Luke 24:28-35 | Resurrection Life Meets Regular Life

Preacher: Scott Hollingshead

Text: Luke 24:28-35

Big Idea: Jesus’ resurrection life meets our regular lives through ordinary, appointed means. 

Experience of the risen Christ is:  

1. Drawn out by supplication (vv. 28-29) 
2. Disclosed in the supper (vv. 30-31) 
3. Dependent on the Scriptures (v. 32)
4. Delivered to other souls (vv. 33-35) 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Church, let's pray. As we do, we're gonna come out of Revelation 21 today. Revelation 21, Father, what an amazing gift you've given us in Revelation 21, a vision of John. The Lord Jesus, that he saw a new heaven and a new earth. Lord, we long for that. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. He said he saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from you, Lord, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And then it says, Lord, that John heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. That is our desire. That is our hope. That is your people's hope, and has been from the beginning that we made in your image, yet have rebelled against you, would once again be able to dwell in your presence. What a gift, Lord. What a glimpse, what a taste of heaven. Grant us that, Lord, that you will dwell with us, and we will be your people. And you will be with us as our God. And you will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. God, as we live in a world, a fallen world, we must recognize that the new age has broken in through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That we live in this sense and in an in-between, God. Between the world that is and the new creation world that will be. And Lord, you are making that more and more apparent in our lives. And we hunger for more resurrection life, more of the life to come, breaking into this life, our lives, our regular lives. Father, would you grant it to be that the means by which you introduced the resurrected Jesus to us, we would receive, we would rejoice in, we would access, that we might constantly live with a fuller sense of the glories that are to come. It's what we hope for, Lord, it's what we long for. True fellowship with you, true intimacy with you. God, grant us that as we by your Spirit apply ourselves to your word, we cannot do anything apart from your Holy Spirit. We ask that you would open eyes and ears and hearts to receive what you have for us this morning. And we pray this in Jesus' name. And all God's people said. Amen. If you have a copy of God's Word and you want to turn to Luke chapter 24, I would encourage you to do that as we stand for the reading of God's Word. Going to pick up Luke chapter 24 and verse 28. We're going to read down to verse 35. And as we do, we're just reminded of the privilege that it is to read the living and abiding word of God. Luke chapter 24, verse 28. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. And he acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, saying, Stay with us, for it's toward evening and the day is now far spent. So he went in to stay with them. And when he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. Their eyes were open, they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. And they said to each other, Did not our hearts burn while within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures? And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. They found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon. And then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. Love ones, this is the word of the living God for our time together this Lord's Day morning. May the Lord write these eternal truths on your hearts. And with that, you can be seated. Alright, church, good morning. I hope you're doing well. One person is doing well. Sorry to hear that. If you'll let me know what I can be praying for you about, I will start that immediately. If you have a copy of God's word, why don't you go to Luke chapter 24? My name is Scott, by the way. I'm the lead pastor here at Doxa Church. And if you're new with us, welcome. Want to say, so glad that you're here. Would love to help you find a place to plug in. You need a local church home. It doesn't have to be here, but it needs to be somewhere, and we would love to help you with that. Okay? And so um I'll be by the first-time visitor desk this morning. We'd love to meet you, shake your hand, hear a little bit about your story, and see how we can't get you plugged into the life of the church here. If you've been with us, how many were here at the very beginning of the Luke series? I was here at Docs at Church. This was my home. Wow, praise God. We've kept you, many of you here all the way. I um, for better or for worse, some may be sad, some maybe um happy. Three three messages left. Three messages left um this week, I think next week, and the week after. So, and and there's a members' meeting today at 2.30. And if you want to know what we're going into next, maybe you show up and you get a little sneak peek. That's kind of the the and if you're going, it's axe. It's it is axe, but it's not next. And there's a pastoral reason for this. And so, sneak peek, 2.30 today, members meeting, be here, get all the scoop. All right. Title of the message for this morning. Resurrection life meets regular life. Resurrection life meets regular life. I want you, if you would, for a second, just to go back in time and think about the best Bible study you have ever been to. All right? And maybe you don't have to think back that long. Maybe the best Bible study you've ever ever been to is right here at Doxa. But my guess is maybe your best Bible study you've ever been to was the first Bible study you were ever in. Maybe you were in college and you were in a little dorm room with like a bunk bed and you were sitting crammed in a little area and you didn't know anything. So when they said turn to James, you were sure that was someone in the group, and you realized that was the book of the Bible, and and then they read it to you, and it came alive in your heart, and you're like, this is amazing. Maybe it was that moment, maybe it was young life. I I don't know the time, but I I know we have these debates now in all kinds of different spheres of the world of goat, right? The greatest of all time. You know the debates? The basketball debate, the football debate, the this debate, the that. Who's the goat? Well, I will tell you right now that I'm convinced the goat Bible study of all time happened in verse 27. Imagine being a part of this Bible study. Jesus is the leader. There's only two of you in it. Right? You want the attention? You got it. And guess what? You are so average. There's nothing special about you. Like, we we don't even get one of the names of the disciples, but he stands on the road walking with them and beginning with Moses and all the prophets interpreted to them and all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. Tell me that's not the greatest Bible study of all time. Tell me you don't want to be in that Bible study. One guy named Cleopus and maybe Mary, his wife, is the other disciple. We don't get the name, doesn't say. But you have to understand what's happening as this is going on. They are walking away from Jerusalem, aren't they? They're convinced the whole thing is just done. It's over. They're calling it. They're abandoning mission. They're closing up shop. They're going home. Seven-mile walk to Emmaus, where they live. They were leaving the disciples in Jerusalem, and Jesus meets them along the way, and they have this incredible Bible study that they describe in verse 32 as their hearts were burning. You ever experienced that as you get into God's word? Man, their hearts were burning. But here's the thing: their spiritual eyes were still closed. As they're having this Bible study, they're still walking in the direction of their ass. They haven't made the U-turn yet. And then something happens. The extraordinary actually touches down in their ordinary life. Like the rubber meets the road, if you will, between resurrection life, the resurrection life of Jesus, and their very regular, discouraged lives. And it changes everything. You've got gloom that gives way to glory, you've got darkness that gives way to light, you've got apathy that gives way to passion, you've got anxiety that gives way to assurance, you've got discouragement that gives way to hope. This text is critical for us. This text is the gap bridger, all right? This is what we're gonna call it. It's the gap bridger when you're in the middle of two worlds, okay? And here's the two worlds that are going on in this text. There's got to be an answer to the question: how do we go from unbelieving disciples, slow of heart, verse 25 says, to believe all the prophets have spoken, to understanding disciples that become bold witnesses, willing to risk their lives for the sake of the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? What happened? This text is the bridger. Listen, when you are stuck in the middle, right, between some perks as Christians of the benefits of the life to come and living smack dab in a fallen world with all of its brokenness, all of its problems, all of its issues, where do we go so that we can meet resurrection life in our regular lives? Where do we go? How do we access it? Where can we go to remove the obstacles that keep us from enjoying the risen Jesus? How do we go about removing the barriers that keep us from beholding the resurrected Jesus and living with a little bit of that life to come in this life? A little more of that. When you think about, man, we long for heaven, we long for heaven, do you realize that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you can have heaven right now? Not in its fullness, not in its consummate sense, but ever increasingly because the very end to which heaven is our full, we get it and it's full consummate glory, we have access to right now through the risen Jesus. So here's the big idea for our time today. Jesus' resurrection life meets our regular lives through ordinary, appointed means. The Lord Jesus tells you how to meet with him. You don't decide how you're gonna meet with him. Okay, am I clear? Because that is such an important point. Appointed means. Means he's the Lord. He decides how he wants to be met with. Our job is to meet with him in the ways that he's given us to meet with him, to access that resurrection life for more of Christ's resurrection life in and through us. So we're gonna see four things in the text. Experiencing the risen Christ is drawn, is disclosed, is dependent, and is delivered in these four ways. First thing is this experience of the risen Christ is drawn out by supplication. It's drawn out by supplication. And another word for supplication is prayer. Prayer. The extraordinary of Jesus' resurrection life, meeting our regular lives, happens through the ordinary means of prayer. Verse 28, so they drew near the village to which they were going, and he acted as if he were going farther. What a play by Jesus. The idea of the text is he would have kept going had they not prevailed upon him to stay. It's a fascinating idea, isn't it? Now, why would the Lord Jesus do that? And my suggestion to you would be probably for the same reason, he asked the questions so innocently that he asks in verse 17 and verse 19. Did he not know the answers to the questions in verse 17 and verse 19 about what had gone down? You're the only one in town that hasn't heard about this? He's like, tell me about it. What things? He's asking to draw something out of them. He's trying to elicit something out of them. So one of the things that's very interesting about the Lord Jesus is he doesn't force his presence. The perceived distance actually draws out what's inside of these disciples. They had met with him on the road, they had been taught concerning the scriptures, all the things about himself, and now he's acting as if he's going further, and what comes out is I want more of you, more of this, more time in the word with the Lord Jesus. And so he draws it out of them. I just wonder, honestly, in my own life, I wonder, if not in your life, how much we leave on the table by letting him go when we sense him at distance. We don't call him back, we don't urge him to stay, we don't seek him until he's present spiritually with us, if you will, right? Until there's a tangible reality of our communing with the Lord. Because the thing is, is they the disciples respond in verse 29 with urging him strongly, saying, stay with us. They're pleading with the Lord Jesus. It's toward evening and the day is now far spent. Stay with us. They are pleading with the Lord Jesus. And by the way, to talk to the Lord Jesus, I think we can call prayer, can't we? Since Jesus, of course, is the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God. So Jesus acts as if he goes farther. It draws out their hearts that what they've experienced of the Lord Jesus, they want more of. Isn't that our experience when we commune with the living God? When we're in the word and we experience vital communion with the Lord. Any sense of a distance, what is our response? Are we leaning in, going, no, no, stay here, Lord. Stay with me, Lord. I want more of you. I want more of you. Open my eyes to your word that I might behold wondrous things in it. And I just want to encourage you that that prayer is a prayer that the Lord loves to answer. He does. Like one of the best things about this first section is he stays. The disciples pray and he goes, Okay. So some of us were convinced if we pray, the Lord doesn't have that heart towards us. Like, why even pray? He's probably distancing himself from us because we've done something bad, because we're bad people, because we've, you know, we deserve this in some way. That's not at all it. It's drawing out the heart. Do you want to meet with the Lord Jesus? More of you, Lord. More of you, Lord. And he says, okay. He's willing, he's eager, he's hungry to meet with them. And what if we prayed, believing Jesus was delighted to stay in commune with us? And let it be known here that you've got to think about this. You can be in Christ's presence, think about this, before you conceive of his presence. So don't let your feels dictate how you determine your communion with the Lord. You can be in his presence before you conceive of his presence. Christ draws near before he is rightly perceived. So listen, we are not walking by eyes of sight, we are walking by eyes of faith. To enjoy the Lord Jesus, to believe when we say, when if we sense a distance with the Lord, asking him to draw near and knowing he's willing to do it. This all happens by faith in our lives as Christians. This is where we access the presence of God in our communion, believing that he will stay. And believing that even when you can't conceive that he's there, he's actually drawing near. See, the breakthrough happens at that moment of perceived distance. It's that moment of perceived distance that draws out the heart of the disciples. More, Lord, more. Is that your heart? More, Lord, more of you. And then draws out the prayer, stay, Lord, stay. And then just getting to experience the stunning grace of God that he's willing to stay. I wonder if we have that kind of dogged pursuit of the Lord. I wonder if we have that kind of stay on your knees until you've communed with God kind of thing, you know? Until you've really sat with him because he longs to sit with you. Those moments where you get in, you ever had that quiet time and you're so distracted, you got so many things to fix and so many things to do, and it can eat your time up with the Lord. But what if you fought through all that stuff and just, Lord, I don't sense you here. I I don't know what's going on, but here's what I know. I know that when the disciples called out to you and said, Stay, Lord, you stayed. That you were near even when you weren't perceived as being near all the way, that they weren't even fully grasping what was going on yet. I know, Lord, that you will meet with me. This is this is so simple and so profound. Experience of the risen Christ is drawn out through supplication. It's drawn out through prayer. How is your prayer life? This is not a message about new things. This is a message drilling down about old things that Jesus has told us are the ways. He wants to bring the extraordinary into your ordinary life. He wants to do it through ordinary means. He wants to do it through your prayer life. Ordinary means. No, there's no wine here. Here, but there's certainly this language here in the Lord's Supper, right? There's something about the power of the image of table fellowship that the Lord meets with his people. It is a powerful symbol of restored fellowship between Jesus and his disciples. You could not have a more intimate picture than the meal. In fact, just to give you a sense of experiencing the risen Christ and how these happen through ordinary means, I just want you to know that this pattern, by the way, that we're gonna see is exactly what the early church does in the book of Acts. They actually take in these resurrection realities. They realize that Jesus is saying and doing something when he's saying, Here's my resurrection life, here's how my resurrection life meets your regular life, and then they set up their ministry, they set up their community with one another around what things? The apostles' teaching, we'll see that in the next point, the breaking of the bread, the fellowship, and the prayers. Isn't that what they did? Acts 2.42, Acts 2.46. They're picking up on what Jesus is saying and goes, here's the way we structure what we do. There's something powerful about the meeting of the Lord Jesus with his disciples through this meal. Now it's also, I would argue, a picture of the way the resurrected Jesus chooses to reveal himself. The Lord wants to reveal himself in very mundane moments of your life. You would think you've got extraordinary new creation life breaking into the old. You would think, extraordinary? You want to meet extraordinary? You've got to have an extraordinary means to meet it with. You want to take in the extraordinary? The only way to take in the extraordinary or the resurrection life of Jesus is by some sort of extraordinary experience. And Jesus goes, no, see, you're missing it. See, I want my resurrection power to touch, you know, ground in your regular life. And the way to do that is through ordinary means. Now I get to appoint them, but you guys can access them for the power of my presence with you, which is the goal, right? Which is the ultimate end of heaven, is that we get God. We get his presence. We get to dwell with him and he with us, as we read in Revelation 21. But it's in this, it says that it's really in the breaking of the bread that it says, and their eyes were what? Opened. Their hearts were burning before, as he was teaching the scriptures, but now their hearts, or excuse me, their eyes were open. Loved ones, that is a divine passive. Which is to say this who opened those eyes? God did. God did. So for all the battles and all the struggles, for how does this work? And, you know, are we Calvinists? Are we Arminians? Are we sovereignty? Are we human responsibility people? Let me just be clear. There is a mystery involved that apart from the work of God to open the eyes of his disciples, we stand no hope for understanding the deep, rich spiritual things of the Lord. For the natural man cannot discern the things of the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 2. This is playing out in plain sight. So, whatever the debates are, you have to wrestle with the reality. Their eyes were opened, which is to say, resurrection life doesn't meet our regular lives apart from the gracious revealing of God. In a sense, nobody really recognized the resurrection Jesus. You don't get many examples that isn't also explained that God had to open their eyes to understand this. So listen, it's a good model. I tell our kids, and we do this in family worship, and we set this up as a I never read the Bible without praying that God would give me eyes to see by his spirit. Ever, ever, ever don't ever come to read the Bible on your own. Ask the Lord by His Spirit to give you eyes to see the Word as it truly ought to be seen, to savor the Word, as it truly ought to be savored. Maybe some of the issue that you're facing is that you open the Bible and intend to read it in your own strength instead of dependent on the Spirit. And you've dragged along through the monotony of week after week, I'm doing my thing, I'm doing my thing, and I'm experiencing no power where there's no eyes open. There's not going to be power. And only God can do that. We need to pray that it'll open our eyes. And maybe just for fun, I would, I would love to add, you know, why, why, why was he recognized in the breaking of bread? You got the Lord's Supper connection, right? But the wine's missing, but there's still a connection there. I think it's meaningful. You got the 5,000 feeding of the 5,000, that's there. But can we go back to the very first meal? Remember how the very first meal went? It didn't go well. Take us all the way back to Genesis chapter 3. There was a kind of issue at a tree. Do you remember this? It's kind of a big deal in Christianity. The woman took the fruit, do you remember this? An ate? And gave it to her husband, and he ate. Do you remember what happened? Genesis 3.7 says, the eyes of both were what? Fascinating. Open to what? The woes of a fallen world, open to their own shame, sense of guilt. Death traces itself back to that moment. Now imagine that as the backdrop to Luke echoing that story, describing the first meal of the new creation, almost in a way to compare the two. The meal that brought death is now being replaced by a meal that brings life, a taste of the life to come as you commune with the risen Jesus, the extraordinary resurrection, life breaking through in regular life, through what? Through the supper, through table fellowship with his people. Around a meal in which he's establishing it, he's initiating it, he's inaugurating it, he's breaking it, he's blessing it. It's from him. It's to be received by us. And then it just, I heard people laughing when I even read this. He just vanishes from their sight. By the way, how cool is hide and seek gonna be in the new heavens and the new earth? Just saying, that was the first thing I thought when I read that is that is gonna be epic. The games of hide and seek we are going to play when you think you're on someone's scent and then they're like hiding under something, and bam, they're just gone. I mean that. I don't think that's the point, but I I am I am excited about that though. I'm excited to pick up on some of the dynamics of what new resurrection bodies are like, you know, and they can do some cool things. It kind of gets me excited for heaven. But why why vanish? Why does he do this? What a play. Why is he going in this direction? Well, I think, I think he's already setting the disciples up to prepare for life after the ascension, isn't he? This is a very unique time in redemption history. The resurrected Jesus walking in a spatial geographical place among people. He's training them for the coming age of the Spirit. It's coming, isn't it? He's withdrawing his physical presence to deepen their faith and how you can access his spiritual presence at the table when he's ascended at the right hand. You're not gonna have that physical meal anymore. And so he's like, listen, listen, listen. Here's how you access me. Here's how I will be among you through these means, drawn out by supplication and disclosed in the suppers we gather. My presence will be with you, affected by my spirit is the idea. It's pretty cool. And of course, his presence being disclosed in the supper is dependent, number three, on the scriptures. It's dependent on the scriptures. Experience of the risen Christ is dependent on the scriptures. It's fascinating, guys. It's all there. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the breaking of bread, to prayer, and the fellowship, right? They've got it all here. Dependent on the scriptures.

unknown 31:25

Right?

SPEAKER_00 31:25

They go back and they start thinking about it as they realize what's going on, their eyes are open. Now they're saying to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the what? That was a moment for you to shine. You wanted your moment. Yeah, I heard which I think was scriptures, really quietly. You'd imagine again the extraordinary would be met through extraordinary means. I think that's one of the common Christian traps. I've seen this time and time and time again. There's this desire. I've been Christian for a certain amount of time. Been there, done that on prayer. Been there, done that at the supper, been there, done that in the scriptures. I'm serious now. I'm looking for, what's the word? More? New different. What did the early church do? Who's gonna draw something out of third century church history? Monks that were resting in a certain way and experiencing solitude like no one has ever talked about before, and that bestseller book. Or you have momentum Christianity, right? Where you follow the ministry that has momentum. You just need something new. Or people do this, they bounce around from church to church. Yeah, I've had the doxa church experience, but now I need to have this church experience. I need to have this church experience in order to get to the next level of my Christianity. Guys, that is exactly what Jesus is trying to protect against here. No, don't get me wrong, there's reasons to leave churches and all that stuff. I'm talking about going after another church for a deeper, richer, fuller, newer experience. I want depth, I want authenticity, I want real, I want breakthrough, and so we think novelty is the way to go. Something new. This is a warning against novelty. This is a warning with getting tired with the ordinary means of grace. Prayer, the supper, the scriptures. Do not tire of meeting the Lord Jesus. Remember, he's the Lord. These are his means. He's not tired of dispensing his goodness to us through these means. This is how we will access these, not extraordinary experiences, right? Not a pilgrimage to Bethel. Which is what people do. Looking for something deeper, something further. It looks like they're experiencing something. Let's go there and experience some of how they do things. Yeah, I called that out. If you're bothered by that, I'm sorry about that. But in a kind of sorry, not sorry way, because I'm making the point. That is not what you need. That is not what you need. What you need is to be revived again through the faithful confidence that the Lord has designed, designed means to display his resurrection life, to enjoy his presence through ordinary means. This is what he means. I mean in the big idea by appointed, right? This is such an interesting idea. So appointed means means he gets to ordain the means of grace, which means that one of the ways we obey him is obeying him in the means we pursue to meet him. That's important. Can I say that again? One of the ways we obey him is in the means that we pursue to meet God. In other words, you don't establish what those are. Jesus establishes what those are. And I think again, these appointed means are so ordinary because he wants resurrection life to meet your ordinary life. He wants to make himself known not through spectacle, but in the simplicity of the supplication, the supper, and the scriptures. Again, maybe one of the problems is, man, I did my quiet time and I'm reading the Bible, but again, I'm not restored with that resurrection life. I'm not sensing the inbreaking of the life to calm the new age, that deep, rich communion with God that sparks everything in my life, like this overflowing fountain is what I become. I'm not getting any of that. I'm reading the Bible, and I wonder, maybe, maybe, maybe it's possible that as you're reading the Bible, you're searching the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life when it is they that testify about Jesus Christ. So just as much as we come to the Bible and never come to the Bible apart from praying from the help of the Holy Spirit to lead us in the Word, we're also not saying the end is the Bible. Show me Jesus. Sir, we wish to see Jesus. This is the prayer, this is the hunger. The Bible is meant to point us to Jesus. Listen to what Thomas Goodwin, the Puritan, said. The Word is the chariot that carries Christ into the soul. Have you met Jesus in your time? Have you sought the Spirit's help? Have you believed by faith when you seek him, he's willing to be sought and found? And have you communed long enough and focused enough to meet Jesus in your time in the Word? Real, real easy question. Will you commit to not tiring of the ordinary means? Probably some of you have stories. Yep, went off and did that stuff. Was in my mid-20s, kind of did Christianity growing up, wasn't enough for me, went after the ecstatic experiences, and maybe now you're full circle here. Will you commit to not tiring of the ordinary means? Will you ask the Lord to revive you afresh? If this is how resurrection life is met in my regular life, then Lord, lead me by your means. By the way, it's the way I obey you. I don't dictate how I get access to you. You tell me how you come to me. This is the gospel too. God coming to us. Resurrection life meets regular life when the scriptures are open, take and heed. Resurrection life comes to regular life when the supper is taken, take and eat. You gotta have both. The scriptures without the supper just becomes an intellectual exercise. The supper is where you meet and commune with God's people enjoying his presence. The supper without the word becomes kind of this mystical, magical thing. We need both. We need the scriptures to ground us in the supper, to give us that tangible experience of the life to come breaking into the present. When you're experiencing this, what happens is you've been to overflow. Isn't it true? At your best moments of experiencing the Lord, it's just like you feel like you're a little cup and so much grace has filled this little cup, it's like you cannot contain it. How do you know you've met the risen Jesus when you're like everywhere? You, you, grace of God and Jesus talking about is just everywhere. You are that guy. In fact, I think one of the ways you know resurrection life has met your regular life is you cannot keep it to yourselves, which is really what we see at the end here. The experience of the risen Christ is, number four, delivered to other souls. Alright, so I'm praying because that's a means by which I connect my regular life to resurrection life. Disclosed in the supper, same. Dependent on the scriptures, yep, in the word. How do I know? What does resurrection life look like? It looks like you don't have enough in your regular life to contain it. You can't possibly hold it in, it starts coming out of you. It cannot remain a personal experience. It must be shared. Your communion with Christ must be enjoyed in community with people. Verse 33 says, and they rose, right? This is all clicking, their eyes are open, their hearts burning, they're connecting all the dots. They rose that very same hour and returned to Jerusalem. Finally, the 180 happens. They cannot help but go back. What an urgency. And they find the eleven and those who are with them gathered together. Now, this is what's unique about their gathering. They get there, and as they're about to go in and say, You won't believe what I experienced on the road to Emmaus, what are they getting from the disciples? Peter met them already. The Lord's risen. The Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to Simon. So the two disciples show up to tell them Jesus is alive and they're greeted by the same news. It's the only time we see in the Gospels that the appearance to Peter is mentioned. Of course, you hear about it in 1 Corinthians 5 from Paul. This is the only time in the Gospel that it's mentioned. And then after receiving this news about Jesus being risen and there being eyewitnesses and Simon being among them, they then told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. Like everybody has the same testimony. He's alive, we've seen him, and here's the story of how he made himself known. And it's expanding from one person to another person to another person. And so by the time Paul's writing 1 Corinthians, he's starting to pool them all together, isn't he? And it just goes from this person, then he appeared to Cephas, then he appeared to the 12, then he appeared to 500. I mean, so this case of clarity of mounting eyewitnesses is taking place concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But as we consider this being delivered to other souls, this being so filled up with the risen Christ, you can't help but share about it a couple things as we think about transitioning to the supper. One is those who truly encounter Jesus Christ cannot remain silent. If you have had an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen Christ, that is too much to keep to yourselves. You do not have the capacity to contain it. It's gonna come out in your marriage, it's gonna come out with your kids, it's gonna come out at work, it's gonna come out everywhere. If you're a new believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you've experienced resurrection life that has flipped your life upside down, it will come out through the proclamation of your faith and identifying with Jesus Christ in your baptism. And I already know the Lord's stirring more hearts to be baptized. I had conversations with people recently. This is what happens when resurrection life meets regular life, you cannot remain silent. So what Philemon, the book of Philemon, talks about, we think it's an evangelism passage where it talks about the um the joy that comes from the sharing of their faith. And we assume that means evangelism. The word is koinonia, it means fellowship. We fellowship around the sharing in our faith with one another, testifying to the resurrected Jesus in our lives. We cannot remain silent. But here's another thing those who truly encounter Christ cannot remain alone. They weren't gonna stay by themselves. They immersed themselves in with Christian community. Man, there is so much Christianity these days that are just in it's individualistic. It's I'll do it my way and why? You've got a number of reasons, right? Church hurt trauma. Listen, when you meet the resurrected Jesus, you break through every single barrier to immerse yourself in community with God's people. Let me just be honest. You stop whining about not feeling like I have many friends, you stop complaining about how hard it is to connect, and you just go, This is the means God has appointed. I'm in, in, in, believing that at some point it's gonna click because this is where God wants me to be. By the way, if it's not clicking like you want, maybe you're the leader that needs to make what you don't have. Novel, isn't it? Now I'm not saying you make a whole new system. Pastor Ralph will put you in a chokehold, all right? What I am saying is if you're missing the warmth and all the things that you talk about, that you meet with pastors about to share and commiserate with you, can't I just say maybe you need to create the culture you wished you had? I'd like to suggest to you that I've been on the hunt since 13 years old becoming the leader I wished I had. So while we all struggle going, well, that's a lot of work, yeah. But it's worth it. And when you meet the resurrected Jesus, you have more than enough coming through you to push through the barriers that come from community that doesn't meet your needs, community that struggles with, oh, I've had hurt in the past. Whatever it may be. Lord's Day, small groups, serving. I'm going to break through what keeps me on the outside, period. Because that is where Christ meets us with resurrection life as we gather together as true, genuine community that He cultivates. As we think about that community, we're gonna enjoy the supper this morning. And what a great place to come to think about community. A meal that, as we take it, is more than a memory of Christ's saving work. So often that's how it's perceived. It's just a memory, it is not just a memory. And if you've caught that in the way that we've talked about communion in the past, we believe, and I believe very strongly, that communion is a real present, present, sharing, participating in the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Because Paul says it is. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Loved ones, that word participation is the word koinonia. It's the word for fellowship or sharing or union. The idea is that we commune with Christ at the table. We as his people gather together and somehow, mysteriously, as we gather and we take the elements together, he meets with us spiritually, affected by his spirit. How does it work? No idea. But it's beautiful and it's ordained by him for our good to remind us of the forgiveness we have before looking to the consummate glories that are in front of us. If you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, today's message ends here with saying, turn from your sins and look to Jesus Christ for your salvation. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved. If you're an unrepentant sin, the elements are also withheld from you. And people always get uptight about that. What do you mean you're withholding? We're withholding the elements that in being withheld from them, there would be a longing in the heart that leads them to repentance, guys. You don't give the elements out and treat them flippantly when someone isn't walking in step with the Lord. That in holding them back, they might go, What have I done? Look at what I've given up to pursue my sin, and that they would repent in a kind of sackcloth and ashes sort of way. Be restored to the Lord, be restored to the community, and come and take again. So I'm gonna go down. I'm the one leading communion today. And as I go down, when you're ready, if you've after you've examined your heart, you come, grab the elements, and Pastor Ben will lead us in taking together.