Luke's Great Commission
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Well it has been two and a half years, but we have arrived at the end of the book of Luke.
I am sure more than one of you has thought, “We’ve been in Luke a really long time.”
But honestly—we could have gone slower.
It takes time to study God’s Word.
But I pray this has been profitable. I firmly believe it has.
In many ways, we turned to Luke the Physician and we asked him to carry us through the pandemic and he has.
With the most detailed birth story of Christ.
With large swaths of His brilliant, life-giving teaching
With eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ miracles
With the events of Holy Week
Luke’s Gospel has been an anchor for this church as the winds of the pandemic blew
And now this morning we arrive to the end of the book.
The final appearance of Jesus to His disciples in Luke
Luke’s Great Commission
The Ascension of Christ
Luke is wrapping up the first half of his story.
And for our purposes, we will draw three teaching points from the text and see what the respond of the church should be in each case.
CONTEXT
CONTEXT
A little bit of context.
This is the third of three Easter scenes in Luke 24...
The first came with the women coming to the tomb to find that Christ was not there
The second came with the disciple on the Emmaus Road
This is the final scene with Jesus coming to the Apostles
If the scene feels like it has a familiar rhythm, that is because it moves the same way the first two did.
There is confusion. There is correction. There is teaching. There is a witness.
As we look at this final scene in Luke, we have the Eleven apostles behind closed doors in Jerusalem.
At this point, Peter would have been telling them that he has personally seen Christ resurrected.
Then the Emmaus Road disciples come in the room with their witness of what they experienced
I think it is safe to imagine that the scene Jesus walks into is one with a bit of pandemonium
As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 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.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.
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.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. 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.”
And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.
EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION (v. 36-46)
EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION (v. 36-46)
So as they are discussing all of this, Jesus comes and stands in their midst and says, “Peace to you.”
He comes and declares shalom in the midst of the pandemonium.
That is exactly what they should be feeling because death has been robbed of its sting.
But instead, they are startled and frightened because they think they are seeing a spirit—a ghost.
This isn’t the first time.
but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”
I know it might be easy for us to think, “How thick can you be, boys? Wake up. It is the resurrected Lord!”
But you have to remember what the whole city of Jerusalem saw happen to Jesus just days earlier.
It was a public, heinous execution.
He was clearly dead. He was reported as dead.
There is no way any of us aren’t reacting the same way in this situation.
Zero judgment from me on this one.
In verse 38, He asks them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?”
They are troubled and doubting.
So what does He do? He gives them evidence for the resurrection.
Teaching Point #1: Christ gives evidence of the resurrection.
Teaching Point #1: Christ gives evidence of the resurrection.
The risen Christ ministers to the doubting and fearing hearts of the disciples by giving them physical, logical and Scriptural evidence for His resurrection.
First, it is the physical evidence.
In verses 39-40, He offers them His hands and His feet and they take Him up on the offer.
He wants them to see that He is the same Jesus that was crucified on Good Friday and that His body still bears the marks the of the nails and the spear.
He is not a spirit. He is flesh and bone.
When the text says that He shows them His hands and feet in verse 40, the insinuation is that He is letting them handle His body.
Touch His skin. Run their fingers over the scars on His hands.
To see that He is the same Jesus that they lived with and walked with and learned from and loved for three years.
But—they are still struggling. Luke says they “disbelieved for joy” and “were marveling.”
I love that phrase, “disbelieved for joy.”
It means that they felt like this was too good to be true.
ILLUSTRATION: I have never felt the disbelieving joy that these brothers were feeling. Touching the scars of the resurrected God of the Universe. That is a whole different level.
But I do remember in 2019 when Liverpool beat Tottenham Hotspur and won the Champions League Final, I couldn’t believe it.
I was doing a wedding in North Carolina and I walked up to the Groom’s party and said, “My soccer team just won the Super Bowl of soccer.” And then I banged my head on a piece of wood that was hanging down from this overhang.
They were like, “Are you okay? That was really hard.”
I was like, “I didn’t even feel it. I can’t believe what is happening. Liverpool just won the Champions League.”
Then I had to go do the wedding 5 minutes later.
When your heart is so happy that your brain just can’t believe the source of that happiness is real—that is some deep feeling.
So to help them with their disbelieving joy, He offers them logical evidence in verses 41-43.
He eats in front of them.
He asks if they have any food and they give Him some broiled fish and He eats it in order to show that He is a real human.
If He was a spirit, He couldn’t eat food.
And then, He gives them Scriptural evidence.
In verses 44-46, you can see it.
He reminds them of His words that He spoke to them in His teaching ministry.
He reminds them that the Old Testament is packed with promises about Him and He has come to fulfill those promises (v. 44)
We saw last week how multiple times in Luke, Jesus warned His disciples that He must suffer and die.
In Luke 18, He explicitly tells Him that these events are predicted by the prophets:
And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”
From Moses’ law to the sacrificial system to the Passover to the tabernacle and the temple—it all pointed to Christ.
The preaching of Moses to the nation of Israel.
The songs of the Psalmists.
The wisdom of Solomon.
The poetic warnings of the prophets
The story of Israel’s history
It was all about how Jesus would bring glory to God by rescuing a host of captives from the hand of death.
It was all about Him. His coming. His living. His dying. His rising. His ascending. His returning.
God being our God and His people being His people, under the banner of Christ’s redemption.
But they could not understand these things because they were spiritual matters that sinful man can only comprehend if God would open their minds and bring illumination.
The Scriptures are light and are darkened minds are closed off to them apart from God’s gracious help.
So we see Jesus opening their minds to understand the Scriptures.
Illumination, then, is the process by which the Holy Spirit turns the human will around to accept God’ s teachings.
Millard J. Erickson
We saw their will struggling to believe—even for joy, but He is now correcting the course of their will with the truth of the Word.
And when He says to them the same thing He said twice in chapter 9 and in chapter 18— “that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,” they now understand it.
This is not unlike the way in which Jesus has opened up our minds as believers and shown us the truth about Him.
There was a time when I did not understand who Jesus was.
I remember being around ten years old and asking my dad about baptism. He wasn’t a believer at the time and he probably gave me the best answer he could have, but my heart was searching.
There just wasn’t the clear answer yet.
I remember being in 7th grade and hearing my Science teacher dismiss the creation account in class. I had always assumed the Bible was true even though I had not gone to church.
I went home and got the Bible we had out and read the first three chapters of Genesis. It seemed as true as anything I heard in 7th grade science, so I shrugged and put it back.
But I didn’t understand it and repent.
I even remember going to church for about 6 months at Red Lane Baptist in Powhatan, VA and sitting through half a year of Sunday School lessons and not really grasping any of it in my heart.
On July 14th, 1999, I sat in a room full of teenagers at a Christian summer camp and heard a man named Clayton King preach from Proverbs 14.
And that night, God opened up my mind and I understood who Jesus was in an instant and I wanted Him.
Not everyone’s story is exactly the same, but the result is.
If you understand the Scripture, it is because God has illuminated your mind to be able to.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
In God’s mercy, He has helped His children discern spiritual things, including the most important spiritual thing—the identity of His Son.
What should our response be?
What do we render to God for His revelation? What do we offer up to Him as He shows us the truth? As He reveals the mysteries of heaven and gives us the sharpness to understand what He is saying in this book?
The answer is faith.
We respond to the word of God by believing God.
By believing in the full counsel of the Gospel and trusting in Christ.
Christ gives evidence of the resurrection and we respond in faith. By believing the Gospel.
We believe by knowing the facts of the Gospel.
That Jesus was born of a virgin, lived and died, and rose again to save sinners.
We believe by agreeing with the Gospel.
That we are sinners and Jesus is the only One who could save us.
But truly, in order to really have saving faith, we must believe by trusting in the Gospel.
By putting the full hope of our souls in Christ and in nothing and no one else.
This is the only response to God’s truth that will leave a person right with God.
To repent and trust in Christ.
And then to continue trusting until the end.
We see what this looks like in Michael Reeves’ account of Martin Luther’s death.
After the meal, he felt pains and a tightening in his chest. Taking to bed, he prayed Psalm 31:5 (‘Into Your hand I entrust my spirit’) and then jokingly ordered those with him to pray ‘for our Lord God and his gospel, that all might be well with him, for the Council of Trent and the accursed pope are very angry with him’. The joke had a serious point: his own death did not matter, for the gospel is God’s power for salvation and cannot be silenced by the death of a servant or the raging of an enemy. Finally, in what almost looks like an ultimate repeat of his trial at Worms, he was asked, ‘Are you ready to die trusting in your Lord Jesus Christ and to confess the doctrine which you have taught in his name?’ A clear ‘Yes’ was his answer. Soon after, he took his last breath. There was no priest present, there were no sacraments administered, and no last confession was made. Instead there was simple confidence before God
SPIRIT FOR THE MISSION (v. 47-49)
SPIRIT FOR THE MISSION (v. 47-49)
If you keep reading in the passage, you see that Jesus tells them that this revealed Gospel should not be kept to themselves.
The Gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed to all nations in His name.
And this work will start in Jerusalem.
Jesus is giving the instructions for how to start the church.
Luke started with John the Baptist preaching a message of repentance.
He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Then we saw Jesus preaching a message of repentance.
I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Now, the apostles will go and preach the same message of repentance, only now, the New Testament message of repentance being preached in full because Christ has died and resurrected and He is about to ascend to heaven.
So the apostles are being sent out by Jesus to preach the full counsel of the Gospel to the whole world, starting in Jerusalem.
We see similar scenes of commissioning at the end of the other gospels as well:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
The Father sent Jesus. Jesus is now sending the disciples.
You see the pattern here.
But they are not to do this work on their own. They don’t have to. God is providing the ultimate help. He is giving Himself for the mission by promising His Spirit to empower the work.
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.”
The promise and the power in that verse is the Holy Spirit.
We see the same thing when the scene is repeated in Acts 1:8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Teaching Point #2: Christ gives the Spirit for the mission (v. 47-49).
Teaching Point #2: Christ gives the Spirit for the mission (v. 47-49).
See, the witness of the Church is in the mold of the witness of Jesus.
He was sent by the Father.
We are sent by Him.
He preached repentance
We preach repentance
And the power of our mission is the same as the power that rested upon His preaching.
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
And what did He do when He came to the synagogue in Nazareth, His hometown?
He unfurled the scroll of Isaiah and read this passage from Isaiah 61...
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
So in the same way that Jesus preached in the power of the Spirit, the disciples are to preach in the power of the Spirit.
In fact, they are not to try and preach without the power of the Spirit.
That is what is implied here. If you try to do it without the Spirit, the mission will not succeed.
Of course it won’t—if the Kingdom is built by the wisdom and power of man, it will collapse like every other kingdom built in the wisdom and power of man.
God’s Kingdom is built on God’s power.
And that is a comfort to us.
It would be dreadful to hear God say, “Build my Kingdom in your strength and wisdom.”
I can barely beat Super Mario on the Nintendo Switch in my own strength and wisdom. How in the world could I build God’s Kingdom?
To know that He dwells in us, empowering our witness, relieves the burden of thinking that we must be the ones to hold the building of the Kingdom together
We are the workers. We do the work of taking the message of repentance and faith to the nations, but it is the power of God that will overcome the sin in someone’s heart and open their eyes to who Jesus is.
It is the power of God that will overcome addiction and lust and strife and envy and hatred and resurrect a dead heart from the spiritual grave.
It is the power of God that will bring revival to human souls.
We are simply the wheels on the ground, but He is the One that makes the car go down the road. And He is the One that convinces lost souls to get in.
ILLUSTRATION: I think about the father of the Swiss Reformation, Ulrich Zwingli.
Over in Germany they were nailing papers to doors and having very public fights with the pope.
Zwingli said, “I’m not to worried about big sweeping Reformation. I’ll just preach.”
Zwingli knew that getting the hammers out, however exciting, would not effect real change. Rather, he believed, the true secret of reform is to change individual hearts by the application of the gospel. External reformation of the churches must flow from that inward conversion if it is to be anything more than cosmetic surgery. Thus, instead of campaigning for change, Zwingli dedicated himself to preaching God’s word. Having primed the people, he would then wait for them to demand the change God’s word requires. The results were not speedy, but they had an almost unique durability even beyond his own death. When changes came in Zurich, they came from deep and popular conviction that God’s word commanded them, and so they stuck.
There is something to be said about Zwingli’s patience as a pastor. But beyond that, He trusted the power of God to use the Word of God to convert souls and transform the Church.
This is what we do in the Great Commission.
As the church, we faithfully preach the Gospel in the world and preach repentance and faith, waiting for God to bring the fruit from the harvest.
As the church, we direct all of our efforts toward proclaiming the forgiveness of sins in Christ’s name to all nations in the power of the Spirit.
As the church, we trust that God’s Word, when given time, will bring lasting change in the hearts of the people that God claims as His own.
So all the things that we do--
Good News Club, our Christmas Lights Ministry, Upward Basketball, the Mega Egg Hunt, Music and Arts Camp, Vacation Bible School...
These are all outreaches, but we are not just putting on fun events for our community
We are creating touchpoints where we can show them the Word in the power of the Spirit, trusting God to change their hearts .
And all the things you do during your week, from walking the dog to going to work to taking your child to dance class--
These are all places God is sovereignly placing you so that you would witness to His resurrection and His Gospel in those places
And as you go, you go in the power of the Spirit
Preach the same message that your Lord did—a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
A NEW CENTER FOR WORSHIP (v. 50-53)
A NEW CENTER FOR WORSHIP (v. 50-53)
And then we wrap it up for today, and for Luke as a whole, with the final few verses.
I am not going to spend much time on the ascension of Christ today.
There is so much we could say, but we will save most of that for Acts. When we get to Acts 1, we get a more detailed account.
In fact, from Luke’s first account, it isn’t even clear that the ascension happens forty days after the resurrection, but Acts will clarify that for us.
But here, we see that Jesus takes the disciples out to Bethany and He lifts up His hands and blessed them.
And then He parts from them as He is carried up into heaven.
And they fall down and worship Him, which He deserves because in His crucifixion and resurrection and ascension, He has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is the Son of God.
He has proved He is the Messiah.
He has proved He is God in the flesh.
They return to Jerusalem with great joy—not disbelieving joy anymore, but great joy—and they continue to bless God in the temple.
If you were a Jewish man who went to the temple to worship, you wouldn’t stop after becoming a Christian.
There will be no more sacrifices, but it would make total sense to you to just keep going to the temple and worshipping God, who has now given us His Messiah.
The Old Covenant has been fulfilled, but why would I stop coming to this place and blessing God? I have all the more reason now.
It wasn’t until later when persecution cranked up in the synagogues and the temple that Christians would have started to stay away.
The key that I want to focus on is that in this passage, the believers are given a new center for worship.
Though they go to the temple, the temple itself is no longer the center of worship.
It was at one time, but when Christ died and rose, He proved He is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant, including the temple itself.
Now, if people want to worship, they don’t need to go to Jerusalem. They need to receive the Lord of heaven and worship Him in spirit and in truth.
The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
You can worship in spirit and truth anywhere you are because the center for worship is not in Jerusalem anymore. It is in heaven at the right hand of the Father.
It is Jesus.
Teaching Point #3: Jesus gives the church a new center for worship (v. 50-53).
Teaching Point #3: Jesus gives the church a new center for worship (v. 50-53).
Listen to what Mark 16:19 says:
So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.
When Jesus took that position, He received His title of exaltation. A name to match the position.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
What is the name that God is bestowing?
It isn’t Jesus. He already has that name.
It is the title you see in verse 11.
He is Lord.
And when He ascends to the right hand of the Father, He receives His title as Lord.
He receives His name and throne—the Lord at the right hand of the Father, sitting down after He complete the task set before Him.
So with Christ seated at the right hand of God as Lord of the Universe, the people of God have their new center for worship.
The right hand of the Father—the place where Jesus is.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
When we started Luke, Zechariah was in the temple anticipating his son who would be the forerunner to the Messiah.
By the end of Luke, Christ is exalted in heaven until the day when He returns.
The entire shift of focus has changed
And so it should be with the church. If the church is anything, she must be a body made up of faithful worshipers.
All places are places of worship to a Christian. Wherever he is, he ought to be in a worshipping frame of mind.
Charles Spurgeon
We don’t wait until we are at church on Sundays to worship.
This is simply the commanded weekly gathering on the Lord’s Day.
It would be sinful to forsake and it is important but your worship is wider than this.
Our worship is as wide as our lives.
Everything you do, you do in service to God.
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,
I think sometimes people feel like they aren’t doing enough for God, but they also feel like they don’t have enough time to add anything to their plate.
Maybe what you need to change is to stop just doing the stuff that is on your plate and to recover your purpose.
You need what you do to become worshipful.
You need to restore the worship to your work.
You need to restore the worship to your domestic chores.
You might even need to restore the worship to your spiritual habits if they have just become a “going through the motions.”
If we truly understand Christ to be seated at the right hand of God, then the energy of our lives, however we spend it, must be aimed at His honor and glory.
Otherwise, we are not properly responding to His name and position.
We are not bowing down to Him as Lord.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
Christ has shown us Himself as the resurrected Messiah and He gives us proof.
We must respond in faith.
Christ has given us the Spirit for our mission.
We must go and proclaim.
Christ has given us a new center for worship.
We must keep our eyes fixed on Him and our lives exalting Him as Lord.
This is the message as we end Luke.
Do you remember how it started?
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 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.
If the end result of you reading Luke’s account of Jesus’ life, if you believing in Christ, proclaiming Christ and worshipping Christ with certainty about what you have been taught, well then—Luke has done his job.
Praise God. We will get to the sequel in a couple of months. Let’s pray.