The Peace of Certainty

I’m going to invite all the kids for kids church to go ahead and take off and enjoy time together there. And for those of you staying here, we’re in Luke chapter 24, continuing our series, The Resurrection Changes Everything. It really does change everything. And I want us to consider this question together. Here’s here’s the question I would pose to you.

What difference does believing in the resurrection of Jesus make in your life today? What difference does it make when people ask you about your hope or ask about why you believe what you believe? What difference does the resurrection make? According to a 2021 Lifeway poll, twothirds roughly of Americans would say they do believe in the bodily physical resurrection of Jesus. Now, that sounds pretty encouraging when you think most most Americans are saying they believe in the resurrection.

But the amazing thing is that the majority of those who say that for them believing in the resurrection makes little to no real difference in the way they live their life. And so, it’s good to consider this question because the resurrection is not just a extra add-on. It’s not just a tangential point. It is the center of the gospel. It is the reason for our hope.

And so we should want it. We should believe that it makes all the difference in the world. And this also that poll tells me that there’s still a cultural Christianity in the US that believes in some of the facts of the gospel maybe. But when it comes to embracing Jesus as the risen Lord and Savior a and when it comes to joining the church, which the Bible calls the body of Christ, it’s it’s lacking. And it also tells me that while it’s important to make a case for the resurrection of Jesus and and to show why we can believe this, why there’s a historical case to be made, e even on top of that, people need to know, but what difference does it make?

How does it change your life? So, I’m going to ask you that, how how does it make a difference in your life? How does it change the way you face everything from thinking about death or suffering or maybe financial challenges? How does the resurrection shape all of that? Every challenge you face in life.

I want us to consider not just how essential it is to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but that we surrender our lives to Jesus as the risen Lord. Again, in this series, we’re going to keep coming back to Philippians 3:10 where Paul says, “I want to know Christ. I want to know him.” Yes. To know the power of his resurrection.

There is real power that comes from that empty tomb. Jesus not in the grave. He is alive today. And that means he is at work by his Holy Spirit in hearts and lives across the whole world. And he’s at work in our midst right now.

He’s here and he’s working peace in our hearts. So, if you would please stand for the reading of God’s holy word, Luke chapter 24, beginning in verse 36 here. And here’s the theme I want us to see this morning. You know, everybody wants peace. I I don’t know anybody who would say, “Yeah, peace, that’s not for me.”

everybody wants peace. You know, whether you’re a secular person or a religious person, it doesn’t really matter. Everybody wants peace. But here’s what matters. What ultimately matters is that we have peace with God.

And the resurrection of Jesus achieves that for us. So, beginning in verse 36, this is what Luke says in chapter 24, it says, “As they were talking about these things, talking about all that’s happened, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, peace to you, but they were startled and afraid and thought they saw a spirit or a ghost.” 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 when I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

You are witnesses of these things, and behold, I am sending the promise of my father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God. Thank you.

You may be seated. So, here’s the scene. The disciples once again, they’re startled. They’re confused. They’re trying to figure out everything that’s happened in this last weekend of the crucifixion, the trial, all of that.

But they’re gathered together in the upper room in Jerusalem. And at this point, they don’t know everything that’s happened. There’s been two or three appearances of the risen Lord to his disciples at this point. But here’s when the disciples are all gathered together. They’re all in one place now.

And Jesus suddenly shows up. And I think this is significant that these disciples were able to share this hope together because as as Luke says, they were gathered together. That’s significant. This is a time when they weren’t individually off by themselves on some prayer retreat on a hill. They were gathered together.

That’s something that’s going to come up in this series more than once. In the book of Acts, we see this theme repeated. Amazing things happen when the church of Jesus Christ gathers as one. You know, Jesus does amazing things. He appears to them in this passage.

Later, he’ll ascend into heaven and then he’ll send the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and he’ll multiply their numbers greatly and then he’ll answer amazing ways. He’ll answer their prayers. But it’s when they’re gathered together that these significant moments happen. They’re gathered as a church. By the way, Jesus is fulfilling a promise here.

He had earlier told the disciples, “When two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be in your midst.” And here there’s even more than two or three. There’s a whole slew of them gathered together. And he shows up just as he said he would. The same is true today.

Jesus makes his presence known. He and he ga he comes to the people of God when we gather together in a unique way. Now, this is important. We all have the opportunity, and if you don’t yet, you have the opportunity to have a personal relationship with God. And that’s an individual thing.

You can, as an individual, you can know God. And that’s an awesome thing. But there is something special and unique when the people of God gather together. And the Bible emphasizes this over and over, saying things like the church, the gathered church is the temple of the Holy Spirit. That we’re each building blocks of this mighty building where God chooses to dwell.

And that’s an awesome thing to experience. Now, look at the way Jesus comes to these terrified and confused men. He doesn’t come in and say, you know, you guys, I can’t believe you. In my hour of need, you guys abandoned me. You promised Peter, I think you were the guy who said you would never deny me.

What was that about? He doesn’t do that. He says, “Peace to you.” He doesn’t chastise them. He doesn’t come in and and lay into them.

He brings peace. They didn’t deserve it. They did deserve to be scolded. But Jesus comes in peace. Really, Jesus had every right to find a new set of disciples.

The these guys had kind of shown they they failed the test at crunch time, right? So Jesus could say, “Okay, back to the drawing board. You guys are out. I’m going to get a new team.” that’s actually going to stick with me in the tough times.

He doesn’t do that. Thank goodness God doesn’t do that with us. You know, we can be tempted to think that way though in our relationships. If a close friend lets us down in a big way, it’s really easy for us to start thinking, you know, I don’t know if I even need them. I could find a new friend.

I can always make new friends. Instead of going through that process, which sometimes is painful, but it’s it’s a process of forgiveness and reconciliation. You know, that’s that’s the hard part about going through challenges, but I think, you know, some of the best relationships you’re going to have in life. The strongest bonds are those that have overcome the greatest turmoil. And so even though our culture may say something like, you know, if if somebody’s just you know, letting you down and they’re not really supporting everything about you, they’re they’re not always showing up when they should.

Just just cut them loose. You know, you don’t need them. They’re just going to make life harder. That’s not the way Jesus thought. He looked at the very men who had failed him big time and he said, “I’m here to come in peace.

I’m here to reconcile. I’m here because you’re my disciples and I love you and you’re going to be privileged to experience my resurrection. Even to this day, Arabs say salam as a greeting. Jews say shalom, which is the Hebrew greeting of peace. And so, it wouldn’t be unusual for a Jewish man like Jesus to come amongst his friends and say shalom.

You know, it’s like a courtesy greeting. But what’s happening here is so much more because of what has just happened. You know, Jesus has just gone to the cross. He has just borne the penalty of sin. He has has gone to the cross.

He’s borne the judgment to reconcile sinful human beings with a holy God. And so he is the true peacemaker. He’s not just greeting them. He’s saying, “I have come because of what my blood on the cross purchased. It has purchased your redemption.

It has purchased your reconciliation so that you’re now welcome to come into a relationship with me. The Bible says through the blood of the cross, we have peace with God. It’s that great paradox, this violent event. You know, if you had seen the cross, you’d seen Jesus up there, you’d think nothing good could come from this. Certainly no peace.

This is this is terrible to watch. And yet God used that horrific violent event to establish the greatest peace we could ever know. Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified, declared righteous in God’s sight, we have peace by faith with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So the cross brings a resolution to our greatest problem. As as a sinful race, our greatest problem is not what so many people might say.

It’s it’s not climate change. It’s not global disaster. It’s not some economic meltdown or political warfare. Our greatest problem is alienation from God. And it’s a real danger that God will judge this world.

And if we are not covered by the blood of Jesus, if we have not put our faith in Jesus, then we’re in big trouble. The Bible lays this out for us repeatedly. But Jesus comes here and he says, he comes in peace. He says, “Peace be with you.” So in your notes, the resurrection of Jesus resolves everything in life that robs us of peace.

Everything. Because everything is rooted ultimately in our relationship with God. You know, we could have in our minds the the perfect life. We could have all the possessions we could ever want. We could own what we want.

We could travel to wherever we want. But if you do not have that reconciliation with God, you’ll never be at peace. Not ultimately. You’ll you’ll have little tastes of it here and there, but you won’t know true peace. It only comes from a relationship with God.

Sometimes it’s hard to live in that peace that Jesus says belongs to us. Even after Jesus comes with this blessing of peace, the disciples are terrified. And it says because they think that they’re seeing a ghost or a spirit. Now, if you had seen Jesus die and many of these disciples, they witnessed it all happen. They saw what Jesus went through.

It kind of makes sense that they see Jesus and their first thought is it’s a ghost, right? Because they did not think about the resurrection as something that happens in the middle of history. Resurrection was something that happens at the end of history. And so to see Jesus terrified them. And what is Jesus going to do to you since you failed him?

Here’s Jesus showing up again. I remember when I was a kid, my friends and I would camp in the backyard and we would tell each other ghost stories, right? You probably did some of this when you were younger. And you know, the whole point is you want to scare each other. That that’s why you do it.

You want to drum up that excitement and and hopefully you’re going to terrify each other. But this was no ghost story. These men are shocked and terrified because of who he is. Jesus is right there. Having seen what happened to him.

They had no idea what was coming. You can picture the look on their faces as they see Jesus for the first time. And just imagine, you know, we could think of imagine if Jesus was to show up in this room right now. Wouldn’t that be it would be awesome? But there would be also a sense of holy awe and wonder at his appearance.

And they thought Jesus was gone. They thought he was dead for good. And so they have this this whole mix of emotions. The ESV says they disbelieved for joy. It’s kind of a funny phrase.

The NIV says it this way. They did not believe it because of joy and amazement. What does that mean? I think what it’s saying is that they they didn’t they were terrified in one sense because of everything that’s happening and then seeing Jesus, but there’s also this joy and amazement. Could it be that Jesus is really alive?

Well, that would change everything for us. But he’s also in disbelief. It says they’re they’re standing there. And they’re still doubtful even though he’s standing right in front of them. And Jesus comes to them in peace.

Now, we weren’t in that room, but you and I know what it is to feel anxious and afraid. It’s it’s a common human emotion. We all know what it is to to feel like peace just gets sapped out from our hearts. Recently, I was reading about how many Americans are plagued by anxiety. Social commentators have even dubbed this the age of anxiety.

And as followers of the risen Jesus, we need to see how his resurrection speaks powerfully to this question of fear and anxiety and what’s coming next. It’s interesting. One area that causes a lot of anxiety among people, both young and old, is our appearance. According to what has been studied about this, we think a lot about what other people think of us. And that’s one of the leading causes for anxiety.

We we worry how other people are going to view us. We worry what they’ll say about us or or what they’ll comment on our on our Facebook or Instagram or whatever it is that we worry about people’s view of us. And it’s not just young people who are, you know, maybe more caught up in being anxious about how they’re perceived in the digital world, but it’s also the fact that Americans, just last year, this is fascinating, 2024, Americans spent 21 billion dollars on anti-aging products. 21 billion. You know, we have to get all the right lotions and creams and anti-aging supplements.

There there’s a lot out there, apparently. billion. And I would suggest that each of those billion reflects a deep-seated anxiety. It’s a sense of we’re not at peace as a nation that there’s a sense of turmoil, of concern about what’s to come. It’s it’s a concern about aging looking different, but also it’s a concern overall about mortality.

You know, Westerners have have never been real comfortable with the thought of death underneath all that deep anxiety. I think that’s what’s really the issue. It’s that fear of death that the Bible talks about. I remember back in 2020 when COVID was first hitting really hard and I think we were probably all glued to the screens at that point watching the numbers tick up and and it was kind of like an anxious feeling we got like wow this is terrible. But I also heard that you know people in other parts of the world when this was happening they a lot of areas they sensed a lot more calm because in their minds death and suffering it’s always happened it’s just part of life but we in the western world we’ve been somewhat shielded from that and so it caught us more off guard and we were anxious or for some Christians it could be you know the fact that we live in a rapidly changing culture social norms have been changing so quickly for for us in the last 10, 15, 20 years.

It’s hard for us to even feel like the earth is stable beneath our feet. And so because of that, we naturally worry about the future. We worry about what’s coming. But here’s what we need to see. The resurrection of Jesus brings a supernatural peace.

In John 14:27, Jesus says this, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. Jesus says, “Whatever you’re facing in life, whatever this world throws at you, know that I have a peace to give you.

It’s from me. I have a peace that can overcome all of that.” It’s not just knowing the fact of the resurrection, but we need to let that truth settle into our hearts and change the way we think about our lives. Change the way we think about everything we face. Jesus says, “You do not need to be afraid.”

So, if we’re unsettled because of guilt, for example, we can think about the fact that Jesus was raised for our justification. And so, we now have peace with our maker. And you can anchor your life to that great truth. We can have peace in our difficult relationships because in the ultimate relationship, we have peace with God. He’s forgiven us so we can forgive others.

We can have peace with our limitations, with our aging, with our suffering, with our health issues. Because the resurrection guarantees that one day all things will be made new. We can be at peace in this culture of comparison because as Christians, our identity is rooted in the risen Lord. It’s not ultimately based on what other people think of us. It’s not based on how many likes you get or how many positive perspectives you get from others.

It’s based on who Jesus is and that you belong to him. And notice Jesus presents proofs of his resurrection. Verse 39, he says, “See my hands and my feet that it is I myself.” It’s not a different Jesus. This is the same Jesus.

You saw Jesus dying on the cross, put in a tomb. He was dead. I am that Jesus. That’s what he’s saying. 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?” Because, you know, after a resurrection, you work up a pretty good hunger. They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and and ate it before them. So, what does this prove?

That Jesus likes seafood. But more than that, it proves that Jesus had a physical resurrected body. He was showing them his hands and feet as if to say, “I am the same one that was crucified.” You can see the marks right here. It’s not as though there’s been a a replacement or anything like that.

He was physical. He could be touched. He could chew and swallow food. Ghosts can’t do that. See, Jesus wanted these men not just to hope that he was back from the dead, not just to look at the empty tomb and say, “Yeah, that would be nice if he was alive.”

He wanted to give them proof. He says, “Look at me. I’m alive. This is no hallucination. It’s no figment of your imagination.

I am every bit as real as everyone else else standing here.” So in your notes, Jesus’s bodily resurrection guarantees our future bodily resurrection. Recently I was watching a video where theologians were discussing the resurrection and one of them took a perspective where he was saying you know what ultimately matters is the love we have from God and let’s not make such a big deal about the physical nature of the resurrection. He was essentially saying it doesn’t ultimately matter if Jesus got up out of that tomb. Which is amazing because the Bible says something completely different.

It really does matter that Jesus was physically alive. In fact, Paul hangs the truth of Christianity on this one event. I I don’t know of any other religion or faith that says everything rests on this one thing being true. But this is what Paul says. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is feudal.

It’s all for nothing and you are still in your sins. See, Christianity is not a spiritual smorgas board where you come along and you say, “Oh, I like that teaching. I’ll take that and I I don’t like that as much. I’ll leave that there.” No, this is because of scriptures statement on this.

This is a central teaching. In fact, our salvation rests on Jesus literally getting up out of that tomb. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” It’s because of the resurrection. So, if Jesus’s spirit was alive, but his body was still dead, it would only be a partial victory, you know, and he wouldn’t really be a savior from death because he hadn’t overcome death himself.

He had to overcome it if he’s going to promise life to us. This is why it’s so important for these Jes these followers of Jesus to see this to witness it to be able to see his hands and his feet to see the face of Jesus to recognize this is the Lord we walked with for three years he’s alive again. Jesus’s body is a template in many ways for our future body. So Jesus had a body that was physical. It was eternal and flawless, his resurrection body.

And so ours will be too. Look at listen to Philippians 3 verse 20. Philippians 3:20 says this. But our citizenship is in heaven. And from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

So Paul calls this body that we have right now a lowly body. Now don’t take offense at that. He’s just saying this body is going to wear out. It doesn’t matter you know how much of a healthy you know fitness guru bodybuilding person you are. It doesn’t matter.

Ultimately this body this lowly body that you have right now will wear out. It will shut down and die. But here’s the good news. This lowly body this the same body Jesus says even if it’s dead even if you are in the grave it says Jesus will transform this lowly body to be like his glorious body it will be immortal it will be powerful and it will be everything that we’ve hoped for it will be a body that will never wear out so these passages that describe Jesus’s resurrection body are very important Because again, if Jesus’s body is is the picture or a template of what our bodies will be like, we can see what we will be like. You know, Jesus his body was indestructible.

Our bodies will be indestructible. Jesus could eat food in his resurrection body. We’ll be able to eat food. Isn’t that good news? For all eternity, you will be able to eat food and you won’t have to deal with indigestion.

This is awesome. And here’s what I want to tie this into. We’ve already seen the things that rob us of peace today. All those things we can look at and think about in our culture, in our personal lives, those things that steal our peace where we feel anxious and we feel that fear rising up. All of these things are addressed by the resurrection.

When people are anxious about how others view them or they’re anxious about the fact that they’re getting older, every time they look in the mirror, they recognize I’m getting older. Every time they check their social media, they’re recognizing, you know, people don’t always have a good opinion of me. All those anxieties we see in our culture, they are all resolved in the resurrection of Jesus. Interestingly, that survey I mentioned at the beginning where twothirds of Americans believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, a good portion of only a third I should say of that group believe in their own resurrection. Isn’t that amazing?

Say they believe that Jesus rose from the dead. They they have trouble with the idea that they will rise from the dead. I found that astonishing. So many people have different reasons for why they don’t believe in their own resurrection. They they think, “Well, you know, that’s Jesus.

He’s God.” Or or maybe they just struggle with the idea of life after death. Whatever the reason is, they’re missing this key portion of scripture. But for those who are willing to consider it, Jesus’s resurrection changes all of that. It it guarantees your future resurrection.

If you’re united to him by faith, you will have a body like his. And Jesus showed himself alive to these disciples to prove there is life after death. This life is not all there is. Many people want to think that way today and think, you know, this is the only life that’s guaranteed. So eat, drink, be merry because we’re going to die someday.

But the Bible has a totally different perspective. It says that there is a life to come and that at the end of this life, there is a final reckoning. There is a final judgment. Jesus talked repeatedly about a coming day of judgment and his resurrection proves that he knew what he was talking about. Verse 45 says, “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.”

Which, by the way, that’s a good reminder. When Jesus is opening their minds, every time we read the Bible, we should begin with prayer. We should be asking the Holy Spirit to open our minds and apply these truths we’re about to read to our lives. See, it’s not just about Bible intake or, you know, information gathering. It’s about transformation.

That’s the whole point of reading scripture. He opened their minds and said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” And he goes on to say that the Holy Spirit will empower them. They need to wait for the power of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, they can’t do it on their own. They’re going to need God living inside them to empower them to carry this message to all over the world. That’s why when you fast forward 50 days to the day of Pentecost, Peter’s message is, you know, God raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. And we are all witnesses of this. This is something we saw.

We know it absolutely happened because we saw him in the flesh. That’s why he’s not in the tomb like King David and others from the Bible. He’s alive. And there’s there’s that certainty in their voices. They were not questioning it.

They weren’t wondering later, you know, did we really experience that? They knew for sure beyond any shadow of a doubt. We saw the risen Jesus. We saw his hands. We saw his feet.

We saw his smile. He was with us and he’s alive. It goes on to say in verse 50, “And he led them out as far as Bethany.” By the way, I have to say since my daughter’s name is Bethany, I’m a little partial to that name. So I kind of like that Jesus ascended from Bethany.

And lifting up his hands, he he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. So in your notes, because Jesus is now in heaven, we can be certain that heaven is a real place, not a state of mind. Like you, I have a lot of questions about heaven. That there’s a lot of things where I’ I’d love to know more.

And there’s some things we’re just never going to know on this side of eternity. We’re not going to have the answers to all those questions about what it’s going to be like or what we’re going to see or what we’ll experience. But there are some things we can know for sure from scripture. And that is that heaven is a real place. It’s not just this blissful state of mind, you know, where you’re you’re you’re kind of vacantly there.

It’s a real place. We can know that because Jesus, the physically resurrected Jesus was carried up into heaven. Now, this can be hard for us to understand. Understanding this was Jesus being carried into another place going up into the clouds. What does that all mean?

We’re going to look more at the ascension next week. But here’s what we know. Heaven is a real place. Jesus is there now. Right now, Whitney and I are looking at homes in the area.

And so our realtor, Joyce, has taken us to multiple homes. And, you know, because she’s a realtor, she has special access to these homes. We can’t just show up and say, “Okay, let us in. We want to see the house.” We need her to get us in.

And in a very similar way, because Jesus is in heaven, you know, we don’t have access to heaven on our own. Our our righteousness will never get us into heaven. But because we’re united to Jesus by faith and his righteousness is credited to our account. And because he’s already there, we can know that he will welcome us in. Jesus is our mediator, our king.

And we can know this. I think this is amazing. Jesus will forever be a man. When when God chose to become a man in the incarnation, that wasn’t just for 30 years so that he could live a perfect life, die the death we needed, and then shed his humanity. You know, in many ways, my thinking is that would make sense.

This is God we’re talking about. He’s eternal. And yet when he took on humanity, he chose to do that forever. And the resurrection proves that. And so we should never doubt God’s love for us again.

Because Jesus, the man, the God man, is in heaven right now. And being saved by grace means it’s always about Jesus’s performance, not ours. So if you if you did a moral failure, you don’t have to wonder, well, will God still accept me? Well, will he still listen to my prayers? He’s your father.

We don’t have to fear that one day we will go to the gates of heaven and be met by this heavenly bouncer that says, “Sorry, no sinners like you here.” No, we never earned the right to heaven. It was never about what we did. It was always about what Jesus did. And so we can be confident that because Jesus is there, because his righteousness has become our righteousness, we’ll be granted access.

If we’re lacking that peace that Jesus gives, it could be that we’ve been too focused on the problems of life and not focused enough on heaven. And I sometimes people will give the retort, well, you don’t want to be too heavenly minded, otherwise you’re of no earthly good. And sometimes people will think this way. They they’ll think, you know, if if you’re always got your head in the clouds, so to speak, you won’t be concerned about the problems of this world, there’ll, you know, the injustice of this world. It won’t be important to you because you’re thinking about heaven in the next life.

I just don’t buy that. Why is there an epidemic of depression and anxiety in America today? You know, why do we see people struggling with a whole slew of mental health issues and all these struggles that people have just to get up in the morning? I don’t think the problem is people focusing too much on heaven. See, if we care about the problems of this world and we want to do something about it, then we should focus more on heaven.

Because that hope will energize us. That will embolden us to actually live out as emissaries of heaven. CS Lewis put it best in his book, Mere Christianity. He said, ‘If you read history, you’ll find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither. As followers of the risen king, we should be heavenly minded. We should be focused on heaven daily, if not hourly, thinking about it because that’s where our king is. He’s there right now and he’s ready to welcome us.

So, how do the disciples respond to seeing Jesus carried into heaven? Says in verse 52, they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God. So, here’s the question I want to leave you with. How does knowing that Jesus is the resurrected king in heaven transform your worship of him? How does that change things?

Knowing knowing that you have a savior in heaven right now, the resurrected king. Remember that the financial difficulties, the the relationship problems, the health issues, issues, all those things that you face in life, all those things that steal your peace, all of that will come to an end. All of that is resolved in the resurrection of Jesus. And God calls us to set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. So don’t buy the lie that your life will be less effective or you’ll make less of an impact if you’re focused on heaven.

The truth is we need to be focused on heaven because this world is desperate for hope. And if we know about this hope and we’ve experienced this hope already in part, we need to share that with them. The hope of heaven. The more we do that, the more we’ll long to see God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Let’s pray together now.

Father God, I thank you that you are a God who brings peace to all our circumstances. When we think about the times in life where we’re feeling anxious or concerned or fearful about the future, thank you that you’re the Lord who grants peace to our souls. You calm us with those words, peace be with you. You tell us that you’ll never leave us nor forsake us. You tell us that you have all your all our tears in a bottle and that you are our good shepherd and that with you we have nothing to lack.

We thank you that for that Lord. We thank you that you’re always with us and because of the resurrection we have this hope that is real. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. At this time I’ll ask the servers for the Lord’s supper to come forward.

When Jesus was about to depart, about to go to the cross, he wanted to give a tangible reminder. He wanted us to be able to experience something as a church, as a fellowship of believers, where we can reflect on his sacrifice together and know that there is ultimate peace. So, I’ll pass this out and then we will take it together in just a moment here. Thank you. Scripture calls us to examine ourselves when we take the cup in the bread to come before the Lord with a attitude of humility and gratitude and confession.

It says in 1 Corinthians 11, “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Lord Jesus, we are humbled and in awe of your sacrifice. Lord, we can’t even begin to comprehend what it meant for you to go through the

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