If you have your Bible this morning, let me invite you once again to turn to the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 24. We are in this final leg of the journey through the Gospel of Luke, and we're looking at some of the few precious final scenes that we have that Luke has recorded on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And we started this last time, there was just too much to get to. And so we return to it today. I'm going to read, I think it's the same passage that I read last Sunday from Luke 24, verses 44 through the end of the chapter, verse 53. Let me invite you as you're able to stand in honor of the reading and hearing of God's word. Luke chapter 24. beginning in verse 44, as we are in the upper room on the first Resurrection Sunday, and Jesus speaks to the apostles. Luke records, And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the and in the Psalms concerning me, then opened he their understandings, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, and ye are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high.' And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen." May God bless again the reading and the hearing of his word, and let's join together in prayer. Gracious God, as we take up once again the scriptures and we open them, we ask that you would provide for your people from the hidden manna of your word that which we need, that which we hunger for, sustain, nourish your people through your word. Gracious God, give us illumination through the power of the Holy Spirit. Give us eyes to see. Give us ears to hear. of minds and hearts to comprehend. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. And you may be seated. Well, again, we are coming, drawing to the conclusion of our trek, our journey through the Gospel of Luke. And we are once again observing through this miracle of the scriptures, through Luke's inspired writing down this account, we are observing and hearing ourselves as if we were present that very day on that first resurrection Sunday. We are hearing our Lord's final instruction when he is bodily present with the Apostles, some of the final instructions that he gives to the disciples before he will ascend to the Father and until the time when he will come in his glorious second coming and we will once again as disciples hear directly his voice. Remember, Jesus had appeared to The disciples ended up a room after the two disciples whom he appeared on the road to Emmaus had come. They reported what had happened to them. And while they were still speaking, Jesus himself appeared in the midst of the disciples. And you remember first that Jesus had shown them his wounds from the cross. I recorded there in verse 39, as he said, behold, my hands and my feet, that it is I myself handle me and see for a spirit, half not flesh and bones, as you see me have. And we noted previously that Jesus did not want the disciples to think that he was an apparition, a spirit. There was a an early heresy called dosaism, where some believe that Jesus had not been fully a human being. And here he is. He is taking that misunderstanding away that he has a glorious resurrection body, a body of flesh and bones, a transformed body. He is the first fruits of the resurrection. And then secondly, remember in verse 42, he had taken part of a fish and from the honeycomb and he had eaten, he had ingested this food, again to prove and to show that he was not an apparition, that he was inhabiting his resurrection body. And then finally, I noted last week, he began a third set of proofs, and this set of proofs was an example of something that we still have contact with today. The third set of proofs that he gives, aside from his body, the wounds and his eating of food, the third set of proofs that he gives come from the scriptures themselves. As he opens the Old Testament scriptures and shows how he has fulfilled in his living, in his death upon the cross, in his burial, in his resurrection, and even in his appearing. And even, as we'll see today, in his commissioning, how he is fulfilling everything that was written about him within the Old Testament Scriptures. And we see this begun as we looked at it last week in verse 44, as he said, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me. We noted last time how this really what he was really saying was in the whole scope of Scripture. In the Torah, in the Law, in the Prophets, and in the Ketubim, or the Writings, exhibited by the Psalms. As the Jews saw the Old Testament Scriptures in those three parts, the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings, Jesus said, I'm there. I'm in all the Scriptures. All the Scriptures point to me. All the Scriptures speak about me. And then you remember how it says in verse 45 that He opened their understanding, or he opened their minds that they might understand the Scriptures. And that, we noted last week, that's what has to happen for every person who awakens to the truth of what God has done in Christ. Christ himself must open up their minds. He must release, restore their minds. They don't even know that their minds are held captive. that their minds are enslaved to the things of this world, to worldly things, until Christ opens their minds, opens their understanding, and they see for the first time reality as it truly is. They see Christ in His glory. Well, today we want to continue to focus on these closing scenes. And there are really two scenes that continue to be described. The first is Jesus continuing to instruct his disciples on that first Lord's Day evening, including his commissioning of them to preach in his name among the nations. And we see this in particular in verses 44 through 49. And we got started on this last week, didn't complete it, but this is what we call the Lucan Great Commission. In each of the Gospels, There is a record that one of the final things that Jesus says to the disciples before he ascends to the Father is he commissions them. And we know probably best of all, again, that account in Matthew's Gospel, Matthew 28, 19, and 20, where Matthew recorded that Jesus on that occasion had said, go teach all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. And so we know that commissioning, but in each of the Gospels there is recorded various occasions where Jesus gave a similar commissioning to the disciples. And this is the one that Luke, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, records. That's what we want to focus on. The second scene, then, is of Jesus' ascension into heaven. And that's in verses 50 through 53. So let's see if we can look at these two scenes. We may not get to both of them, but we'll at least focus on trying to continue the scene where Jesus speaks to his disciples before he ascends to the father. If we look in verse 46, we see that Jesus continues. to teach, and he said, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. And last Lord's Day, we talked about how Christ again was opening the minds of disciples to understand the necessity of the suffering of the Messiah, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer. Thus it behoved, or it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer. And again, this would have been something that did take many Jews by surprise. They expected the Messiah to be a political overlord. not to be one who would come and who would be crucified on a cross. This was the scandalous message that the first Christians preached. We preach Christ and him crucified. That was the strange thing for both Jew and Gentile to hear proclaimed. And we don't know exactly which passages in the Old Testament Jesus opened. It's likely probably he turned to Psalm 22 that begins with those words that Jesus gave upon the cross about his abandonment. Perhaps he turned to Psalm 69, a passion psalm that talks about the suffering of the Messiah. Perhaps he turned to Isaiah 53 that speaks of the suffering servant who was wounded for our transgressions and by his stripes we are healed. but he opened their minds to understand that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer. Not only that, not only is God sovereign over the suffering of Jesus, but also there is an emphasis here upon simply the Father's sovereignty over the cross itself. The cross wasn't something that took Jesus by surprise. a part of God's plan, and this is something Luke has emphasized throughout his gospel. We see it, for example, Luke 22, 22, where it is recorded and truly the son of man going as it was determined. Jesus can say again in that chapter in Luke 22, as he's having the final meal with his disciples, that the things that are happening to him as the son of man are happening as it was determined, according to God's perfect plan. Luke is also the author of the book of Acts, and in Acts 2, he records Peter's Pentecost sermon. And as Peter preached that first Christian sermon, And he talked about how Jesus was crucified. He said in Acts 2, 23 of Jesus, him being delivered by the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God. And so. Jesus is stressing, as he opens the mind of the disciples again, the necessity of the suffering of the Messiah upon the cross, his own suffering as the Messiah upon the cross, as the fulfillment of God's perfect plan that had been prophesied in the Old Testament scriptures. Notice also that it is not just the necessity of his suffering and death, but also, Jesus says that his resurrection and even the fact that it occurred on the third day was something that had been prophesied in the Old Testament scriptures. It's interesting when we look in first Corinthians 15, a passage we've gone back to several times in the account of particularly the resurrection, the appearances of Jesus. When Paul summarized there the gospel in first Corinthians 15 verses three and following, he says, I preach to you that which I received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures, even his resurrection and even his resurrection happening on the third day. was something that was prophesied in the scriptures. We sometimes sometimes people will stumble on the third day in the Jewish reckoning. Any part of the day counted as a day. So Jesus was crucified. It varied on Friday, so it touched part of that day. All of Saturday, his body rested in the tomb. And then on Sunday, early on Sunday morning, he was gloriously raised. Touching upon those three days, we could say that it was on the third day that he was gloriously raised. The most prominent place where the prophecy of the three days that the Messiah would spend within the grave before his resurrection. The most prominent place where that is prophesied is in the account of Jonah being three days in the belly of the great fish before his miraculous release. In Jonah 117, it says, And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. And then in Matthew chapter 12, Verse 40, Jesus had said, for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And so Jesus himself said what happened to Jonah was a prophecy, was a prediction, was a foreshadowing, was a type of what will happen to me. I will die upon the cross, I will be three days in the belly of death. And then I will be gloriously raised. This is something that Jesus himself specifically prophesied about in his own right as the great prophet, priest and king during his ministry. In Mark 8 31, Mark records, and he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and of the chief priests and scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. Likewise, in John, Chapter two, where Jesus performs his first miracle, changing the water into wine. And then he goes up to Jerusalem and he does the first cleansing of the temple. And when he's challenged on this, Jesus says to those who are challenging him, destroy this temple. And in three days, I will raise it up. And of course, they misunderstand and think that he's talking about the temple environs there. in Jerusalem, the old temple of Solomon that had been rebuilt during the restoration and the temple that Herod had restored. But he wasn't talking about that temple. He was talking about the temple of his body. Now then, with verse 47, after Jesus has again opened their minds to understand that his death and his resurrection on the third day came as the fulfillment of the Scriptures, he turns then in verse 47 also to describe the necessity as well of the great commission of the preaching of the gospel to the nations as part of what also flows from what has been contained in the prophecies of the Old Testament. Again, he's continuing to talk about what was written. What was written? It was written that it was necessary that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Now, I want to pause for a little bit on verse 47, and I want to ponder and meditate a little bit on the various aspects of what Jesus says to his disciples within this single verse. Every word or phrase in this verse, I believe, has been providentially chosen and therefore is worthy of our meditation. Every word in Scripture is important, right? This is why we believe in what's called the Plenary Verbal Inspiration Scripture. Every word is important. The phrasings are important. And I want to I think we're led to to to learn here something about what the church is supposed to be doing in this age. What are we supposed to do in light of the fact that Jesus has been crucified and raised? What are we to be doing that repentance? and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem." Notice first the emphasis on the means for carrying out the Great Commission. What is the means that is emphasized here? The means for carrying out the Great Commission is preaching. that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. He uses the verb in Greek, keruso, for preaching, for proclaiming, and I've given a lot of emphasis to this in the messages on Sunday night we've been doing, where we see what happens at Pentecost. Does Peter stand up and say, let's put on a skit, let's put on a drama, let's arrange a cantata, let's see if we can get the right praise music arranged. No, he stands forward and he preaches. He speaks about the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. So there is an appointed means that God has given and it is a man standing to proclaim God's truth about Christ from God's Word. And I don't want to belabor the point because I think you're in total agreement with me that this is what God has provided. And the problem with the church today is sometimes we have gotten bored with it. We have decided we need more, we need to jazz things up, we need to make it more interesting, we need to supplement. But authentic converting of men and authentic edifying of the saints comes through Terusso. It comes through preaching, proclaiming. Again, you say that because you're a preacher. Yes, I am a preacher. I'm not saying anything special about preachers. Preachers are just instruments, and sometimes we babble, and sometimes we stammer, and sometimes we say things not exactly right, but there is a preacher standing behind us. Every time you see a human preacher standing, what you should think of is the real preacher is the Holy Spirit of God, and he preaches through imperfect men, but it's this This is the God ordained means that Jesus speaks about. He could have said that repentance, remission of sin should be sung in his name. Or should be acted out in his name. Or there should be chalk drawings in his name. I don't know. Or puppet shows or whatever else. Or there should be films made. But no. What he says is that it should be preached. It should be preached in his name to the nation. Notice also the emphasis upon the content of the proclamation. What is to be preached? And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning in Jerusalem. What is the content of the proclamation? The content, two things are listed. Repentance and remission of sins. The word repentance in Greek, metanoia, means a change of heart, a change of way, a turning from sin. And the word remission in Greek aphasis can mean cancellation. It's used in a secular sense when prisoners were released. There needs to be the proclamation of repentance and remission or release of sins. The joining of these two terms, repentance and remission of sins, is not accidental. True preaching must balance in its content these two things. Our preaching must demand repentance and it must announce forgiveness. Neglect one or the other and preaching and our ministry gets out of balance. If we preach repentance without simultaneously announcing forgiveness What we get is legalistic preaching, which accentuates awareness of sin and piles up guilt and makes people feel crushed under the load of their sinfulness. But it never offers relief in the good news of forgiveness. On the other hand, preach forgiveness without simultaneously demanding repentance And what you get is licentious preaching. Cheap grace preaching. This is the kind of preaching that takes the account in John 8 of the woman caught in adultery and it glories in Jesus saying, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. But it never gets to the last thing that Jesus says to the woman. Go and sin no more. So there must be in the content of our preaching exactly what Jesus spells out here, the message of repentance and remission of sin. Notice, then thirdly, the manner of the proclamation. In verse forty seven, that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name. It's that little phrase in his name that I think displays the manner of biblical proclamation. Jesus here speaks of himself in the third person as the Messiah, as the Christ. Preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins should be done in his name. And I think this has at least two explicit applications or meanings. First of all, Great Commission preaching is to be done explicitly in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is to be done explicitly in his name. In this sense, I think his words here to be taken quite literally. That we are to speak about Jesus in our preaching. You say, that's a no brainer, Jeff. Well, maybe not so much. How many times have you heard about missions and activities, Christian activities, that focus merely on mercy ministry and compassion ministry that should be undertaken by Christians. Building schools and hospitals, teaching minds, feeding bodies. And there is a place, there is a place in Christian ministry for doing good to all men, as Paul puts it in Galatians 6.10. But these things are not to be done as a replacement for or as a substitute for explicit preaching in the name of the crucified Christ. I'm afraid that in many places that the crying need is not for an agriculturalist. It's not for a medical physician. It's not for a well driller. But the crying need is for a preacher to come and speak explicitly. about the Lord Jesus Christ. The Asian missionary K.P.U. Haman has noted that men can go to hell with better educated minds and healthier bodies. And he writes in one book about how he goes into the streets of places like India and how he has shared the gospel with destitute men, men about to die. And he's gotten down with them beside them on their deathbeds. And he said, friend, there's nothing, there's no medicine I can give you to help your body. There's no money that I can give you to put into your bank account. But I have something better to give you. I can tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for sinners. We must preach in his name explicitly Remember what Jesus said. What does it profit a man who gains the whole world and yet loses his own soul? Secondly, by this phrase in his name, I think Jesus is saying that great commission preaching is to be done under the authority of Jesus. Preaching in the name of Jesus means preaching under his authority. And I think this means that preaching is to be done that is consistent with the doctrine which Jesus taught and with the message methods rather which Jesus used. Jesus did not preach, for example, a health and wealth gospel. Someone may go out and they may preach that gospel and they might even gather a large crowd of hearers. They might even be able to fill a basketball stadium in a Texas town. But if this doctrine is inconsistent with the doctrine of Jesus, he is not preaching in his name or under his authority. He is instead preaching in his own name and under his own authority. We talked about the means and the content and the manner. Fourthly, notice in verse 47 the audience that Jesus speaks about for Great Commission preaching. And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations. Among all nations. Here is where what Luke records sounds very much like what Matthew records in Matthew 28, 19 and 20. teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all the things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." This furthers the announcement that was made at the beginning of Luke's Gospel, an account that will be read undoubtedly in the next month on various Christmas occasions, but in Luke 2.10, the angels had announced to the shepherds, fear not, For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." And we have that announcement in Luke 2, and now at the very end of the gospel, like a bookend, we have Jesus telling the apostles, go and preach repentance and forgiveness in my name among all nations. Our nation watched this week those scenes of destruction in Ferguson, Missouri, and we can see them certainly as vivid examples of sin which overflow from ethnic divisions and rivalries. And we are reminded, once again, as if we needed it, that there's only one solution for ethnic division. You have to laugh sometimes through tears when you see some of these liberal-minded progressives who think we can solve these problems through having more seminars, more education, more programs and so forth. No, you will not. There's only one real solution that heals ethnic divisions, and it is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said we are to preach this gospel among all nations. The word in Greek for nation is ethnos, the root for our word ethnic, the English word ethnic. We are to preach the gospel among all the nations, among all ethnic groups. Missionaries today don't talk about going to countries, but they talk about going to people groups, groups that are defined by their culture, by their language. We are to preach the gospel among all nations. The Christian message is not universalism. The false view that all men will be saved regardless of their response to Christ. But it is universal. It is directed to all men. And I use men there inclusively, men and women, young and old. Notice finally, then the last thing that Jesus says in verse 47. Beginning at Jerusalem. So, he's talking to the apostles, he's telling them it's a fulfillment of scripture that the Messiah has suffered, that he has been raised. It is a fulfillment of scripture that you would go out and preach repentance, remission of sins, in my name, among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And here he's telling these initial disciples, the initial apostles, the founding apostles, that they are to wait within Jerusalem. We get more detail on this in verse 49, as he says to them, Behold, I send the promise of my father upon you, but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. And if you've been coming on Sunday evenings and you know the series we're doing through Acts, we have seen there how The plan that Jesus speaks about here is unveiled at Pentecost. And as the disciples, about 120 of them, are in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit is poured out. And it's Pentecost. It's 50 days after Passover. There are men from many nations, Jews and proselytes who are in Jerusalem. The Spirit is poured out. And in an extraordinary, not to be repeated over and over again, but an extraordinary display of God's power, those original apostles and other disciples were allowed to speak in languages that could be understood by these men from the nations. So here Jesus is telling them, you are to preach repentance, remission of sins in my memorial nations, but you are to wait in Jerusalem until I give you the Holy Spirit to empower you to do this. One commentator, Leon Morris, notes the significance of this command by saying the following. The disciples are not to attempt the task of evangelism with their own meager resources, but are to await the coming of the Spirit. And I think just that last little phrase, beginning at Jerusalem, is just a reminder to the disciples They are not to try to do this in their own power. They will be completely dependent upon the Holy Spirit for anything that they will be able to do or to accomplish that has any lasting value. We then might conclude that this last phrase addresses the resources upon which the disciples were to rely in pursuing the Great Commission. Think back for a second on what we've learned thus far from verse 47. What Jesus taught the original apostles, and that then becomes a birthright that's given to the church today. The disciples were to use the right means, preaching. In proclaiming the right content, repentance and remission of sins. In the right manner, explicitly in his name. and under his authority, to the right audience, all nations, and with the right resources, God's power given through the Holy Spirit and not their own power. And consider again that all this is said in the context of what Jesus has opened the minds of the Apostles to understand about the Old Testament Scriptures. What was in the shadow in the Old Testament prophecies is now being brought into the light in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the ministry of the Apostles that is stretching now beyond. The Scriptures not only prophesied the death and the resurrection of Christ, but they also prophesied the Great Commission. Where, you might ask, in the Old Testament Scriptures, do we have prophecies of the Great Commission? Well, there are many. Let me just point to a couple. We can look, for example, at Psalm 2, verse 8, where David writes, Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen, or the Gentiles, or the nations, for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. It imagines a conversation between God the Father and God the Son. Ask of me and I will give you the nations. It's interesting if you read Psalm 2 and Psalm 2 is often taken as a missions psalm. It's interesting in verse 9. David writes, Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. We should be careful about taking just verse 8, because in context, David was talking about give the nations to me as a king, and then I will smash them because of their idolatry, because of their rebellions. But now, seeing that Jesus has opened our minds, now seeing in the light of the gospel, we see that this psalm is about a God who gives to his son the peoples, not to smash them and not to break them, but to embrace them and to heal them and to put them together and to restore them. Ask of me and I will give you the heathen. Or think about in Isaiah chapter 2, verses 2 and following, the prophet writes that it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow into it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up into the mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plowshares. and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore. Isaiah said one day, one day, the mountain of the Lord's house, his temple will be on the top of the mountains. And all the nations will come to him. I wonder how people before the coming of Jesus How do they understand that passage? But now that Jesus has come, it makes perfect sense. One day, all nations, people of all nations will be drawn to him and they will come and the enmities that they've known because of sin will be wiped away and all nations will come and worship before him. What about what Isaiah said in Isaiah 60 verses 1 and 2? On to verse 3. Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people. But the Lord shall rise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles, the nations, shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Jesus opened their minds to see that the Scriptures have predicted not only that the Christ had to suffer and that he would rise again the third day, but also that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And then he says in verse 48, and ye are witnesses of these things, you may know that the word Witnesses in Greek is martires, the root for our English word martyr, one who dies for the faith as a public witness. And indeed, it's interesting as Jesus says this to the apostles, you will be witnesses of these things. We know from the historical record that many of those men did die as martyrs. The one we know of for sure, recorded in the scriptures in Acts 12, The first of the apostles to die as a martyr would be James, who would die at the point of a sword inflicted by Herod. You will be witnesses, you will be martyrs for these things. What did the apostles do as Jesus instructed them? Let's just look at one example that Luke also records. Look over in Acts 17 for just a moment, and this is a record not of one of the original apostles, but the apostle Paul, who became, who called himself the least of the apostles, one who didn't become an apostle until after the ascension of Jesus, when the risen Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. But we get this description of what Paul preached. And if you look at Acts 17, the opening four verses, it records how Paul goes to a city called Thessalonica. We know that later he'll write two letters to the church that develops there, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. And he goes to a place in Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And listen to verse 2. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbaths reasoned with them out of the scriptures. So what did Paul do? He opened the scriptures. And then look at verse 3, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead. And that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. And then the response, and some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks, the nations, a great multitude, and of the chief women, not a few. What did they do? Well, they did what Jesus told them to do. They went out and they preached repentance. and forgiveness of sins, preaching that Jesus, the Christ, had to suffer, but also that he had been gloriously raised. And they preached it to Jews and Gentiles, and they beckoned them to come and to believe in Christ. Friends is our application today. We're not going to make it to the last scene of the Ascension. We'll have to be next Lord's Day. But as we reflect on what we have to learn from this today. I think let's go back to verse 47. I just meditate on this verse for just a few seconds with me. How might we apply verse 47 to ourselves corporately as a church? Sometimes the applications we come to are very personal applications relating to our sanctification or to battling sin in our lives It might be practical application for our family and so forth, but this is a corporate application to us as a church. And I think we could just go through verse 47, and we should examine what we're doing as a church from these words. Here are the type of questions we might ask. First of all, are we relying upon purely biblical means in the exercise of our ministry? In particular, do we trust in the simple preaching of God's Word to convert sinners and to edify the saints? Are we trusting wholly in biblical means? Second, we might examine ourselves corporately and we might ask, are we promoting a biblical message? Are we calling for repentance? and proclaiming forgiveness of sins, are we preaching a balanced gospel? It's so easy to fall on one side or the other to preach a legalistic gospel, to crush people under the weight of their guilt. Unfortunately, in our culture, it's even easier never to call for any change. Never to call for repentance, never to call for returning from sin, but instead to to offer a cheap grace. To preach forgiveness without repentance and without change. Are we preaching a biblical, balanced gospel in obedience to what Jesus taught the apostles? Third, are we ministering in the name of Jesus? Are we speaking explicitly enough about him and do we strive to be under his authority and to have our doctrine match with his? Fourth, are we aware of the universal scope of the gospel? Do we understand that the gospel is not just for the furtherance of our own personal spiritual peace and prosperity or for the spiritual peace and prosperity of my family, but it is a message for the nations. And then finally, we might ask, upon whose resources are we relying? Once someone has quipped that the Holy Spirit could be removed from the church, it could go on weeks and months and never notice the Spirit's absence, of course nothing would be accomplished. Are we relying upon our own resources? Or are we waiting upon the Holy Spirit? Are we acknowledging our total, total reliance upon the Holy Spirit to do anything of any lasting significance, spiritual significance? In our own power? or in the power of the Spirit. Friends, let us meditate upon this. Let us strive. Let us strive to be obedient to the commands that Jesus has given to us through his word. Amen. Amen. Let me invite you to stand together. Let's pray. Gracious God, we do thank you for These scriptures, we thank you for this miraculous way in which we can be transported and we can be in that upper room and we can we can hear Christ himself speaking to Peter and James and John and to Cleopas and other disciples that may have been in the room that weren't part of the twelve. And we can also hear how it's being spoken to us. Father, I pray first, if there are some here who are not believers and who are filled with doubt and uncertainty, that you would open their minds to be able to understand the scriptures, that they would be convinced, first of all, of the truth of the scriptures, and they would be convinced of how the scriptures give witness to Christ in every part, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and how they speak of the necessity of his suffering for our sins. And they speak of his resurrection from the dead on the third day. And then, Father, I pray that that you would further open the minds of those of us who are believers to understand how that we as the church today preaching the gospel and announcing repentance and forgiveness of sins, we are fulfilling what the scriptures have spoken about. And we are to be obedient to what Christ has commanded. If there are areas in which we have weaknesses, in which there is disobedience and failure, I pray that you would strengthen weak knees, that you would give us a resolve to be a more faithful church, a more faithful bride of Christ. And so, Father, watch over us and guide us in the ways that we should go. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.