stay. And today the kingdom of our Lord Jesus continues to expand and expand.

How foolish you are if you have not only an inadequate concept of Him, but only a fleeting touch of that on His Word. But these men have one thing that is to their credit. They have an insatiable desire to learn more.

They say later on in the chapter, did not our hearts burn within us when He talked to us? What started the change? Well, they were listening to Him speaking. I wish I had had a tape recorder. The best sermon that was ever preached went unrecorded.

As Jesus spelt out how He is the Lord of Scripture, the whole of the Old Testament speaks of Him, and these men are so elated as they listen, and the sun is now really down, and it's so late at night, so they say, well, come into our cottage, come into our home. And when Jesus is given an invitation like that, He always responds. Do you ask Him into your heart, will you stay with Me? Will you make yourself more known to Me? If what that preacher was saying at the tab this morning then is true, then make what he had to say along with the illustrations of these candidates real to my experience.

So they asked Him to come in, and not only did He come in, and they listened to what He had to say, but they watched what He did. I can't prove it, but I wonder if these two men were present on the day when He fed five thousand. The little kid came along with his five loaves and his couple of fishes and gave them to the disciples, and they said, what's this among so many? What things? And Jesus takes bread, and He breaks it.

And it's impossible to do that without opening your fingers, and in the palm of the hands they see the nail prints, and suddenly it all makes sense. Their eyes are open. They have the same experience as these baptismal candidates.

They see who He is, and at that point He goes. He no longer needs to stay in corporeal form. He's done His job.

He's released His message, and now His Spirit will pervade and infiltrate their hearts and their minds so that wherever they go on planet earth, that Lord Christ who was with them on the Emmaus road will walk alongside. The sunset turns to sunrise, and though they've done seven miles at walking pace, they jog back to tell the eleven. They clock up another seven miles to tell others what they have discovered about Jesus.

What things, He says, and He puts the question to tease out a greater understanding, to get a greater commitment to Scripture, and having fulfilled those conditions, then He releases Himself in all the fullness of knowledge to them, and they acknowledge that He is indeed the Christ who died on the cross for their sins as He had told them and had been raised from the dead. What about you? Let's stand and sing, to God be the glory. It's 357 in the hymns of faith.

We'll sing the first and the last verses. Our kiddies are going to come in to witness this baptismal event, and then the choir will sing, then we'll have our final resurrection hymn. 357, first and last verses.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice. Let's stand. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice. Oh, come to the Father, through Jesus the Son, and in Him the glory. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice.

The text we have given to Wendy Millard is, just as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Romans chapter 6. Wendy, on confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The text that's being given to Ben Fairfax is, I want to know Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings.

Philippians chapter 3. Ben, on confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The text that's being given to Mary Laver, thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15.

Mary, on confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And the text that's being given to Dave Rusbridge is, if we have been united with Christ in His death, we will certainly be united with Him in His resurrection. Romans 6. Dave, on confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.