Have you ever tried to write a story?
Have you ever written a book?
Have you ever told a long story and a good storyteller?
Well, sometimes at the end of their story, do a few things.
They will try to wrap up the story by looping back
to the beginning of the story and giving a possible potential
for a sequel.
Have you ever seen a movie that at the end of the movie,
it did not wrap up the story well?
And you're like, what's going on?
Have you ever seen a movie that really it felt so linear
there was no connection to the beginning of the story?
And have you ever seen a movie that set up or did not set up a sequel?
The book of Luke is incredible because Luke not only writes the Gospel of Luke,
which is the story of Jesus,
he writes a sequel called the book of Acts, which is the story of the church.
And what you're going to see in these last few verses of Luke chapter 24
is Luke does all three of these things masterfully.
He ends the story of Jesus.
He loops back to the beginning of the story
by talking about the...well, you'll see.
And then he sets up a sequel called the book of Acts
that tells the story of the church.
If you're ready to see these things with me today, give me an amen.
Amen. Let's look at it together.
Luke chapter 24 and verse 44.
Luke ends this incredible story with an incredible anticipation for the future.
What exactly does Luke want us to see in this passage?
He wants us to see three things primarily.
Number one, he wants us to see the privilege of understanding.
I'm going to say number one, you say the privilege of understanding.
Number one, the privilege of understanding.
There's been a lot written about privilege in the last few years.
A lot about how certain individuals are privileged above other individuals.
Pastor, do you believe in privilege?
I do. I tell my children often, they are privileged to have me as a father.
They don't believe it all the time, you know what I mean?
But they are, you know it. They don't know.
But I'd like you to tell them how privileged they are.
How many of you agree that you're privileged just to be in the United States of America?
Can I get an amen right there?
Like we should not take that for granted.
We have been given a great place to live.
Thank God for it.
There's a lot of privileges that we could think about in our lives.
These are gifts from God.
But there is something in this room that most of you have.
I don't know if it's everybody, I don't.
But most of you have, and you need to today, I'm asking you,
I'm calling upon you as your pastor,
to recognize the privilege of understanding the gospel.
There are seven billion people who live on this planet,
and most of them do not understand the good news of Jesus Christ.
They may believe there's a Creator who made them,
but they don't know how to connect to that Creator.
They know deep down inside that they've sinned,
or they've done something wrong.
They're carrying a burden of guilt.
They don't know what to do.
Do some of you remember what it was like to carry a burden of guilt?
You didn't know what to do with?
You know there's a God.
You know there's sin or something guilty in your heart.
And you know that one day when life is over,
you're going to stand before your Creator,
and you're going to have to give an account,
and you don't know what to do with all of that.
Because you didn't have an understanding of the gospel,
the good news of Jesus Christ, that God made you, yes.
But even though you're a sinner, God loves you.
And he died upon the cross to pay for your sins,
and he was buried, and he rose from the grave,
and he offers salvation to anybody who lives in the world.
And he will freely receive it.
This is something that many of us in the room understand.
And your understanding of the gospel is a privilege
that you should not take for granted.
How many of you have been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ?
If that's true of you, say amen.
To understand who you are and who he is.
This is what Luke wants us to see.
Verse 44, look what it says in Luke chapter 22 verse 44.
And Jesus said to them,
these are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you.
Stop. It's almost like it's picking up in the middle of the story,
isn't it? Because chapter 24 is one full story.
And so it's picking up where Jesus has just showed up
and appeared to the disciples in the upper room.
Do you remember they thought he was a ghost at first?
We talked about it last week.
They were scared to death, and Jesus said, I'm not a ghost.
Look, I have flesh and bone.
Come and touch me. Feel me.
Like I'm real. Give me some food to eat.
I'll prove to you I'm not a ghost.
And he lets them know that he's alive.
He actually died and physically rose from the grave.
And they're all confused.
And so what Jesus does is say to them,
look, let me explain everything to you.
Wouldn't you love it if sometimes God would just show up
and explain everything that's going on?
He does it right here.
In this moment, he shows up to the disciples.
If you're a follower of Jesus, that includes you.
And he explains, these are the words which I spoke unto you
while I was still there with you.
That all the things that you just saw must be fulfilled
which were written in the law of Moses,
the prophets, and the Psalms.
Notice the three.
The law of Moses, the Psalms, and the prophets.
Jesus said, I know you're confused.
I died and I'm back and you're touching me
and it looks like I was a ghost, but I'm not a ghost.
I'm physically alive and all the disciples are like,
we don't get it, what's happening?
And Jesus said, don't you understand?
I think you do.
Everything that you've seen is what I've been teaching you.
That all that you have seen is a fulfillment
of the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms.
Jesus is saying, I am the fulfillment of the Old Testament.
All of the stories you grew up with were pointing to me.
He's saying that the entire Bible is one story
that points to one person, Jesus Christ.
And I love how he does it.
He says, it begins with the law of Moses.
Let's look at the law of Moses itself.
You'll notice in the very next verse, by the way,
in verse number 45, if you look at verse 45, it says,
and Jesus opened their understanding,
the privilege of understanding,
that they might comprehend the scriptures.
His desire was for them to understand
what the whole story meant.
What did you love it to be in that room with Jesus
as he spent the next hour walking through
the entire story of the Old Testament?
And he ends by talking about himself,
one hour with Jesus preaching.
How many of you would love that?
Can I get an amen?
Well, you're stuck with me, okay?
He's not here.
But I'll tell you what he did.
He pointed to the law of Moses, the prophets,
and the Psalms, and said they were all talking about me.
He said, what is the law of Moses?
Well, it goes by different terms.
The Torah or the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy, the first five books
of the Old Testament are the law of Moses.
And Jesus was saying, don't you understand
that the law of Moses was pointing to me?
Maybe Jesus turned them to Genesis chapter 3
and verse 15, when Adam and Eve had just sinned
and God came and confronted them in the garden.
And said to them in the garden, you sinned, what did you do?
And then he cursed Adam and he cursed Eve because of the sin
and he cursed the ground and then he cursed the serpent.
Who was it that filled the heart of the snake?
Who was it that possessed the snake in the story?
Who was it?
You say, Satan.
And then Moses writes that God said,
and I will cause hostility between you and the woman,
between your offspring and her offspring.
And he will strike your head and you will strike his heel.
I wonder if Jesus in that upper room said,
don't you remember back when Moses wrote
that a child would come from the woman
and the child would be bitten by the snake
and would bleed, but the child would cry.
But the child would crush the head of the snake
even in the same moment that he's bitten.
Jesus says, that was talking about me.
When I died upon the cross and I bled,
that was Satan attacking me.
And now that Satan has attacked me and I died upon the cross,
by my shedding of blood,
I've paid for the sins of all mankind.
I won.
And then maybe, Jesus said,
not only was the law of Moses fulfilled in me,
but the prophets were fulfilled in me.
I don't know which prophets he quoted,
but maybe he quoted Isaiah chapter 7 in verse 14,
where Isaiah the prophet said,
hundreds of years before Jesus came,
he said, the Lord himself will give you a sign.
Behold, the virgin will conceive a child
and she will give birth to a son
and will call his name Emmanuel,
meaning God with us.
And so maybe Jesus said,
don't you understand when Jeremiah the prophet
and Ezekiel the prophet and Isaiah the prophet
were talking about the coming Messiah,
they were talking about me.
And he said, it wasn't just the law of Moses,
it wasn't just the prophets, it was the Psalms.
And I don't know what Psalms Jesus must have quoted
in that upper room,
but maybe he quoted Psalm number 22,
where David the king wrote a beautiful song
about what it was like to be surrounded by enemies.
And David wrote, my enemies are surrounding me
like a pack of dogs.
An evil gang closes in on me.
They have pierced my hands and my feet.
I can count all my bones.
My enemies stare at me and gloat.
They divide my garments among themselves.
They throw dice for my clothing.
This song by David was written a thousand years before Jesus
and now Jesus is in the upper room with his disciples
and says, don't you understand what you're seeing?
Moses was pointing to me.
The prophets were pointing to me.
The songs you sang as children, they're all about me.
And I came and I died and I was buried
and I rose from the grave.
This is the privilege that disciples
have of understanding the Bible.
And if there's a part of you right now
who's beginning to understand this truth,
you are privileged indeed.
If you're a Christian who's been saved for many years,
you say, I've always understood this,
then hear me, my friend, especially the Christian
who is so built up with their knowledge.
Do you understand the privilege that you have
to understand the story of the gospel?
And so then what does Jesus say to the disciples?
He says that he opened their understanding
that they may comprehend the scriptures.
Now, can I just stop and say,
if I have one desire in my life,
it's to do this verse.
Like me, Josh, Brandon, you understand?
God has dreams for you.
And God has dreams for me.
Do you know what my dream is?
This verse.
This is all I want in life.
All I want in life.
That I can help open your understanding
that you can understand the scriptures.
Here's why.
Because the scriptures are the key to eternal life.
The scriptures are not just the answer to eternal life.
They're the answer to daily life.
They give you wisdom every day.
And so what Jesus does is he teaches them
these principles of the Bible,
just as your pastor attempts to do even now,
and then he points back to verse 46.
Look what he says.
Jesus says to them in verse 46,
thus it is written and thus it is necessary
for Christ to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.
Jesus then says, that's why it was necessary for me to die.
My death upon the cross was an atonement for your sins.
My death upon the cross pays for the sins of mankind.
You can be saved if you repent of your sins
and receive Jesus Christ as your Savior.
And that repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in His name to all nations
beginning at Jerusalem.
Jesus mentions not only the necessity of atonement,
He's talking about the necessity of repentance.
Say the word with me.
Repentance.
Say it with me, say it with me.
Repentance.
Say it with me, say it with me.
Repentance.
Hear this.
Guys like me have been saying to groups like you
for thousands of years,
beginning with John the Baptist in Jesus.
Listen.
Repent.
Has there been a day in your life that you repented of your sins
and received Jesus as your Savior?
Say, well, I'd like to do it.
I don't know what it means to repent.
Okay.
Repent means to have a change of mind
that leads to a change of lifestyle.
It means you change your mind about believing in God.
You change your mind about believing in Jesus Christ,
the one who died upon the cross,
was buried and rose from there.
You change your mind and say,
He is the Lord of my life.
I want to give it to Him.
I want to live as a follower of Jesus.
You change your mind and it leads to a change of lifestyle.
But you have to make that choice.
Just like I did last night.
Last night I was privileged to be invited
to a Filipino Christmas party.
Can I get an amen for Filipino Christmas party?
I love Filipino Christmas party.
Every time I show up to a Filipino gathering,
they call out, nobody in the Filipino community
calls me Josh.
They always call me,
Hey pastor!
And I know I'm at a Filipino bar.
I know I'm at a Filipino group.
I love it, man.
I got a call from Pastor Arman.
How many of you know Pastor Arman?
He's a great leader in this community, a godly deacon.
And he said, Pastor, are you going to come?
Pastor, are you going to come to the thing?
And I said, yeah, I'd love to come.
Is there going to be lumpia?
Yeah, there's going to be lumpia.
Chicken adobo?
Sure, chicken adobo.
Some pence.
I love it.
Let's do it.
Yes, thank you.
God bless pence, right?
I mean, it's just...
If you haven't had it, I'm serious.
Like, I'm like, it's...
It's...
I think God made it first
and then gave it to the Filipinos.
And the Filipinos give it to other people.
Is there going to be belute?
Oh, man.
How many of you have ever had belute?
Raise your hand.
For real?
Ah, yeah.
So am I.
Well, I am now because I had belute.
And so they told me I'm in.
So if those of you don't know, a belute is a fermented duck egg.
And so it's kind of half egg, half duck,
and you crack it open and you eat it with some hot sauce.
And you kind of eat it slash drink it.
That's culturally inappropriate.
Whoever, oon.
All right?
Remember, this is 2023.
You have to say, yum.
No matter how gross it sounds.
Right?
Like, you're evil.
Whoever you are, you're a bad person.
And it's delicious.
But I did.
I was at one like years ago, and they're like,
Pastor, would you like belute?
No, they said, pastore.
And I said, sure.
And I said, what is it?
And they cracked it open and they're all standing around.
They're like, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Eat it.
Eat it or we're not coming to your church.
So I went last night and I showed up.
And I was so excited because I really do love these parties.
And there's always good food.
There's always good fellowship.
There's always good music because karaoke,
you know what I mean?
Right?
Filipino, right?
All right.
And I showed up ready to party.
And Pastor Arman came out to the car and he greeted me.
And we went to the front door and he kicked off his shoes,
of course, and so did I, took off my shoes.
And I began to go in and I had a choice to make.
I could go into the party or I could stay outside
in the party, inside or outside.
I know some of you don't like the concept of binary, right?
Like one or the other, but it was really one,
for this it was one or the other.
It was either I was inside the party
or I was outside the party, I couldn't stay between.
And to go inside the party I had to repent
that has changed my mind about being outside the party.
That led to a change of action or lifestyle
that led me into the party.
It wasn't like I could be both.
Do you know what happens with people
when they learn about Jesus?
At first some of you think you can be inside the party
and outside the party.
You can't be inside the party and outside the party.
You either change your mind and decide to come into the party
where all the music and the food and the fellowship is,
or you have to be outside the party and stay there.
It's a reality of what John the Baptist, through Jesus,
through every prophet, through every teacher of the word of God
has taught for thousands of years.
Here's what you need to do.
You need to change your mind about being outside.
And say I believe that Jesus Christ died upon the cross
for my sins, I believe he rose from the grave,
I'm calling upon him and I'm gonna follow him
as the Lord and master and savior of my life I am in.
Say is everybody in the party a great person?
Well actually last night that was pretty great,
yeah that was pretty good.
But once you enter the church,
not everybody is gonna be your favorite person.
And sometimes things go badly in the party.
But it doesn't change the fact that you've had a repentance,
a change of mind that leads to a change of location,
a change of lifestyle.
And so what Luke wants to do as he ends this story
is he wants to remember the things
that lead to the change of the world.
And what he wants to do as he ends this story
is he wants to remind the reader of the privilege
of their understanding, yeah?
He also wants to do one other thing, two other things.
He wants to teach them the privilege of their understanding
and number two, he wants to teach them
their responsibility to witness.
I'm gonna say number two, you say responsibility.
Number two, responsibility.
Believer in Jesus Christ if you are, say amen.
Believer in Jesus, say amen, amen.
Okay, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ,
you've repented of your old life,
you are inside with Christ,
you are in Christ and he is in you.
You've walked through the door that is Christ,
into the party that is Christ.
Okay, you now have a responsibility.
And that responsibility is to tell people
about Jesus Christ, to witness.
That's what he says in the next verse, look at what he says.
And you are witnesses of these things.
What does that mean?
Jesus looks and says, look, you understand the gospel
and you've been a witness of the gospel.
You have literally seen it with your own eyes.
How that I taught people that Jesus, that God loves them
and that I came to die upon the cross for their sins
and you saw that I was buried and you rose from the grave
and now you are eyewitnesses.
So what does a witness do?
A witness sees something and that goes and testifies
of what they've seen.
As a Christian, it's a courtroom setting.
Can you picture it?
As a Christian, as a disciple of Jesus,
you are not called to be the judge in the courtroom.
Can I get an amen?
Somebody thought you became a Christian in your life.
Fantastic, where's the robe, right?
You're not there to be a judge.
You're also not there to be a prosecuting attorney.
Now that I'm a believer in Jesus and I understand the gospel,
it's my responsibility to judge everybody
and to prosecute the sinner.
That's not your job.
Have you ever met a Christian, by the way,
who thought that was the job?
That's not the job.
The job is to be a witness,
to say this is who Jesus was,
this is what He did in my life,
this is why I'm different now.
You too can be saved.
You can be born again.
And so Jesus goes on and says,
behold, I send you,
excuse me, he says, behold,
I send the promise of my Father upon you.
Wait a second.
So Jesus says I want you to be witnesses,
and then he says I'm sending the promise of my Father.
Why?
Because some of you might be thinking,
I want to tell people about,
how many of you want to tell people about Jesus,
but sometimes you don't know how?
And you're like, that's scary and it's hard and I don't know.
So Jesus says I get it.
So I'm going to send,
the Father is going to send through the Son,
somebody to help you.
It's not the Father, it's not the Son.
Who do you think it is?
The Holy Spirit.
So Jesus says, look what he says,
he says, behold, I send the promise of my Father unto you,
but tari ye in the city of Jerusalem
until you are in dude with power from on high.
You are not asked to be a witness on your own.
You are asked to tell people about Jesus,
being filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to do so.
You don't have to do it on your own.
The Holy Spirit of God is there to help you.
You just have to open your mouth.
I thought a lot about this on Monday.
I thought, okay, like, I'm going to be talking to my friends.
Right?
Are you talking to Vicki?
I'm going to be talking to Josh.
The people in this congregation,
we were talking to Brandon,
how do you actually be a witness?
So I came up with three simple steps
in order that Christians in Southern Hills
can be a simple witness.
Here they are.
Step number one, to be a simple witness,
how do I witness?
Number one, you must, number one, find the right one.
See it on the screen?
Find the right one.
Now some of you are thinking,
pastor, I think they misspelled something on the slide again.
No, that's the right spelling.
Find the right one.
When I was a kid,
I have a friend, a cousin named Brent,
who lived in Pennsylvania.
And when we would go visit Brent,
we would jump inside of his dune buggy,
and we'd go through all of the fields of western Pennsylvania.
And there was one field where a farmer had,
not in rows, but randomly haphazardly planted
several crab apple trees.
How many of you have ever eaten off of a crab apple tree before?
Tart and sweet, like a Granny Smith, but better.
And I remember we would climb up in that tree,
and now I'm from the city of Las Vegas,
so I'm not used to things like living plants,
you know what I mean?
But he was.
And I remember we'd climb up in that tree
and we'd pick these crab apples, we stole them,
we stole them, I'm confessing it now.
Statue of limitations is over, he can't do nothing.
Sue me already, all right?
I'm telling you, to stole all these crab apple trees
and these crab apples.
Here's what I didn't know that my cousin Brent knew.
That if you go to pluck one of these apples
and it's not ripe, you can tell by how hard you have to pull on it.
So I'd be like, oh man, that one looks good,
and I go to grab it, and I'm pulling on it, you know what I mean?
I'm swinging, trying to get this grabbed.
And then you grab it, and once you finally,
you finally rip it from the branch, you try to eat it,
it's really bad.
It's disgusting, it wasn't ready.
But a good apple that's really ripe,
you can go up to it and just with a small touch,
just, it's ready.
And then you eat it.
Do you know what's happening with a lot of you
trying to tell people about Jesus right now?
You are focused on the wrong person.
Right? You've got that kid that ran away,
you've got that family member who is just so angry all the time.
They're not ripe, they're not ready.
You've got that co-worker, and here's your answer.
You're like, I'm just going to watch more YouTube videos
and I'm going to prove that I'm right.
I'm going to show them Jesus.
And your answer to winning them is argument.
An argument never won anybody to Jesus Christ.
You're just wrestling this apple that's not ready to...
You see?
Stop it.
You're not helping them.
You say, okay, fine, I'm just going to give up.
No, no, look for the ripe one.
See, maybe if you stop focusing on the wrong one,
there's going to be a ripe one in your life,
a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor, a relative.
And their life has been in such turmoil,
or maybe such blessing, or maybe down a certain path
in such a way that they are perfectly ready
for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
They've been set up perfectly,
and God and His divine plan has brought you to that moment.
And you're like, that's the one?
And God's like, the Holy Spirit's like, yep, that's the one.
And you go to pluck it, and it's like,
they want to get saved.
That's how it works.
They're ripe. They're ready.
You know what the Bible says in the book of Acts,
which happens to be the sequel to the book of Luke?
It talks about a guy named Paul, who is a witness,
a pastor like me, and he goes into the city of Colossae,
and he meets a woman there by a river.
Her name was Lydia, a very wealthy business woman.
And the Bible says of Lydia that God had made her heart ready.
Do you know why it is that you got saved when you got saved?
Because somewhere in the weeks and the months previous,
God was making your heart ready to be plucked.
And so, who in your life is God doing that with?
Does this make sense?
So somebody at school, somebody at work,
somebody in your neighborhood, a family, a friend,
who you need to ask, oh God, who's ready to receive Christ?
And then once you do, step number two.
Once you know who it is, step number two.
Very simple. Step number two.
Invite them to church.
Say, tell me what to say.
Okay, this is going to blow your mind.
Do you want to give you the right words?
Are you ready to practice with me?
Okay, here it is. Here it is.
Hold on. Where's my... Here it is.
Come.
Thank you.
Two.
Thank you.
Church.
Oh, give us a round of applause. You did it.
You say, but that's not a really great argument.
You don't need an argument if their heart is ripe.
They're already ready.
The Holy Spirit already did that.
You just figure out the right one, the ripe one,
and then you say, hey, come to church.
You give it to them.
That's why we gave you this this week.
You give it to that person.
Who is the person that God wants you to bring to Jesus?
No, no, no. Some of you are like, I'm working on them.
Stop it. Leave them alone.
Who is the ripe one that you need to just say, hey, come to church?
Now, some of you are like, hey, Pastor Josh, you know, I did that.
I invited them to Easter in 2018, and they said, no.
Well, repeat.
You know, you could go back to them and be like, hey, you should come.
And you could ask again and ask again and ask again.
And there's all sorts of tricks you can play, you know, like,
like come to church and we'll go to brunch afterward.
And I'll buy you lunch, and then you could forget your credit card at home.
It's perfect.
Like, these are the tricks, right?
When you go to lunch after church, I'm telling you, you could say,
you could say very simply, you could say, so what'd you think?
That's it.
Hey, man, that was great.
Thanks for coming.
I'm glad you came.
Hey, so like honestly, what'd you think?
You're not going to offend me.
What'd you think?
And sometimes they're going to be like, that was really great.
And sometimes they're going to be like, I don't, I'm not, I don't.
Like, that's great.
I just, I like to hear your thoughts.
No judgment.
And then after they come, invite them again, invite them again.
Be like, hey, on your third day, you get a teacher.
And everybody does it like, what?
A t-shirt?
Oh yeah, I'll find Jesus for a t-shirt.
Amen, right?
Then why do we do it?
Just giving you another, you know, another thing to say.
So number one, find the right one.
Number two, invite them to church.
Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.
Then number three, number three, tell them to meet Pastor Josh.
Like, oh, okay, wow, thank you.
All right, I'll tell you, yeah, this guy.
So why do we do that here?
Okay, this scenario works for us.
I'm not saying this is, somebody's going to watch this online in North Carolina and be like,
well, there's no other way to, I'm saying our church.
Like, the YouTube people need to chill out seriously.
This is a church with people.
What works for us in our church, do you understand?
Like, you find the right one, you invite them to church, and then you say to them, you say, hey,
like, you've been coming, you should go talk to Pastor Josh.
He's a nice guy, you know, go to coffee.
He'll do the whole, you know, spiritual diagnosis thing.
You should go.
It works for us.
And then I'm going to sit down.
I'm going to walk him through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Amen?
Right, so, like, this is exactly what Isaac did.
Isaac did this just probably about six to eight weeks ago.
This is a photograph of Isaac.
Isaac is not on the right, and on the left is me.
I don't know if you recognize.
But behind the guy who is a selfie photo bombing, that's Isaac.
All right, that's Isaac in the middle.
And Isaac has been bringing Denzel to our church, just like some of you are being brought to our church,
and you're like, wait a second, there's like a big master plan?
Oh, we're going to get you.
What do you think this is about?
Like, God wants you, and we're like workers with God, and we want to get you for God.
So that's what we're doing here.
And so Isaac, Isaac, after like three times, told Denzel, he's like,
you want to go talk to him and like bring him, you know, like, you go talk to him.
And Denzel's like, all right, all right.
Denzel's 18 years old, and they came up after the service.
I'm like, what's your story?
He's like, I think I believe in God.
I want to learn more about this.
I've never been to church.
I want to find out, you know, I'm like, yeah, that's great.
So we got a selfie, and then Isaac jumped in because he's an egoist or something.
And then we set up a coffee appointment two weeks later, or three or something like that,
and went to coffee.
And I sat down with Denzel, and I shared with him the truth of Jesus, the gospel,
that I have the privilege of understanding, that you have a privilege of understanding.
And I clearly expressed to him that God loves him, even though he's a sinner.
Do you believe you're a sinner?
Do you repent of your sin?
Do you turn your back on that life?
Do you receive?
Do you have a change of mind about who you were so that you can receive?
I explained the whole gospel.
He died to pay for all your sins, was buried, rose from the grave,
and all you must do to be saved is repent and receive Jesus as your savior.
Would you like to do so?
And three minutes before this picture was taken, Denzel, who was grown up around religious symbolism,
received Jesus Christ as his savior.
Amen.
He's going to get baptized in January, you see, and then he's going to be part of my young man's mentorship group,
which is a group, an invite group from 18 to 28.
What's the point?
The point is, in this little place, this is how we do this.
And I want to inform you that you can do this too.
Be a witness.
Now, if you've got a better way, do the other way and get them to Jesus.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Amen.
So that's what Luke is trying to do is he's ending this story out.
He's trying to say, as he closes, the privilege of understanding the gospel.
Number two, the responsibility you have to witness of the gospel.
And then number three, he ends the entire letter of the book of Luke.
He ends it by talking about the victory of Jesus.
I'm going to say victory.
You say victory of Jesus.
I'm going to say victory.
You say victory of Jesus.
Victory.
Victory of Jesus.
What do we mean by that?
The story of Jesus ends with Jesus ascending in the clouds to meet God the Father in the
air and enter the gates of glory.
Look at what it says, verse 50, and Jesus led them as far out as Bethany.
Where was he?
Say Bethany.
Where was he?
Bethany.
And he lifted up his hands and he blessed them.
Now it came to pass while he blessed them that he was parted from them and was carried
away into the heavens.
The other gospels in the book of Acts all tell the same story from different angles.
The clouds came and he ascended.
He literally rose in front of them into the sky.
The ascension of Jesus Christ.
And they worshiped him.
It's interesting to me because the story of the book of Luke begins with a group of
poor shepherds out in the middle of a field only two miles from Bethany in the fields
called Bethlehem.
As they find out about Jesus Christ, Messiah being born, and they worship Jesus when they
arrive at the manger.
And now the story loops back and now we see a bunch of poor disciples out on a field.
On the side of a mountain called Bethany.
And they're worshiping Jesus.
And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the
temple praising God and blessing God's name.
Amen.
Why does Luke end the story this way?
Because we forget that sometimes we forget that sometimes the story is not about us.
You understand?
This story is not about you.
This story is about Jesus.
And it ends where Jesus ascends into the clouds and is now being lifted on high.
And I want you to imagine what that would be like for Jesus.
We see Jesus disappear in the clouds.
Jesus rises to the gates of glory and he enters into heaven to the sounds of trumpets, maybe.
The praise and the glory of all the angels.
The gates open up like a Super Bowl hero coming back to his hometown after winning.
Like an astronaut coming back to the planet and all of us shouting, Jesus has won!
And he arrives for the very first time back at the gates of glory to his father and he
announces, I've done it, I've saved mankind!
And for the first time in human history since the fall of Adam and Eve, mankind has a chance.
And so we adore him.
Jesus the shepherds adored him in Luke chapter 2, the disciples at the very end adore him.
And I want to invite you to do exactly the same thing with me tonight.
Today as we close, I'm going to pray and we're going to go right into a song where I'm asking
you to come and let us adore him.
Father.