In your Bibles this morning, we're looking at Luke 24, the last verses of his gospel, verses 36 to 53. We just celebrated the Lord's table as Paul teaches the Corinthians regarding that communion. He quotes the Lord Jesus and then says this, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. And so even in our communion, but for the resurrection, we would not still be celebrating the Lord's table. The practice would have ended shortly after Jesus instituted it, if there were no hope of his return. After the brutal and unjust crucifixion of Jesus, what was it that turned his disciples' fear and despair into praise and hope, what catapulted them from those huddled in hiding for fear, from those who had killed Jesus, and turned them into courageous proclaimers of the gospel throughout the world? It was their eyewitness experience that the Lord Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. Last week, that was the climax statement of our passage. You recall Jesus' conversation with the two on the road to Emmaus, and then how he broke bread with them and vanished from their sight. They realized it was the Lord, and they rushed back from Emmaus, seven miles, that very evening, to where the other disciples were gathered. And that is where we pick up the story. 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 it 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, that the Messiah 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. So Luke is fast forwarding to some 40 days later. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God. I've entitled our message this morning Gifts from the Risen Lord. You know, often when people visit, they will leave a gift before they leave. And Christ gave gifts to men, and on this particular occasion, he gives three major gifts to us who believe in him. The first gift he gives is his peace. In verses 36 to 43, he comes upon frightened, troubled disciples and grants to them joyful assurance that he is actually alive. He gives them peace grounded in reality, and that shifts their mourning into joy. Second, He gives them His word. He links His teaching with the prophecies of the Old Testament, demonstrating the continuity between the two, and then giving them, therefore, the framework, the foundation for the powerful witness that they would give throughout the world. They weren't peddling some newfangled thing. They were actually bringing to the nations the salvation that had been promised from the beginning of time. And they would do so with the power of the Holy Spirit. And the third gift that he gave them was his blessing. As he's parting from them, he lifts his hands in blessing, and as he ascends to heaven, rather than their falling back into despair and grieving, instead they are joyful and they worship God continually in the temple because of what they've seen and the blessing that they enjoy. As you look at those three blessings, Peace from Christ, the Word of Christ, the blessing of Christ. These are gifts given not only to those that were there that day. These are gifts given to all who follow Jesus. We want to talk about that this morning. Consider with me first the gift of his peace. In verses 36 to 43, let's read those verses again to remind us of what is here. As they were talking about these things, the fact that Peter had seen the Lord, the fact that the two on the road to Emmaus had seen the Lord, 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 it. Look at the description of the disciples at this event. They were startled, they're frightened, they're confused, they thought they saw a spirit, they're troubled, they have doubts. These responses to what was happening strike me as really universally human. How much of our existence is peppered with these kinds of feelings and the experiences that produce them. There are normal human responses to what we do not expect, what we do not desire, what we do not understand. When everything is going smoothly, we're generally okay. Although even then, sometimes we find ourselves bored and restless. But much of the time, things don't go smoothly. Life is full of unwelcome surprises and unfulfilled dreams and unexpected losses. And Jesus responds to our distress with the kind of understanding and compassion that Jesus was known for. And the beauty of it is that he not only sympathizes with the way that they're feeling and the angst that they feel, but he also takes action to turn the tide of that human angst. Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses. He's been there as a human being. He understands what it's like to be human. He is human. He has taken on human flesh, tempted in all points like as we are, and yet He intercedes for us and He intervenes for us. So it's not just like a friend who comes across you in a time of terrible experience and hugs you and cries with you, but can't fix the problem. Jesus not only sympathizes with us and understands, but he also has the power to fix the problem. And in this case, it is the reality of his physical resurrection that he presses upon his followers with words like, see, touch me and see that it is I, myself. He showed them His hands and His feet. He ate before them. He gave them time to actually test for themselves that what they were seeing was not a spirit, but a human being, flesh and bone, and that He was indeed alive. In the final analysis, the powerful reality of Jesus' resurrection from the dead, and His promise to do the same for all of us who believe in Him, completely changes the equation for everything that we suffer in this life. If we know that death does not win in the end, that when we bury our loved ones in the ground or when we celebrate the life of an individual that's up here in a casket, that that is not the end. If we know that all that makes this life hard will one day be only a distant memory, ancient history, then we find the strength and even the joy to make it through whatever devastating circumstances we may encounter on any given day. Further, whatever leg of the journey we're traveling along, we are not alone. The Lord has promised us that he is with us all the days of our lives, that he will bring us safely home. Therefore, we need to let peace fill our hearts. His peace is his gift to us who believe. This week, in fact, it was Friday, in the Desiring God post, Scott Hubbard wrote, wait for the ending, the stories God loves to tell. And I'd like to quote some of that and then read some more of it, but just to give you some sense, because I thought it fit perfectly with what we were going to look at today. The grand story of redemption and hundreds of smaller stories within the grand story reminds us of the kind of stories God loves to tell. Stories where everything seems to go wrong and happy endings feel impossible. Stories where, for what feels like far too long, we are perplexed at his plans. Stories with endings that defy our despair and usher in a joy beyond all reckoning. He goes on to write, if we could see now how God will resolve our confusion, dispel our disappointments, and heal our broken hearts, we would no longer be living in a story, and we would no longer need hope. As Paul writes, hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes or what he sees. In our own moments of bewilderment, our role is not to know the ending of the story, but to wait for the ending, and in the meantime, to live as faithful characters. And as we do so, in part, by remembering with Paul that the most perplexing problem in this world's history has already come and is already resolved. No matter how confusing our own stories are, God has already brought to pass the harder and happier ending. He has already made a way for His justice and mercy to kiss. He has already turned a cross into a throne and a grave into a footstool. He has already broken the curse that hung over all of Adam's race. To us, it may feel impossible for God to weave the frayed threads of our broken dreams into something beautiful. And from all human perspectives, it may be. But compared to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, what feels impossible to us is a small thing for God. He made a way, as the song says, when there was no way. God specializes in that kind of activity. And that is why we can have peace. It's not a peace that comes from burying our heads in the sands. It's not a peace that comes from a sort of Pollyanna view of life, that well, everything is gonna be okay, ignoring the hard things. It's a peace grounded in the firm reality of Jesus' resurrection, that he is king of all, that even death cannot stand against him. So I asked you this morning, what is troubling you today? What are your troubles? What has rattled you and made you afraid? What doubts plague your mind? Well, let me say that the answer to those things is just this, Jesus is alive, and Jesus knows your experience, what you're facing, And Jesus' power is greater than any of your problems because it's greater than the grave. The same one who could speak to a raging sea and say, peace be still and all is calm, can calm your troubled heart and give you peace. It is his gift to you. A gift that's stronger than the grave itself. The second great gift that he gave to us is his word. And from this comes powerful witness. We read in verse 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, that's basically the Jewish way of summarizing the Old Testament, 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 sin should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things and behold I'm sending the promise of my father upon you, but stay in the city until you're clothed with power from on high. Jesus refers to words that he has spoken before. The words that he speaks after the resurrection, the words that he spoke before the resurrection are connected. He speaks of everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. In other words, there's an unbreakable continuity between the teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures from Genesis to Malachi, and the teaching of Jesus Christ before and after his death and resurrection. There's something compelling about the redemption epic that starts in the Garden of Eden right after the fall of man and gives Adam and Eve hope and reaches forward to the future forever kingdom that is prophesied in the book of Revelation. Christianity does not proclaim a new way of salvation. Rather, it affirms the way of salvation that God repeatedly promised from the beginning. In other words, throughout the history of the human race, from the very first humans, Adam and Eve, to the very last ones, it is the same gospel being proclaimed. From Genesis to Revelation, from the first century to however many centuries there will be, There is one way of salvation, and there is one Savior, and all of what God has revealed to man testifies to it. What is the response to that? What is the response? And the response is powerful witness. Jesus says to them, after having pointed their hearts and minds to the scriptures, you are witnesses of these things. Well, what are these things? Well, in context, they are witnesses to the matchup between what the Old Testament prophesied, what Jesus predicted, and what Jesus carried out. In other words, we're not asking people to put faith in some kind of theory. We're not asking people to just believe in some sort of mystical experience. We are asking people to put faith in what has been testified to by eyewitnesses from the beginning, throughout human history. The reality is, I have to come up with some kind of excuse to ignore all that evidence. if I'm going to reject its testimony? On what basis do I reject the testimony of prophets and apostles and of Jesus himself, all historically affirmed by the best-attested ancient documents in the world? How do I throw that away? How do I throw away the power of the gospel in the lives of people throughout church history? What right do I have to ignore that and pretend like it's a myth? we are rather to proclaim repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. At that moment, Jerusalem was the most dangerous and resistant place on earth to Jesus, because not many days before, Jerusalem had conspired to murder him. and they were still opposed to the gospel that he preached. But Jerusalem is also the place most familiar with the Old Testament, the place that would know the prophecies, the place where the apostles could match up Old Testament prophecy to Jesus' teaching and to Jesus' life. Still, they had to be thinking, who will believe it? They didn't believe it when Jesus himself preached it. How will they believe now? especially given the majority of the Jewish civil and religious leaders, their rejection of Jesus, their hatred of Him so much that they would have Him executed. How would anybody be convinced? And then, what about the secular pagan mind, unfamiliar with the grand story of redemption as they went to all nations? They had always kept separate from the nations. And to this day, how many mock the very existence of God, let alone the deity of Jesus? And they argue against the notion that death can ever be conquered. It seems crazy sometimes that we would think that they could believe this story. How will they believe? Jesus says, don't even try it until you're clothed with power from on high. Because that's the only way it will work. Jesus had predicted to them in the upper room that the Spirit that He would give them would convince the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, that the Spirit would bring life to those dead in trespasses and sin. It is the Spirit that produces repentance and faith in the hearts of human beings, causes them to be born again, though they are sinners by birth and by choice. It is the Spirit that transforms the followers of Jesus from the inside out, gives them a new heart, a new way of thinking that renews their mind. The gift of the Holy Spirit is further identified as the promise of the Father. God the Father himself will see to it that the gospel message the disciples proclaim will be powerful in its effect through the prevailing work of the Holy Spirit in their own lives and through the word of God. Look, there's not a Sunday, there's not a time that you share the gospel that this isn't reiterated. You can talk to hundreds of people, even as we gather together today, and some are unfazed by the message. Their hearts are hardened, others come alive. How do you, what is the difference? The difference is not intellect. The difference is not even background. The difference, you can find all kinds of similar people responding in different ways, and dissimilar people responding in the same way. It is the work of the Spirit of God. The Spirit that illuminates our minds. The Spirit that convinces us these things are so. The Spirit that says, you know, of all the historical testimony that I'm going to believe, this historical testimony, I will believe. And I won't be shaken from it. The Spirit does that work, causes us to be born again. And so we have these gifts from the Lord, the Word of God, and then backed by the Spirit of God. Priceless gifts to see to it that the witness that we give will be powerful in its effect. These gifts are ours to use on mission. We aren't peddling myths and legends and fairy tales. God himself is empowering the message. He is producing repentance and faith. In fact, Jesus had prophesied it earlier in John 5, 25. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. He connects the coming resurrection where all will come out of the graves at his voice. Dead people will hear his voice and come alive. He connects that kind of resurrection power to the kind of resurrection power that happens whenever somebody who's dead in trespasses and sin actually listens to the voice of God through the Scriptures. It is a miraculous kind of event. It is a resurrection. It takes people dead and close-minded and even resistant and hateful toward Jesus and turns their hearts toward Him. In an instant, the light goes on. You can have absolute darkness, but the only thing you need to dispel that darkness is light. And Jesus is that light of life. He gives to us his word. And so when we share the gospel with people, don't share just your experience. You know what they'll say? That's nice for you, I'm glad it worked for you. You need them to know that your experience is linked to the everlasting counsels of God, that this is what God had been saying throughout human history, and that you have found it so as well, but that this isn't just unique to you, but this is the way of salvation. The third great blessing that he gave was his blessing. We read in verse 50, 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. What a picture. It captures the nature of Christ's ministry to us. Lifting up his hands, he blessed them. I remember years ago reading about Princeton theologian A.A. Hodge. He related how he never forgot how, as a boy, his father would lay his hands on each of his children and pray for them. Remember how mothers would bring their children to Jesus and have him bless them? Imagine what it would be like for one of your earliest memories to be the hands of Jesus resting on your head. as he blessed you and prayed for you. Well, Jesus raises his hands in blessing to his followers as he ascends to heaven, the last visible memory they had of him. Consider the words of Hebrews 7.25. He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. His lifting his hands in blessing was indicative of what he would be doing for his followers until he comes back. Romans 8, 34, who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. So what is that intercession for us like? Consider the way Jesus prayed for us in John 17. Just listen as I read John 17, 13 to 21. But now I am coming to you. In these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word." That's you, and that's me. that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." Christ's heart toward you as a follower is one of blessing. Think of it as you head into each new day. Meditate on it as you lay your head on your pillow at night. Hold on to it as you walk each day's journey wherever it may go. Christ, arms upraised, blessing you. What was their response? Well, they worshiped him. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy. They were continually in the temple praising God. The fear, the grief, the despair were all gone, and in their place was worship and joy and praise. The gospel is by definition news that brings joy. And it is fitting that Luke's gospel ends with joyful worship. Luke began with a series of songs of praise from individuals that experienced God's miraculous intervention in their lives. Elizabeth, Mary, Zechariah, the angels through the shepherds, Simeon, The long-awaited incarnation of the God-man Savior, King Jesus the Messiah, evokes spontaneous praise from men and angels alike. The joyful praise here at the end of Luke's gospel will spread from these at the ascension. It will spread to nations and tribes throughout all the world, not only because of the incarnation, but also because of the resurrection. Our justification, sinners declared righteous, was sealed and certified. Our hope is secure. The new heavens and new earth are coming, and we will live to experience it all because Jesus is alive, and he rules an everlasting kingdom, and we shall reign with him. It is the reason for our joyful worship. His peace, His word, His blessing. All gifts to you who believe. Gifts from the risen Lord. Let's pray. Before we pray, I just want to have you take a moment and Think about how this passage has talked to you. It's impossible to live the human life without trouble and anxiety and fears. And yet if you take this to heart, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what he does for us is the answer to all of that. And the question is this morning, is have you availed yourself of it? Have you put your faith in a Savior who gives these kinds of gifts? Have you received these gifts from Him by faith in Him as the only Savior, the one who can wipe clean your sin and give you eternal life? You know, if you're not trusting in Jesus yet, The fitting response you should have to Jesus' words here is to trust Him. Those who trust in Him will never be ashamed because He will make good on every one of His promises. Many of you are trusting Him, but sometimes you don't live like it. Sometimes I don't live like it. What would happen if you entered the rest of today, and you started off tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on, with these gifts in mind, gifts from the risen Lord? How would it transform the way you live life to keep your mind focused on these realities? I trust you'll do that. Father, thank you for your word and thank you for the Lord Jesus. Thank you for his conquering death for us, his purging sin for us. And God, I pray that today we might live. We might live with the joy, with the peace, with the power, with the worship that should be our response to such marvelous gifts. from our Lord. We pray these things in Christ's name, amen.