Luke 24 verses 1-12, these are God's words. Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they and certain other women with them came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles. And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them. But Peter arose and ran to the tomb, and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves, and he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened. So far, the reading of God's inspired and inerrant words. So it is the new Sabbath. It is the Lord's Day, or as verse one calls it, the first day Sabbath. Sabbath and week, the same word. And we have just had that word. They rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. We know that that Sabbath from John 19 was a high day. It was a Sabbath that belonged particularly to the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And there's probably another Sabbath, the weekly Sabbath, in between those two. It depends on if this is AD 29 or AD 30 and we're not sure. whether there are three Sabbaths in a row or just the two Sabbaths in a row. Seems probable that it's three. That would make the Lord Jesus to have died on the Thursday afternoon. But if he died on the Friday afternoon and there was just one combined weekly Sabbath, an unleavened bread Sabbath, and then now it is the first day Sabbath. That's how Luke 24 begins. There are many people who don't believe that the Lord has changed the day of Sabbath observance, the consecrated and holy day from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week. This is something that is obvious from the Bible. Between his resurrection now and when he would ascend, the Lord Jesus gathers. The only particular days in which his gathering with the apostles and his gathering with the church are mentioned are first days of the week. If you are dependent upon the Lord Jesus appearing to you while you're walking to Emmaus or walking through the walls because you're in a room with locked doors, then Jesus is the one who determines when you gather with him. And he gathered them on the first day of the week. They didn't get to pick the day that the Lord Jesus would pour the Holy Spirit out from heaven and gather the church in her first great worship gathering, her first great holy assembly. The Lord Jesus did that on the first day of the week. We learn from 1 Corinthians 14 that in the New Testament period, before the New Testament was completed, the church was receiving psalm selections and prayers and preaching directly from the Holy Spirit. And so it wasn't man who was picking the time of the worship gathering. They were dependent on when the Holy Spirit would do this. And yet in 1st and 2nd Corinthians, especially those very books in which that took place, you see that they were gathering on the first day of the week when they were going to set the collection aside on the day that they were gathered, not as part of the worship service. We know that because the apostle didn't want that to happen at all during the hopefully entire winter that he was there in Corinth. And yet, the day that they would be gathered would be the first day of the week. And then, of course, the Apostle John, in his revelation, refers to something that everyone would understand what it is. and that is the Lord's Day. So even if you don't recognize that this could say first day of the Sabbath, or first day which is the Sabbath, you have a quite possibly apexegetical genitive, if you want to get technical about the Greek, but it is the Lord's Day. It is the Sabbath. It is a day for being gathered unto Christ, And it may be the third Sabbath in a row or just the second, but that would be the only time in history in which you could have three. Now on the first day Sabbath, very early in the morning, they and certain women with them came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. And here is our first lesson in this passage and That is that our part in the Lord's work in this life, in the Lord's work in His church, is often a surprise to us. They thought that the way they were gonna serve the Lord today was by applying spices and fragrant oils to the linen-wrapped body of the Lord Jesus, that they would have enough, that it would soak through, the linen cloths in which Joseph of Arimathea had wrapped the body. And remember, they observed the tomb and they observed how the body was laid. So they knew the particulars. They thought they were going to take all these spices and fragrant oils that they had prepared a few days ago. And the very first chance they could, they didn't know that this was a Sabbath yet, and they thought that the Sabbath or Sabbaths were over. The very first chance they could as they had opportunity, they would be applying the spices and fragrant oils. Interestingly, curiously, and we can't do anything more with it because the Bible doesn't tell us anything more with it, we have no idea what ended up happening with those spices and fragrant oils because they didn't get to use them. This is often true for us, especially for you, my dear children, who have your lives out in front of you and people ask you things like, what's your favorite subject? And what are you gonna do? And are you gonna go to college? And high school kids confidently assert sometimes, oh, I'm going to be a missionary here. whatever And yeah, maybe you will be You may be interested to know that one of the first things when I asked your mother to court Not the very first response, but one of the first responses was she wasn't sure how this you know how we could end up being married because I was called to be a pastor and she was sure that she was going to be a Missionary. Well, we don't know how we're going to get to serve the Lord in our life and we also may not even know how we're going to get to serve the Lord today. You get up thinking of the ways that you, when you went to bed last night, thought that in the morning you were gonna get up and you were gonna serve the Lord in this particular way. And then you get up in the morning and you come to the tomb with your spices, as it were, and you discover that instead of applying spices and fragrant oils to the physical flesh and bones of Jesus, today you are gonna be Jesus's messenger, courier, to go and tell the apostles about his resurrection. Days often go differently. And so first lesson is we don't always get to serve the Lord, in the manner that we thought we were going to. You may have put lots of preparation into it, and so don't be frustrated when in His providence you are presented with having to serve Him in a different way. So they come, they find the stone rolled away from the tomb, they go in, they do not find the body of the Lord Jesus. Okay, so plan spices and fragrant oils is over. And it happened as they were greatly perplexed about this, up a hold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. but is risen." So here is our next lesson. Whatever it is that we think we are going to do, that we are planning for, that we desire from the Lord, we would have the privilege of doing to serve Him. The Lord's work is always more about what the Lord does than by what we do. They thought they could honor the body of the Lord Jesus and maybe preserve a little bit longer the body of the Lord Jesus by the application of spices and fragrant oils. And if they got to do that, then it would have been the Lord using them to honor. His body and the Lord using them to preserve however much longer or maybe just Mitigate the smell of the rotting or whatever it is that the spices and fragrant oils would do But the Lord had you would say one up to them, but it's like infinitely infinitely up to them and in the honoring and preserving of his body because he had raised his body from the dead. And that is a good reminder that even if the Lord does employ us, it is more about what he does than what we do, and often the Lord works despite us or without us. And that is his prerogative, and it's always about the Lord's work. The third lesson comes in this next part. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again. Well, we have been following the Lord Jesus with these women, or rather, these women have been following with the Lord Jesus from Luke chapter 8. They have followed Him from Galilee. They've been twice identified as the ones who followed Him from Galilee or came with Him from Galilee. We see that in verse 49 of the last chapter, the women who followed him from Galilee. You see that in verse 55 of the last chapter, the women who had come with him from Galilee. If we were to go back to chapter eight, at the beginning of the chapter, certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna, the wife of Hezekiah, Herod Stewart and Susanna and many others provided for him from their substance. And so he is ministering there in Galilee. And now we have again verse 10, Mary Magdalene and Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women. And so these women, we have followed, have followed the Lord Jesus from Galilee. And what the angels are saying is not just, you know, remember that he told you one time a long time ago in Galilee. The angels are saying, this has been the main thing that Jesus was going to do from before you met him. And ever since you met him, he's been telling you that this is the main thing, that the son of man, must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day rise again. Now the Lord Jesus had done a lot of other things. He'd gone around preaching, he'd given instruction about the kingdom, he had displayed his power, he displayed his mercy in his miracles. The Lord Jesus had done many things. But the main thing that the Lord Jesus had come to do was to suffer and die and rise again. And he had been telling them that. And yet, it does not seem to have sunk in because it says in verse eight, and they remembered his words. We often need to be reminded of this, even when we have seen that it is the main thing, we often lose sight of it in the everyday ins and outs, nitty gritty details of life, that the main thing is that Jesus suffered and died and rose again. There are a lot of other things that he has done, a lot of other things that he will do, but the main thing is always that he has suffered and died and risen again. So not only is the Lord's work always more about what the Lord does than the part that he gives us in it, which part is often not what we thought it was going to be. But the Lord's work always has at its core that the Lord Jesus suffered and died and rose again. Christ crucified and risen is the great message of the whole Bible, is the great message of the gospel, and it is the great truth of your life So what you do may be different than you thought. What the Lord does through it or despite it or without it is even more important. And the greatest thing that the Lord has done for you in your life is suffering and dying and rising again. in his life. And this resurrection is, in the last place, the last lesson, is that this resurrection is a glorious resurrection. So glorious, in fact, that the women who have remembered the words do better than most of the apostles. Because the angels tell the women the words, the women remember the words, and then They return from the tomb and tell all these things to the eleven and to all the rest in verse 9 But their words seem to the apostles like idle tales verse 11 and they Did not believe them and now here is the great mercy of God Peter is starting to prepare to be one who strengthens the brethren when he is restored like Jesus has told him to John goes with him. We know that from the Gospel of John, but Luke is especially highlighting Peter here, as he has especially highlighted Peter on a number of occasions in the last few chapters. But Peter arose and ran to the tomb. Stoping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves, and he departed, marveling to himself. at what had happened. So the Lord Jesus gave to Peter, the Holy Spirit gave to Peter, not to respond merely with the disbelief that was the general response of the apostles in verse 11, but to run to the tomb and to stoop down and marvel at what had happened, and this is what faith does. It understands that what has happened in the resurrection of Jesus is marvelous. In other words, we are not able to understand or explain the details of how the Lord has done it. We just respond with wonder and worship that the Lord has done it. And I suggest that if we are not marveling, if it has not gotten into our bones, as it were, that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is this glorious, divine event that he who was dead three days and three nights is physically, bodily alive with a transformed and glorious body. If that doesn't make us wonder and marvel and worship, then we are not really grasping the resurrection because the resurrection was so glorious a truth that the apostles who had heard the same words as the women had from Jesus, and who were told the words of the angels that the women relayed to them from the angels. They still were unable to believe. They had seen Jesus do all of those miracles. They had heard Jesus over and over again tell them about his suffering and death and resurrection. And yet, even with all of that, when it had happened, it was a truth too big for them at first. to lay hold of and marvel at and be amazed at. And yet, the Lord did grant unto them, eventually, the faith to believe that it's true and to, like Peter in verse 12, to whom has been given this faith, to marvel at what has happened, that the Lord Jesus has risen again from the dead. And the Lord who gave that faith will give you faith if you are not overwhelmed at the fact that Jesus has risen from the dead. then you are not really understanding what has happened. You're not really laying hold of that fact. If we understood our Bibles well, we would know that that's what Psalm 16 tells us about, which is why we'll sing Psalm 16 when we're done, or at least arrangement of a portion of it with 157 from the blue. That's what Peter, who leaves the tomb in verse 12 marveling, that's the text that he would preach, one of the texts that he would preach on the day of Pentecost when he's preaching on the resurrection. And he says, said in the psalm, that Jesus's body would not see corruption. And we know he's talking about Jesus because David died and his body saw corruption. So Psalm 16 was not about David. It was about Jesus. And that is a glorious, marvelous truth. And it is because of the resurrection of Jesus that we can know that we will be resurrected and that we will have in God's presence fullness of joy. even as Jesus at God's right hand has pleasures forevermore, and we in Him and with Him, pleasures forevermore in the presence of God. So, four marvelous lessons from this passage. One, your service may not end up being what you thought it was. Two, there's much more about what the Lord does through you despite you or without you. Three, The great thing that the Lord has done is suffering, dying, and rising again. And four, His rising again is a marvelous, glorious truth that when the Spirit grants us to lay hold of it, makes us marvel and worship. And if we haven't found ourselves marveling and worshiping, we can look to God the Holy Spirit, ask Him to give that to us. And if we are marveling and worshiping, we can ask him to increase our wonder that we might worship all the more. Amen. Let us ask the Lord to do that. Father in heaven, we thank you for the reminder about our service unto you. And we pray that you would help us to be content with your providence and to rejoice over whatever service you do give us. We bless your name. Your work in us and through us is always more about what you do than what we do. Give us humility to accept that and desire to see what that will be that we may rejoice over it as we look forward to loving you and serving you and knowing you our whole life long. We bless your name especially for your suffering and death and resurrection. make our Christianity, our walk with you and thinking about you and loving you and serving you always to center upon your death and resurrection as you have made it to the great display of your glory and cause us to wrestle sincerely and truly with the greatness of the display of your glory and the resurrection that it will not be to us a lifeless idea that we can nod our heads about and be unaffected, but that it will be to us a glorious reality that we live in the light of, that Jesus is risen from the dead. And that it's by his resurrection power that we walk in this life now, and that it's His resurrection body to which our bodies will one day be conformed in our resurrection. And that it is in Him and His resurrection that we will have fullness of joy in Your presence and pleasure at Your right hand forevermore, even the pleasure of Christ Himself, in whose name we ask it. Amen.