Luke to Acts: The Mission Continues | Opened Minds, Empowered Witnesses - Luke 24:45-49 | January 26

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Well, here we go. It's really good to be here this morning.

We got the—never mind. Thanks for praying. Holy Spirit is helping me remember

what to say and what not to say.

For those of you who read the text, it's a little loud, right?

No? I'm supposed to be talking about Joel today, but I'm not.

So if you're here for Joel, I'm sorry, I'm going to disappoint you.

And if you're not here for Joel, I still may disappoint you, and that's okay.

But over the next few months, we're going to be looking at the book of Acts as a church.

And I'm not going to steal Zach's thunder and introduce the book of Acts,

but I want to lay the foundation, lay the groundwork for us as we're stepping into the book of Acts.

And so today, if you want to take your Bibles, we're going to be looking at

the last chapter of the book of Luke.

Now, Luke and Acts actually have the same author, and you probably could guess

his name if you don't know it. Yeah, it's Luke, right?

Luke is the author of a two-part volume, Luke, the gospel, and then the continuation

of the Holy Spirit, the spirit that rested on Christ that raised him from the

dead, which is the acts of the Holy Spirit.

And so today we're going to look at the last chapter of the book of Luke to

kind of prepare our minds and our hearts as we step into the larger,

what we'll spend a larger time looking at, which is the book of Acts.

And we're going to be looking at the last few verses of the book of Acts.

So this week, we're going to look at Acts 44 through 49. And then next week,

we'll look at the ascension of Jesus 50 through 53.

But I'll start reading in verse 44, Luke 24, 44.

Then he said to them, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still

with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of

Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me.

And he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures.

Then he said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the

Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,

and that the repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name

to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.

And you are witnesses of these things.

Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem

until you are endued with power from on high. Let's pray.

Father, this is your word, And as Sandy has reminded us, your word is truth.

God, would we hold fast to your word? God, we want to see your glory.

We want to see your beauty.

We want to encounter you as we read the scriptures.

We want to encounter you through prayer, through your body.

Father, I ask that you would encourage us, that you would instruct us in the ways of righteousness.

Father, that we would have our eyes fixed upon you. Amen.

So to lay the, to set the scene for what Luke is talking about here in the end, right?

He writes this whole account of this itinerant teacher, this traveling man that

was going all throughout Israel and talking about the kingdom of God.

And this man amassed a very large following.

And he would say some things that ruffled the feathers of the religious and

social elite of that time.

And this man, he began to say things that became so controversial that it really

peeved the elite that they decided to kill him.

And just before chapter 24 in Luke, this leader, this teacher who has this great following is killed.

He's killed. And we know this story, right? We know this story about Jesus.

This is old hat for us. It's something that we are very familiar with.

And the story of Luke climaxes at this point where Jesus is on the cross and he dies.

And And then his followers probably feel a lot like Detroit Lions fans.

I don't know if any of you guys are aware of the NFL and what's going on in

the NFL right now, but the Detroit Lions had an amazing season.

It was the best season they've ever had in their career.

And everybody who was a Detroit Lions fan thought, this is it.

Like, this is the team that's going to the Super Bowl, and they're going to

win it all. And then last week they lost in terrible fashion.

And so if you know a Detroit Lions fan, maybe reach out to them,

give them an encouraging word.

Because they probably have a small, small feeling of what Jesus' disciples had,

that disappointment that your expectation is not met, that your hope that you

placed everything, you put all your chips in and you find,

you think, you find that your hopes are disappointed.

But Luke's gospel doesn't end there, right? Luke's gospel has a 24th chapter

and that 24th chapter opens with the risen Christ coming.

And if you remember about a year ago now, we talked about Luke 24 a little bit

as the disciples on the road to Emmaus, right? We talked about how these disciples

thought Jesus was gonna establish an earthly kingdom, the kingdom of Israel.

And Jesus comes and he's like, well, what are you sad about, right?

Pretending like he doesn't know. And then he breaks bread with them and then

they see him as the risen Jesus.

And so Luke 24 is this, not necessarily it's the conclusion of Luke,

but it's actually propelling us into the book of Acts that the work of Jesus

actually is just beginning, right? It's just beginning.

And so what we read earlier, 44 through 49, is this period of 40 days where

Jesus is preparing his disciples for what's coming next.

And we're going to read it again, just the first few verses of that.

In 44, he says, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you.

What's interesting about that is these are not new words that Jesus is sharing with his disciples.

He's not coming to them and saying, Okay, now that this happened,

I'm going to share a new thing with you. He's actually saying,

Hey, this is what I've been trying to tell you this whole time.

He's saying, These are the words which I already spoke to you that must be fulfilled

and now are fulfilled in him, which were spoken in the law of Moses,

the prophets, and the Psalms, concerning me, the Christ, the risen one.

What's interesting about that, the law of Moses, the prophets,

and the Psalms is actually shorthand for saying the whole of the Hebrew scripture.

It's the Tanakh is the shorthand for it. It's the Torah, which we know as the

law, the Nevi'im, which is the prophets, the middle writings,

and then the Ketuvim, which is known as the writings, which opens with the book of Psalms.

So when Jesus says that the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms all point

to him, he's saying the whole of the Hebrew scriptures are pointing to Jesus.

And so what's interesting about that, and a little while later,

Jesus talks about him fulfilling it again,

but the whole of the Hebrew scriptures are fulfilled in Christ,

in his death, resurrection, and ascension, and that's the lens by which we actually

understand the Hebrew scriptures.

So it's kind of this paradoxical idea of the Hebrew scriptures all point to

Jesus, but it's only through Jesus that we can actually understand the Hebrew scriptures.

And this is part of the beauty of Scripture, right?

When we engage Scripture, when we encounter Scripture, we have the opportunity to encounter Christ.

And so then verse 45 is one of my favorite verses in this passage.

And he says, And he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.

As I was kind of preparing for today, I was thinking, man, what an incredible

Bible study. Like this is the Bible study of all Bible studies.

Like I had some envy, some jealousy of the disciples sitting there hearing Jesus

saying, yeah, this part in Moses, this points to me.

And then this part of Elisha, this points to me. And then this part of the Psalms

points to me. And then it all points to me. And then you're like listening.

And these guys probably are just so amazed by what Jesus is saying.

And as I was sitting there and thinking and having that bit of jealousy about this Bible study,

I was convicted a little bit because I don't think Jesus actually intends us

to think that there's no chance for us to have a similar encounter with scripture.

And I think actually in John chapter 16, Jesus highlights that.

John 16 · chapter mention

And I'll start in verse 12.

And to set the scene, Jesus, this is the night before he's about to die.

And he's sitting in the upper room with his disciples in John chapter 16.

John 16 · chapter mention

And he's telling them all these different things, right? So many things that

we're aware of. I'm the vine, you are the branches.

If you abide in me, my words abide in you, you will have much fruit.

He talks about the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And then he says this in chapter 12, or sorry, chapter 16, verse 12.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

I like to think of this, I heard someone talk about it as Jesus is looking at

his disciples and they're starting to understand that he actually is going to

die here and their eyes are probably bugging out.

And Jesus, instead of being stressed as he's about to die, right?

If you or I were probably going to the cross, I would not have the compassion

that Jesus had on his disciples, right? I like have like a paper due and I'm

not as nice to Sammy as I should be.

You know, like Jesus is literally going to bear the weight of the sin of the world.

And he looks at his disciples and he doesn't say, why can't you get it?

He says, and I have so much more to tell you, but you can't bear it right now.

So I'm not going to overburden you.

That's really encouraging to me. And I want to pause here for a moment because

I think sometimes I, and I would imagine you guys as well, we have such this

sometimes good desire to learn and grow and grow in maturity with Christ.

And there's a disappointment and maybe a shame when we don't know more or we

don't grasp more. Maybe we don't understand it.

And it's good to want to grow in our nearness and understanding of God.

But I think it might be encouraging for us to hear those words of Christ,

which is, I have so many more things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now.

Because he understands the time it takes to grow in Christ.

And the very next verse articulates that Jesus says, However,

when he, the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth.

Or he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears,

he will speak and he will tell you the things to come.

And so kind of going back to this amazing Bible study, Jesus did not seem to think that we would be.

At a loss when he left. He actually said it would be better for us,

better for his disciples and then as the inheritors of the gospel for us,

if he goes, because we now have the spirit residing in me and you and our body

at mountainside in the global church.

And the Holy Spirit searches out the deep things of God and reveals them to us.

The Holy Spirit that was hovering over the waters in Genesis 1,

the spirit that was the breath of life breathed into the nostrils of Adam,

The spirit that resided in Christ during his ministry, the spirit that raised

Jesus from the dead is in you and me.

And that same spirit opens our understanding to see the scriptures.

That as we read the Hebrew scriptures and as we read the New Testament,

our eyes, if we, as we engage and encounter the spirit, our eyes and our understanding is opened.

And that's what Paul prays, right? Paul prays in a lot of his different letters,

but Ephesians specifically, that the Ephesian church would know and they'd comprehend

the love of God and its length,

its width, its height, and its breadth, that they would understand and comprehend

his love through the Spirit.

And so I think this leads to us to a twofold takeaway for this first part.

And the first is that Jesus is the fulfillment of all scripture.

So it is good for us to press into study of all scripture that we might encounter Jesus.

Hans Borsma, he's a theologian and he wrote a book called Scripture as Real

Presence, working through it.

So I might come back in a little bit and say, I'm going to change that and adjust it as I finish the book.

But right now what I'm really grasping is that scripture is...

Through scripture, we can encounter the living God.

Scripture is the means to an end, and we can treat it as the end in itself,

and it will be found wanting.

But when we see it as the representation of the real thing, of the presentation, right?

You have the real thing, the presentation, and then the representation.

And the representation points us to and allows us to encounter the real living God.

Scripture is one of the means by which we encounter Jesus.

And so the first takeaway is that Jesus is the fulfillment.

He is whom all Scripture points to.

And the second of that would be the Holy Spirit is our guide to understanding Scripture.

That as Christ opened the understanding

of his disciples, so the Holy Spirit opens ours as we read it.

This passage continues, though, in verse 46, and it says, Then he said to them,

Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer,

to rise from the dead the third day, that the repentance and remission of sins

should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

And you are witnesses of these things.

Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem

until you are endued with power from on high.

There's a lot of revolutionary ideas in this that might become common to us.

First, that the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah,

needed to suffer and to die and to rise was an idea that we now look back at

Scripture and see as present, but was not the common understanding of the time of first century Jews.

And so that's one revolution. Another is that the repentance and remission of

sins would be preached to all nations, all ethnic groups.

And I think for us, perhaps, maybe not so much mountainside,

but maybe the American church more broadly, the idea of the gospel being for

all nations can sometimes be challenging.

And it's something for us to remember that the gospel is for the Muslim refugee in Sudan.

The gospel is for the Islamist fighter in Niger.

The gospel is for the priest in India, who's the Hindu priest in India.

We are meant to have a burden for the world on our hearts that we would see

the gospel as the kingdom of God advancing and inviting all people of all tribes,

and languages and nations into the kingdom of God under the rulership of King Jesus.

And I think that is a revolutionary idea, but I think what perhaps might have

been more challenging for the first century Jew who is sitting there with Jesus

was this idea, beginning at Jerusalem.

I think if you were a first century Jew, you would know that the day of the

Lord would bring about the restoration of the kingdom of Israel,

that the nations would come and be subservient to Israel.

And that's actually found in the Old Testament prophets.

In the book of Isaiah, chapter 2, we'll start here in verse 2, it says,

Isaiah 2 · chapter mention

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's

house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted

above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it.

And then in a little bit later, Isaiah 49 verses 22 and 23 says, the kings,

Isaiah 49:22

or sorry, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will lift my hand in an oath to

the nations and set up my standard for the peoples.

They shall bring your sons in their arms and their daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.

Kings shall be your foster fathers and queens, your nursing mothers.

They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth and look up the dust of your feet.

Then you will know that I am the Lord, for they shall not be ashamed who wait for me.

Then a little bit later in Zechariah, chapter 8, verses 20, it says,

Zechariah 8:20

Thus says the Lord of hosts, Peoples shall yet come, inhabitants of many cities.

The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us continue to

go and pray before the Lord and seek the Lord of hosts. I myself will go also.

Yes, many peoples and strong nations shall come and seek the Lord of hosts in

Jerusalem and pray before the Lord.

And we know that all scripture is fulfilled in Jesus.

And we know that to be truthful. What we see Jesus outlining here in verse 47

though, is almost a reversal of direction.

Instead of the nations coming to Jerusalem, we see it starting in Jerusalem and moving outwards.

There's a commentary that I was reading that was highlighting this as a very

challenging idea because a movement outwards is actually there's more honor

in nations coming to you versus you going to nations.

A king with power and a king with majesty is not going to go search for people to enter his kingdom.

He's going to wait for people to come and request to be a part of his kingdom.

And I think for us and for myself, if I'm not careful, I can develop a line

of theology, a line of missions where I want people to come to me instead of

being moved outwards into the nations.

I think we can understand the gospel and become insulated.

And this is something that Zach maybe has talked about. We can become insulated

and miss out on the true directional change of the kingdom of God,

which is outwards to the people.

I think as we are meant to be, as Zach says, the place where heaven meets earth,

these Eden spaces, right?

We both invite people into those spaces, but we know that the direction and

the overarching movement is outwards.

And that's what the book of Acts is about, right? We're laying the foundation for Acts.

The book of Acts is about the kingdom of God coming, the spirit of God resting

on the church in Jerusalem.

And then Jerusalem goes up to Judea and then to Samaria and then to the ends of the earth.

And so for us as a mountainside church,

We are to reflect the very movement of Christ.

Christ's example was not that we move towards him in order to be met by him.

It's that he actually left his home in the heavens, that he moved towards us

and took on flesh, that he became human, that we might know him.

And so we, as a lot of people will call it incarnational ministry,

incarnational missions, that we take on, like Christ, the situation, the location of others.

This doesn't mean that we always neglect coming together. Actually,

the point of church is to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus,

to be encouraged, and then to go out to bring the kingdom of God into the hardest-to-reach places.

It's a movement outwards towards the lost.

So that's our conclusion today, right? There's two conclusions for us,

two ideas that we want to hold as we move forward.

One, it's that when we read scripture, we encounter Christ and we see that all

scripture points to him.

And two, that the movement of God, the kingdom of God is a movement outwards,

that we encourage each other in our body, but we encourage each other to go.

And I think for me, this is something I haven't been very good at.

And it's something that I want to grow in with our church. That's something

that I am excited to participate in together.

And so we're going to close with some worship and then we'll have communion.

But maybe just for a few seconds, you could just play and we could.

One, some of you guys are really good at being out in the places and having

that outward directional movement.

And so maybe you could reflect and pray for those people that are in your life

that as you're moving towards them. For those of us that are not as good at

that right now, it can be praying that we might have those opportunities and

that we might be obedient.

And then the third thing we can be praying for is that the kingdom of God would reach all nations.

That mountainside, our small little

gathering, can be a part of the global advancement of the kingdom of God.

And I think there's a lot of opportunity for our church to be a part of that. Amen.

Thank you for listening to Mountainside Church's podcast. We hope you found

inspiration and encouragement in today's teaching.

To learn more about our church, stay connected or partner with us, visit mcboon.com.

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