Yesterday, we looked at the first two events that occurred on the first day of the week. Today we mention the other ones.
3. He appeared to the disciples for the first time on that first Easter Sunday and bequeathed to them His great benefit of peace. “Peace I leave with you,” He said. He gave them all of those blessings. They weren’t at peace. They were troubled men. They weren’t rejoicing. They were bothered and were filled with fear. He bestowed peace and gave them a cause of rejoicing.
4. Jesus first broke bread with His disciples on the first day of the week. It happened twice—once on the way to Emmaus where He met with the Emmaus disciples and was recognized by them with the breaking of the bread; and again that same evening back in Jerusalem as He met with the disciples.
5. On the first day of the week Jesus opened the understanding of the disciples to know what the Scriptures taught concerning Him. We see this in Luke 24 with the Emmaus disciples. Jesus took them to the pages of the Word of God, to the Old Testament, and began to show how it was necessary that Christ should suffer all of these things and enter into His glory.
6. On the first day of the week, Jesus commissioned His disciples to the task of world evangelism. He said, “As the Father has sent me, even so send I you.” In Luke He says, “You are witnesses of these things.”
7. On the first day of the week, Jesus breathed on the disciples, imparting to them the Holy Spirit.
8. On the first day of the week, seven weeks after the resurrection, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended from heaven and began His ministry for the entire age of the Christian Church.
9. On the first day of the week, the Holy Spirit directed Paul to gather the believers together and preach to them (Acts 20).
10. The first day of the week was established by Paul as the day on which each believer was to lay aside as God has prospered him. That is, they were to take up offerings for the support of the ministry and the expansion of the Gospel.
11. Finally, on the first day of the week the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to the apostle John on the island of Patmos and revealed to John His heavenly glory. This revelation outlined Christ’s plans concerning the future, the Church age, and the details of His second coming.
You see how significant that day is? You see how important it was in God’s economy? All that we do on Sunday as Christian people is because of those events. We do not do these things on a whim or because it seems that it might be nice to do them. All of our worship—gathering ourselves together, giving attention to the preaching and teaching of the Word, listening to the Scriptures being read, taking an offering, observing communion as we remember Jesus’ sacrifice for us—is based on what the Lord Jesus Christ did and set the pattern for us.
And there’s something else, too. We do it expectantly. We gather for worship at the Lord’s command. And when we gather to worship, we do so knowing that He is not a dead Lord but a risen Lord who is active in the midst of His people through His Holy Spirit doing His works even in our time.
We rejoice in hearing of people becoming Christians, learning of people moving from mere understanding of the facts of the Gospel and going beyond that to saving faith in the one who did what He said He would do and rose triumphant, in order that He might live in His church by His Spirit and draw men and women to Him in this age of God’s grace.
