Luke #54: The Mission Continues (24:36-53)
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Luke 24:36-53
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Again, welcome to Family Worship with the church family of Eastern Hills. It’s a blessing to gather with such a wonderful church family this morning. I’d like to give a special shout out of thanks to those who serve our church family and others through their ministry of biblical counseling. It really means so much to have people in the body who can come alongside to disciple people through really trying times. I appreciate your ministry so much.
If you’re a guest or visiting with us this morning, we would really like to be able to thank you for being here today, and to be able to do that, we have to get a little information from you. Could you please just fill out one of the Welcome cards that you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you? When you’ve done that, you can return it to us in one of two ways: you can drop it in the offering boxes by the doors as you leave when service is over, or I’d appreciate the opportunity to introduce myself, so after service, I’ll stay down here, and I invite you to come and say hello and give me your card personally. I have a small gift to give you to say thanks for being here today.
Announcements
Announcements
LMCO Final Total: ($40,286.43) Goal was $32,500
Opening
Opening
Today, we come to the end of our series on the Gospel of Luke. We’ve spent a little more than 13 months going through this story of the King, and it has been a blessing to preach through the whole thing (with a few exceptions). I pray that God has used this series to bring us to a deeper appreciation of the story of the Gospel and how the message of hope in Christ impacts our lives every single day. We’re never done preaching the Gospel to ourselves!
From the very beginning of the book of Luke, we’ve seen the mission of God to save the lost. From the announcement of coming birth of John the Baptist to the Magnificat of Mary and the Christmas story that followed, through Jesus’s dedication at the temple and His later temptation in the desert, then as He ministered in Galilee and eventually made His way to Jerusalem, and the cross and the tomb, the focus of the Gospel of Luke has been on the lengths that God would go to in order to restore sinful humanity to a right relationship with Him. The final passage of the book is no different.
So let’s stand as we are able in honor of the reading of the Word of God, and open our Bibles or Bible apps to the 24th chapter, where I will begin reading in verse 36, through the end of the book:
36 As they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst. He said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. 38 “Why are you troubled?” he asked them. “And why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself! Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” 40 Having said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 But while they still were amazed and in disbelief because of their joy, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 So they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate in their presence. 44 He told 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, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. 46 He also said to them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead the third day, 47 and repentance for forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And look, I am sending you what my Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered from on high.” 50 Then he led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. 51 And while he was blessing them, he left them and was carried up into heaven. 52 After worshiping him, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they were continually in the temple praising God.
PRAYER (Pray for Ray Falchetta)
Welcome back, Mr. Hunt. In your absence, IMF has learned that Cobalt is or was a level-1 nuclear strategist for Russian intelligence. Therefore, the only way to uncover his actual identity is to infiltrate the Kremlin itself. ... We believe Cobalt will do everything he can to destroy any record of his identity. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to penetrate the highly-secured archive inside the Kremlin and retrieve Cobalt's file before he can destroy it. ... As always, should you or any member of your team be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This message will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Ethan.
If you’ve seen any of the Mission: Impossible films (or the television series from the 60’s), this “mission briefing” is familiar, at least in style and phrasing. This particular one is from Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (basically Mission: Impossible 4), which came out in 2011. I chose it because I could easily shorten it, and it doesn’t give anything away (it’s in the first 20 minutes of the movie). I haven’t seen all of the Mission: Impossible movies (and the television show was a little before my time), but in very general summary, each installment has a mission given to the main character (Ethan Hunt for the movies, Jim Phelps for the tv show), which is ultimately about saving the world in some fashion. The missions seem—as the title suggests—impossible, but the IM (Impossible Mission) team always manages to come out of top, somehow.
There’s something about being given a purpose—a mission—that grabs our attention. There’s some part of us that wants to root for someone on an important mission, maybe even to join or help them in it in some way. This is why they were able to make eight of those movies, the last one still managing to bring in $600M at the box office.
What we need to remember is that we are on a mission. The final section of Luke’s Gospel reminds us that we have a mission as a church—a mission inaugurated by the risen Lord to the Eleven, and passed down through the message of the Gospel to those of us who have believed in Christ—a mission more important than anything the Secretary has ever given to Ethan Hunt. The mission that Jesus started continues today, even right now in this very moment, through each of us who make up the church.
18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 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, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
This statement: The Great Commission, is the mission that we are called to as believers—to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe—to live out—everything that Jesus commanded. It’s about Him. Our mission centers on the proclamation of a living Person, in the power of the Spirit, for the purpose of the worship and praise of God, and for our joy in Him.
1: The Person
1: The Person
Last week, we looked at the initial resurrection narrative in Luke, where Jesus’s tomb was empty, the angels appeared and testified to the women, the women went and testified to the disciples, who went and looked to verify that the tomb was, in fact, empty. Jesus also then appeared to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, who ran back and told the disciples about it, and discovered that Jesus had already at that point appeared to Peter as well. We actually pick up in the middle of that very conversation in our focal passage today, as Jesus interrupts:
36 As they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst. He said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. 38 “Why are you troubled?” he asked them. “And why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself! Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” 40 Having said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 But while they still were amazed and in disbelief because of their joy, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 So they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate in their presence.
We worked through some of the apologetics of the resurrection last week, so I’m not going to go into detail about that again this morning. However, Jesus provided His own apologetic to His resurrection: He appeared bodily to the disciples. As they were talking about His having risen from the grave and appearing to them, He suddenly appears among them again. John even tells us that they were behind locked doors when this happened:
19 When it was evening on that first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because they feared the Jews. Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
I get it. Even though they’ve just been talking about how He had been raised from the dead, they didn’t expect Him to just “pop” into the room out of nowhere. His words were the words they needed in that moment: “Peace to you!” But they still didn’t get it, and the Scripture tells us that they were troubled. I think being troubled is a pretty normal response to a sudden, dramatic appearance of a heavenly figure. Zechariah had the same response when the angel appeared to him in the temple back in chapter 1:
12 When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified (tarasso… same word as “troubled” in 24:38) and overcome with fear.
So Jesus showed them His hands and feet as indicators that it was really Him, literally in the flesh. Jesus’s resurrected body was still His body, but different in capability. He could teleport, for lack of a better word for it. He’s done it twice now in chapter 24. Our bodies can’t do that. If our glorified bodies are going to be able to teleport in the consummated kingdom of God, I look forward to trying it out!
But still they weren’t fully believing. When they still were “amazed and in disbelief because of their joy,” (read that as they were thinking “it was too good to be true”...oddly enough, the title of the second message from this series) He asked for and then ate fish. He couldn’t have been some phantom, some apparition. He couldn’t have been merely a vision, or some shared hallucination. The disciples could be confident that Jesus had risen bodily from the grave, which was the point of Luke’s Gospel:
1 Many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us. 3 So it also seemed good to me, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first, to write to you in an orderly sequence, most honorable Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.
Since we have this Gospel, shared by the original eyewitnesses during Luke’s careful investigation and written in this orderly account, we can be certain as well that the resurrection is true. This Person, Jesus of Nazareth, overcame death and rose again because He is the perfectly sinless Son of God. The entirety of the Christian faith rests on this one fact.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the grave, we have nothing useful to say as Christians. That is not an overstatement. Paul said this as well:
13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith. 15 Moreover, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified wrongly about God that he raised up Christ—whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Those, then, who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. 19 If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.
Either Jesus rose again or He didn’t. It’s really that simple. If He didn’t, then Christianity is the saddest farce to ever be foisted upon humanity. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then our faith is meaningless, worthless. If Jesus didn’t rise, none of us will. Not only that, but if He didn’t, then we shouldn’t believe anything else He said either. If Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, then He didn’t die for our sins, and we aren’t forgiven. We have no more hope than the atheist, because we are still held accountable for our sin.
I’m so thankful for verse 20, because verse 19 isn’t the end of what Paul wrote here!:
20 But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
So the other direction works as well: Since Jesus has been raised, then there is a resurrection to eternal life for those in Christ. Since Christ has been raised, then everything else He said is true as well: He died for our sins on the cross, so that we could be forgiven, and through His resurrection, we have eternal life! We have hope!
Our mission centers not on how we feel, not on the church, not on our own experiences, which are not bad things, but are not in and of themselves the Gospel. No, our mission centers on this Person Jesus the Christ, and the fact that He really did die, really did rise bodily, and really does live forever. And if we belong to Him by faith, so will we!
And this brings us to the active part of our mission: proclamation:
2: The Proclamation
2: The Proclamation
The next section of our focal passage repeats a theme that we’ve already seen several times in Luke’s Gospel, even in just the last couple of weeks. We’ve seen that Jesus referred to the Old Testament prophecies about Messiah coming to their fulfillment in His arrest, trial, crucifixion, and death. And now, one last time, He reminded His disciples of this truth, before commending them to the mission that He has in store for them and for us:
44 He told 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, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. 46 He also said to them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead the third day, 47 and repentance for forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.
Remember last week, we saw in verse 27 of this that, “...beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted for them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures?” What Jesus did while He walked on the road toward Emmaus with Cleopas and the other disciple, He now did for the Eleven. He synthesizes the teaching of the Old Testament about the Christ, and shows how it had come to pass in Him.
As I have said a couple of times recently, the Old Testament Scriptures are the foundation of our understanding of Jesus coming as the Messiah. Without the Old Testament, we don’t know that there IS a promised Messiah, much less what He would do or any guess as to who He would be. We cannot decide that the Old Testament is unimportant, because without it, we don’t know the whole story.
We have seen multiple passages in the Old Testament that point to the very things that Jesus experienced as evidence that He is the Messiah: Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, Zechariah 12, just to name a few. Another passage that we now see fulfilled because of the resurrection is Psalm 16:8-11, which Peter quoted and explained on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 as being about Jesus:
24 God raised him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death. 25 For David says of him: I saw the Lord ever before me; because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. Moreover, my flesh will rest in hope, 27 because you will not abandon me in Hades or allow your holy one to see decay. 28 You have revealed the paths of life to me; you will fill me with gladness in your presence.
31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke concerning the resurrection of the Messiah: He was not abandoned in Hades, and his flesh did not experience decay. 32 “God has raised this Jesus; we are all witnesses of this.
Jesus had “opened the minds” of the disciples so that they would understand these things. They didn’t just kind of “figure it out” through extra study or guesswork. They didn’t make it up. This new understanding and application was given to them by Jesus through revelation. This is what we’re talking about this morning—the mission to proclaim the message of Jesus has been passed down and passed down and passed down for 2000 years, even to this very moment! We’re a part of something incredible! Can you feel the weight of it?
Our mission is to proclaim the message. It’s great to do good things. It’s wonderful to be kind and generous and loving and compassionate, and those things are a part of us living out the unexpected love of Jesus every day—being His hands and feet in the world. However, we have been given a mission that can only be fulfilled through proclamation. The message is the mission: Jesus Christ died for the forgiveness of our sins, was buried, and rose on the third day so that we can have eternal life through faith in Him.
Our mission field is “all the nations.” How do we know that this is our mission? Because that’s what Jesus said in verse 48:
48 You are witnesses of these things.
We are the witnesses. We are the proclaimers. We are on mission with the message of the Gospel. I’m going to put slightly expanded paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 up on the screen:
Jesus Christ died for the forgiveness of our sins, was buried, and rose on the third day so that we can have eternal life through faith in Him.
This is what we are to proclaim. So we’re going to proclaim it. Look around. There’s like 300 people in this room. Look at someone near you. Spouses, that’s fine. Parents, if your kids are close, great. Students: tell one another. Any kids still here: tell your folks. We’re all going to declare to each other the simple truth of the Gospel. If you’re online and by yourself, do this anyway. I’ll give us time to say it three or four times. Ready? Go:
SAY IT
Why was it easier to proclaim it here? Because we assume that we all agree because of the context. Out in the world, it seems like this message might be unwanted, unwelcome. While it’s great to preach the Gospel to each other—we totally need to do that—the mission isn’t to be cloistered in our walls agreeing with each other that Jesus is awesome. That’s not a wrong thing—we should come together to encourage one another and together worship and praise our Lord! But the fruit that this gathering should bear is us going and telling other people about Jesus as He gives us the opportunity. I don’t say this to shame us, but to encourage us, to prod us, to prompt us, to spur us. We get to join Him on this mission!
Fulfill the mission by declaring the Gospel. However, we must keep in mind that it is our task to declare, not our task to save.
Evangelism happens before someone makes a decision to follow Jesus. It happens when the follower of Christ faithfully presents the truth and hope of the Gospel to the lost. For us to save anyone is above our pay grade. We can’t save people, because we didn’t die for them. The Holy Spirit is the One who convicts them of their sin and righteousness and judgment. Our task is to be faithful to teaching the Gospel with the aim to persuade others. We fulfill our mission when we tell, not when people surrender. Isaac Adams wrote:
“…Our job is to proclaim salvation, not produce it. We’re called to deliver a message to people; God’s the one who delivers people from sin.”
—Isaac Adams, What If I’m Discouraged In My Evangelism?, Crossway
This brings us to the power behind our mission.
3: The Power
3: The Power
In a way, our mission is like Ethan Hunt’s mission: to save the world. But unlike Ethan’s mission, which only seems impossible, ours actually is impossible for us to accomplish. It’s true. It is mission impossible on our own. We cannot save the world, no matter how many times Ethan Hunt and his Impossible Mission team might do so. We cannot succeed in this mission apart from the empowering work of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the One who does all the lifting in evangelism. He changes lives. He brings conviction—the understanding of a person’s sinfulness and need for God (John 16:8-11). He draws us to faith in Christ (John 6:44). He brings regeneration—the bringing to spiritual life the person who was spiritually dead (John 3:5). He brings justification—the change in the believer’s legal status before God because they have moved from the law of sin and death to the law of the Spirit of life (Romans 8:1-2). He brings sanctification—the ongoing process of the believer being made more and more like Jesus through His work in their hearts (2 Thes 2:13). Just as we cannot succeed in the mission apart from the work of the Spirt, so people will not come to faith without the work of the Spirit.
Jesus promised the power of the Spirit to the disciples before He ascended:
49 And look, I am sending you what my Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered from on high.”
He repeated both our mission as witnesses and the promise of the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:
4 While he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father’s promise. “Which,” he said, “you have heard me speak about; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.”
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
See how the Spirit will empower our fulfillment of the mission? We don’t do this on our own. The promise that Jesus was referring to in our focal passage appears to be the prophecy given in the book of Joel, chapter 2:
28 After this I will pour out my Spirit on all humanity; then your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will have dreams, and your young men will see visions. 29 I will even pour out my Spirit on the male and female slaves in those days. 30 I will display wonders in the heavens and on the earth: blood, fire, and columns of smoke. 31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. 32 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, for there will be an escape for those on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, as the Lord promised, among the survivors the Lord calls.
This pouring out of the Holy Spirit came upon the believers on the Day of Pentecost. The disciples were all together, and the Spirit came upon them in a powerful manifestation:
3 They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated and rested on each one of them. 4 Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them.
They received that empowering that Jesus promised, and that empowering immediately put to use—that day 3,000 people were saved through the Spirit-empowered proclamation of the Gospel.
When we proclaim the truth of the Gospel, we can trust that it is God who strengthens us, God who walks with us, and God who uses our faithful proclamation to save people. We don’t do it on our own, and we don’t do this for ourselves. We do this because we are sharing with people the only hope that we have: the sacrifice of Christ for our salvation. And this brings us to our last point: The purpose of the mission that we have:
4: The Purpose
4: The Purpose
When I refer to the purpose of the mission that we have, I mean to ask: what is the goal of people coming to faith? Is it for God’s glory, or for their good? The answer is “yes.” And in the closing passage of the Gospel of Luke, we see both things, combined in an expression of praise.
50 Then he led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. 51 And while he was blessing them, he left them and was carried up into heaven. 52 After worshiping him, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they were continually in the temple praising God.
Bethany was on the Mount of Olives, which is the site from which Jesus ascended according to Acts 1:12. Luke gives us a more detailed description of the Ascension there:
9 After he had said this, he was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven.” 12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem—a Sabbath day’s journey away.
After the ascension is the first and only time in Luke that Jesus was expressly worshiped. This is the first thing that our mission should elicit both in us and in others who believe. Both the one on mission (us) and the one who receives the message of the Gospel by faith should be driven to worship Jesus to the glory of the Father.
The Bible tells us that our mission is first and foremost for the glory of God:
8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.
4 For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the Scriptures. 5 Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice.
It also tells us that God is good and only does what is good:
68 You are good, and you do what is good; teach me your statutes.
And both Paul and James agree:
28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
So Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension showcase God’s glory, and provide us with what is good: salvation. And that should bring us great joy, which then pours forth in praise. In my head, when worship and joy mingle together like they do in verse 52 of our focal passage, the result is praise, which we see in verse 53. The book of Luke comes full circle: it started in the temple with the message of joy to Zechariah, and it ends in the temple with the mission of joy for the disciples.
Closing
Closing
We come together here to worship the Lord Jesus Christ and to engage in the fellowship of brothers and sisters on shared mission—to share our lives with one another as they did in the early days of the church—as we encourage one another in what God has called us to. The author of Hebrews wrote:
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus—20 he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)—21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. 23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.
The proclamation of the gospel of the risen Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit to the praise and glory of God for the good of mankind is our mission, and we’re on it together. The mission continues.
And if you’re here today having never believed the gospel I know you’ve heard it this morning. Trust in what Jesus did in dying on the cross to save you, and surrender to Him as Lord. Join the mission.
Baptism
Church membership
Giving
Prayer
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Quick Vision Series preview: Mission, Core Values, and Outcome Expressions over the next 11 weeks (Easter will be its own)
Bible reading (Gen 41, Mk 11, Job 7, Rom 11) We’ve already finished the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Matthew, and Acts this year, and we will finish Romans and Mark this Friday!
Pastor’s Study tonight 5:30-6:30 in Miller Hall
Prayer Meeting this Wednesday
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
1 Sing a new song to the Lord; let the whole earth sing to the Lord. 2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name; proclaim his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations, his wondrous works among all peoples. 4 For the Lord is great and is highly praised; he is feared above all gods.
