Nearly Too Good to Be True

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

In March 1984 police detective Robert Cunningham went to eat at his usual hangout - Sal’s Pizzeria in Yonkers, NY - where Phyllis Penzo had waited tables six nights a week for the prior 24 years. When he decided to settle his tab, Cunningham offered Penzo a deal instead of a tip. He took a lottery ticket out of his pocket and offered to split the winnings wither her. On April Fool’s Day, Cunningham called Penzo art 9:00 a.m. to tell her they had just won $6 million dollars and that she was entitled to half that amount. At first she thought it was a joke, but once she realized Cunningham was serious she woke her husband to tell him they were rich.

And true to his word, Cunningham, a 30 year police veteran with an annual salary of $30,000, kept his word and split the jackpot right down the middle. For both Cunningham and Penzo, that was certainly news that seemed too good to be true.

If that story sounds familiar, it is the event that inspired the 1994 film, It Could Happen to You, starring Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda.

Tension

Most of us have probably been presented opportunities that seem too good to be true. Maybe it was an investment opportunity that promised great returns with little or no risk. Or it was one of those emails that promised a huge inheritance if you could just help the other person get their money out of the country. So with all the scams out there, most of us probably live by the motto “If something seems to be too good to be true, it’s probably too good to be true”

We might even be tempted to think that about the event we are celebrating this morning - the resurrection of Jesus. And if we did, we’d be in good company because the group of disciples who saw the resurrected Jesus on Sunday evening certainly thought that, even after Jesus appeared in person to them.

Truth

This morning, Ryan spoke about the encounter Jesus had with two men on the road to Emmaus. After that encounter, Cleopas and the other unnamed disciple returned to Jerusalem where the remaining eleven apostles and some other disciples were hiding from the Jewish authorities. They told that group everything that Jesus had said to them and how they had recognized Him when Jesus broke bread with them.

Let’s pick up the account:

Luke 24:36–49 ESV

36 As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them. 44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

As this group is sitting around in a locked room talking about what had happened to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus appears in their midst. Although He proclaims, “Peace to you!”, the disciples are understandably startled and frightened and they conclude that they are seeing a ghost. But Jesus, knowing what they are thinking, shows them his hands and feet and invites them to touch Him to prove that He is physically present with them. But the disciples are still confused. In verse 41, we find these interesting words:

And while they disbelieved for joy...

This is a confusing phrase that is not found elsewhere in the Bible. And it almost seems to be a contradiction. On one hand the disciples don’t really believe it is Jesus, but on the other hand they are filled with joy at seeing Him. The reaction of the disciples provides us with the main idea I want to pursue this morning:

The gospel is nearly too good to be true news

If we had just left those blanks empty and said that the gospel is good news, most of us would have probably said, “Of course it is”. But here is why I’ve added the qualifiers. If you are already a disciple of Jesus, the danger is that you might lose your sense of awe and wonder about the gospel. It’s possible that you might begin to just take it for granted. On the other hand, if you’re not yet a disciple of Jesus, the gospel might very well seem to be too good to be true. I’m going to use this passage to address both of those groups this morning.

For these disciples, the physical presence of Jesus did seem “too good to be true”. While the disciples had great joy because Jesus was with them, they also couldn’t wrap their minds around the idea that the man they had watched be executed by the Roman authorities just a few days earlier was now alive. But that is completely understandable. Think about how you would respond if some loved one who has passed away suddenly showed up at your house and invited you to touch them. You’d probably “disbelieve for joy”, too.

I love how Jesus responds here. He doesn’t scold the disciples. He doesn’t rebuke them for their unbelief. He doesn’t call them stupid. He doesn’t raise His voice. He simply asks a simple question: “Have you anything to eat?”. Why would He ask that? How as that going to help their unbelief? After all, if showing them His resurrected body and inviting them to touch Him didn’t do anything to relieve their unbelief, what would? But when Jesus took the piece of fish He was offered and ate it, He was demonstrating that He did indeed have a physical body and was not just a ghost. Ghosts don’t eat.

We don’t know exactly what Jesus’ resurrected body looked like. We do know that it was recognizable. We know that it was indeed a physical body and not just an apparition. But it had also changed from the body He had before the crucifixion. It could apparently walk right through walls. But what is not in doubt is the fact that the resurrection was true. Jesus had died and been buried but now He was alive. In other words, what seemed too good to be true was actually true.

Even though we don’t find the word “gospel” in this account, the idea of the gospel is certainly present here. I think most of the time we use the word “gospel” we tend to think of it as merely some theological or religious term. It is most often used in connection with the task that Jesus has given to all His disciples, so we talk about “preaching the gospel” or “sharing the gospel”. And that is certainly an appropriate way to use that word. But the gospel is far more than that. The Greek word from which we get our English word “gospel” literally means “a good message” or “good news”. But it is actually even more than that. It was a superlative that was seldom used in Greek literature outside of the New Testament because it has the sense of “nearly too good to be true news”. And that didn’t happen often in their world and it doesn’t happen in our world very often either.

HOW TO MAKE SURE I DON’T MISS THE “NEARLY TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE” NEWS

Look for Jesus in His Word

Jesus understood that doubts are vanquished by the truth. So, just like He had done with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, He took these disciples through the Scriptures. Obviously, none of the new Testament had been written at that time, so the only Scriptures that were available are what we call the Old Testament. The Jews frequently referred to those Scriptures with the same phrase Jesus uses here - the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. And Jesus shows these disciples how all three sections testify to the fact that He would die to make it possible for their sins to be forgiven and then rise on the third day to prove that He had the right and the power to overcome sin and death.

Today, we obviously encounter Jesus throughout the New Testament. Those of you who have joined us in our reading plan this year are certainly seeing Jesus in the gospels. But this passage reminds us that Jesus is also present throughout the Old Testament, too. That is one reason we have always encouraged you to make sure you’re reading the entire Bible. Recently, a prominent pastor said that as Christians we should “unhitch” from the Old Testament. But based on what we see here, we should do exactly the opposite. We should embrace it.

Fortunately, when we read the Bible and look for Jesus, we have one advantage that those disciples who were with Jesus didn’t. We have the Holy Spirit, the author of the Bible, dwelling permanently in our lives and one of the things He does for us is to help us to understand what we are reading. Here is what Jesus had to say about that role of the Holy Spirit:

John 14:26 ESV

26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

The more we see Jesus in the Bible, the more confidence we will have that the gospel, although it might seem too good to be true, is actually 100% true.

Look for Jesus in our world

This is something we talked about a lot at our Monday morning Bible study this week. Even though it’s not addressed directly in this passage, I think it is so important that we need to talk about it for a few minutes.

Unlike the disciples, none of us has physically seen the resurrected Jesus, so we have to rely on their eyewitness accounts. But I think God did create us with a need to experience things physically and emotionally, too. We can’t see or touch Jesus physically, but we can see His hand in the world He has created around us if we’ll just look.

That will probably be different for each of us, but let me suggest a few ways this might occur:

We will often see the hand of Jesus in the people He has created. After witnessing the birth of my two children, I don’t know how anyone can see the miracle of a new life coming into this world and not see the hand of Jesus there. And I continue to marvel as I watch Him work in the lives of my wife, my kids, my grandkids and many of you that are here this morning.

A lot of us experience the hand of Jesus in nature. Every time I see a rainbow, I am reminded of the promise that God made to Noah to never again flood the earth. When I see a beautiful sunset, I am reminded of the beauty and creativity of God. When I look through our telescope and see complete galaxies that are millions of light years from earth I am awed by a God who could create the entire universe. When I go on a hike in the desert or the woods and observe the complex interactions of all the plants and animals, I am overwhelmed with how concerned God is with every detail of His creation.

We can see that hand of Jesus in the events occuring around us in this world. There are some things that just can’t be explained any other way.

If we’re willing to look, the hand of Jesus is at work all around us.

Don’t keep the gospel to ourselves

As we’ve said before, God did not create us to be reservoirs, but rather pipes or conduits. Jesus makes this really clear here. He tells the disciples that they are to proclaim the gospel to all nations. And that’s exactly what this rag tag group of frightened disciples end up doing. Many of them will give their lives in order to do that. To me that is the greatest proof of all that the resurrection of Jesus is real and true. A lot of people will make up a story or tell a lie. And they might even recruit others to join in. But I don’t know of anyone who is willing to hang on to that lie if they are going to be killed for it. The resurrection of Jesus is not merely a story concocted by the disciples. It is a truth authenticated by their blood.

But Jesus didn’t just leave them to do that on their own. He promised to send them the Holy Spirit who would clothe them with power to carry out that mission. And the same is true for us today. Whenever we proclaim the gospel, we are never alone. The Holy Spirit is there to empower us and guide us.

I hope you see now why we’ve said...

The gospel is nearly too good to be true news

Action

As we close, let me speak to the two groups I spoke about earlier.

First, for those of you who are here today who have never put your faith in Jesus. I understand that to you, the gospel may very well seem to be too good to be true. But I can assure you that it is indeed true.

I understand that you may very well think that you don’t need a Savior. Perhaps you think you’re a good person who merits God’s favor. But the truth is that everyone of us - and that includes me - is a sinner who has failed to live up to God’s standards. And even if any of us were good enough to only do that even once, God is so holy that He couldn’t accept us into His presence.

I understand that it might not make sense that the way we become right with God is to put our faith in Jesus and believe that He loves us so much that He willingly gave His life on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins.

I understand that the idea that Jesus did for us what we can’t do for ourselves doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in a world where we are constantly encouraged to not count on others and rely only on ourselves.

And I certainly understand that you might be skeptical about the resurrection of Jesus, which is the event that proves that He has the right and the ability to forgive our sins and to overcome death. As we’ve seen this morning, even those who witnessed that firsthand had their doubts.

But while the gospel might very well be nearly too good to be true news, it is in fact true. And now that you’ve come face to face with that truth, you have a decision to make. You can either accept the truth and put your faith in Jesus and be assured that you can have a personal, intimate relationship with God. Or you can reject the truth, in which case you will forfeit that abundant, eternal life.

This is the most important decision you will ever make in your life. It is far more important than deciding where you will go to school or who you will marry or whether to have kids or what job to take or where to live. Those are all important decisions but they only have a temporary impact here on earth. The decision of what to do with Jesus has eternal consequences. So we don’t want you to make that decision lightly. We’re not going to ask you to raise your hand or repeat a prayer. But what we do want to ask is that you’ll allow us the privilege of talking with you more about how to put your faith in Jesus and become His disciple. There are a few ways that you can let us know you’d like to have that conversation:

In the chair backs there is a tan card that says “Next Steps”. Just complete the card and place it in the box at the back of the auditorium or in the lobby or give it to me or one of our greeters.

The contact information for all of our pastors and elders is in the bulletin. You can email any one of us.

At the end of the message, I’ll be sharing a QR code that you can scan with you smartphone to access our digital connection card

If you’re online, you can chat with one of our online hosts.

Or, you can even just talk to me after the service

I promise that if you use any of those methods, someone will be in touch with you no later than tomorrow.

For the rest of you who have already made that decision, I want to encourage you not to lose your sense of awe and wonder about the gospel. I’ve often talked about our need to be “re-gospeled” on a regular basis. We need to make sure that we don’t take the death and resurrection of Jesus for granted. We need to constantly remind ourselves of just how much God loves us and the tremendous cost that Jesus paid as a demonstration of that love. And when we do that, we won’t have to force ourselves to share the gospel with others. We’ll naturally desire to do that.

Inspiration

In life, it’s probably not a bad idea to live by the idea that if it seems to good to be true, it’s probably not true. But when it comes to the resurrection of Jesus and how that can completely revolutionize our life if we’ll let it, it’s only nearly good to be true. But praise God it is indeed 100% true. What will you do with that truth?