THE MAIN IDEA
The gospel of Christ is fulfilled in the risen Christ. 

DOUBT IS ERASED BEFORE THE RISEN CHRIST
As the disciples are hiding out  together in a room, Jesus appears out of nowhere and stands before them, and they couldn’t  believe their own eyes. It’s not that they doubted that Jesus was standing there. They doubted  that Jesus was standing before them in the flesh. It made more sense to them that they were  seeing His ghost. So Jesus shows them the scars on His hands and feet and then asks them for  something to eat. Jesus was showing them that the resurrection from the dead is not merely a  resurrection of the spirit, but a resurrection of the body, as well. For those of us who believe, we  will receive a heavenly body at the resurrection, and our heavenly bodies will be immortal and  imperishable. And we can be sure of this because the resurrection of Jesus Christ in His body is  the proof. The historical evidence of Jesus’s resurrection is better than the historical evidence of  most events in ancient history. For us, the proof of Jesus’s resurrection is in the eyewitness  testimony of the Apostles, which itself has proven to be sound. 

EVERYTHING IS FULFILLED IN THE RISEN CHRIST
Everything written in the Bible  is about Jesus. Also, everything written in the Bible is and will be fulfilled in Jesus. At the same  time, everything written in the Bible is for us. That being the case, it is incredibly important that  we understand what the Bible says about Him and also how the Scriptures are fulfilled in Him. 

Because, again, the Bible was written for us because we DO have a part to play in how the  Scriptures are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And so, in order grow in spiritual maturity, it is important  and necessary to have a regular, steady, consistent diet of reading God’s word. And as you  embark on a regular, steady, consistent diet of reading God’s word, the chances are extremely,  extremely high—virtually guaranteed—that you will grow in spiritual maturity. Reading God’s  word regularly is the simplest discipleship hack that God has given to us. To grow in spiritual  maturity, reading God’s word is like cheating, but it’s not. 

POWER IS GIVEN BY THE RISEN CHRIST
When Jesus opened up the minds of the  disciples to understand the Scriptures, He revealed to them the one central theme that holds  together the whole Bible, the gospel. At a high level, the gospel is that God establishes a  covenant of love with the people He has created and then sends them out to fill the earth with His  glory in Jesus’s name through God-fearing, God-honoring, God-worshiping, God-loving  communities and families, the church. We see different expressions of that gospel message  throughout the Bible from beginning to end. In a very real sense, we also become witnesses of  this truth through faith, just as the Apostles were. But there is one very big difference between us  and them: We don’t have to wait for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are available to all disciples through faith in Jesus Christ. And the purpose of the gifts are so that we  might bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are “ordinary” gifts and “extraordinary”  gifts. The “ordinary” gifts are much more common, but they are not any less important or any  less powerful than the “extraordinary” gifts. The Holy Spirit imparts the “extraordinary” gifts for  specific reasons. But the “ordinary” gifts are generally available if believers would just exercise  them. And whatever we do in love to build each other up, the Holy Spirit turns those actions into  supernatural gifts to build up the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-16). In the end, what matters is  love. Love is the power that is given by the risen Christ. 

DISCUSSION QUESTION
How have you seen “ordinary” gifts building up this body? “Extraordinary”?