Good. So Acts chapter 1, starting at
verse 1 of chapter 1. In my former book Theophilus, I
wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day
he was taken up to heaven. After giving instructions
through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen after his
suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing
proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a
period of 40 days and spoke about the Kingdom of God.
On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them
this command. Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait
for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak
about. For John baptized with water.
But in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
Then they gathered around him and asked him, Lord, are you at
this time going to restore the Kingdom to Israel?
He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or dates
the Father has set by His own authority, but you will receive
power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to
the ends of the earth. After he said this, he was taken
up before their very eyes and a cloud hit him from their sight
as they were looking intently up into the sky as he was going.
Sorry. They were looking intently up
into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in
white stood beside them. Men of Galilee they are, they
said. Why do you stand here looking
into the sky? This same Jesus who has been
taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you
have seen him go into heaven. But again, as Chris has said and
ahead of next week, I just want to say a huge thank you to
everyone for the last three months when as a gift to us as a
family, you allowed me to have a three month sabbatical as pastor
here at Ave. Thank you for praying for us
during that time, for me, for Lily, for Noah and Clara.
And yeah, it was a really precious three months, a great
time to rest, time together as a family, to pray, to reflect, to
study and to prepare for the next season of ministry.
As I say, the plan is next Sunday night at the family
meeting, we'll share a little bit more about that.
But actually, yeah, we just struck several times in that
time. Just that's such a generous gift
from you guys to let me just rest.
And I think when we presented the idea, Joel very wisely said,
well, actually, everyone should have a sabbatical and, and, and
I would vote for that, but, but no.
But it was a really precious time.
Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for messages during
the time for a really warm welcome back as well.
So it is good to be back and it's good to be starting this
new series in the book of Acts. The plan is that we're going to
be preaching through Acts 1 to 8 in the lead up to Christmas,
doing that on Sunday mornings. Our home group's going to be
looking at this book as well with a particular focus, each
passage thinking what is the Lord saying to us and how do we
apply that to our lives as individuals and as a church?
But every time we begin a new series at Ave. we always want to
ask the question, why? Why are we looking at this
particular book at this particular time?
Because Ave. we believe the whole Bible, Old and New
Testament, all 66 books are the living Word of God to us, given
to us by God to grow our love, knowledge and worship of Him and
our ability to live for Him in this world.
And we believe that every book of those 66 books has something
distinctive to tell us about who God is, who we are, what our
world is like, what it means to live as his people.
So why Acts, Why is this book in our Bibles?
This isn't just an end in itself to read a book.
We want this to change us as God's spirit works.
I think the book of Acts, there's loads of reasons why we
we would study it. But I think looking around the
world today, it's easy to ask the question, Sir, what is God
doing in our world right now? What is God up to with all the
chaos of history, all the chaos of the present moment?
And linked with that question, if you're a Christianer today so
well, what is God calling his people to do?
How are we supposed to live in this world?
I think the book of Acts gives us an answer to that, that that
leads us to a deeper dependence on God, but also a greater sense
of purpose than we'd ever arrive at on our own.
Because according to the book of Acts as a whole and the passage
we're looking at this morning, we have an amazing identity and
purpose in this world. Our identity and purpose is that
we are witnesses for Jesus in this real world, in the power of
the Holy Spirit. We are witnesses for Jesus in
this world in the power of the Holy Spirit.
That word power is going to fluctuate a bit as we do.
I say power, You say power, power, power, power, power.
I'm going to change it sometimes.
But someone said to me last week, oh, don't change.
So I hope you understand me, but it is we are witnesses for Jesus
in the power of the Holy Spirit and this book of Acts, Some
people have described it as if you like a theological history.
First of all, it's a history. So look, he is a reliable
historian who spoke with eyewitnesses, the beginning of
his gospel that is going to be given out to students all over
the country this coming year and talks about how Luke says he
spoke with eyewitnesses. He carefully investigated
everything from the beginning to write an orderly account for us.
So he wrote Luke's gospel and now we're reading Acts, his
sequel to that. But actually an act is even
better because Luke himself is an eyewitness.
Towards the end of Acts, Luke travelled with the Apostle Paul.
So there's a few moments in the, the closing chapter of of Acts
where we hear, we did this, we did that because Luke was there,
he was an eyewitness. This is good, reliable history,
but it's also theological history because at the heart of
the book of Acts, it's a record of the risen Jesus powerfully at
work in the world through the Holy Spirit.
What is God doing in our world, we ask?
Acts gives us an insight into what God was doing in the years
following Jesus life, death, resurrection and ascension.
And actually, he's the same God today.
This book has so much to teach us about what it means to live
as witnesses for Jesus in this world.
Just some of the things going to see.
We're going to see the power of the gospel in people's lives.
To quote the apostle Paul, the gospel is the power of God that
brings salvation to everyone who believes, even the most unlikely
people, even the people, I presume are beyond God's reach.
This book talks about the power of prayer because God uses the
the prayers of ordinary, weak, flawed people to accomplish His
purposes. This book's about the place of
suffering in the Christian life. A lot of the early Christians
suffered greatly. Why?
What was God doing through that suffering?
This book's about how deeply Jesus loves his church, how
committed he is to building it through his people.
This book has got huge amounts to say that and what it means to
live as witnesses for Jesus in the power of the Spirit.
So let's look at this opening section together.
Now, Acts 1 verses 1 to 11 was read to us earlier.
And Luke begins with like an explicit link to his previous
book to that Gospel of Luke we mentioned.
He talks about my former book and we know Luke is still
writing to someone called Theophilus.
That's the same person. He addresses his gospel to you.
And who was Theophilus? Well, we don't know exactly.
It's it's a Roman name. Luke refers to him as most
excellent Theophilus in the beginning of Luke's gospel.
So he may have been of noble birth.
Maybe he's a Roman convert to Christianity.
But back to the name Theophilus. It means lover of God and 11
writer I was looking at this week on this just made this
suggestion that Luke's goal in writing this book of Acts is to
create a multitude of lovers of God and Luke wants that group to
include us. He's writing to a lover of God
to grow his love for God. And that's a great way for us to
see this book. This is to grow our love for
God. And verses one to five, sort of
they they look back to summarize the closing section of Luke's
gospel and they look forward to what Luke is about to say.
And tucked away in verse one, it makes a statement.
It's very easy to miss. But that's a hugely significant
for everything that's to follow. Just first one on the screen
there, he says in my former book Theophilus, I wrote about all
that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken
up to heaven. And it's that little word began
that's easy for us to miss because easy to presume that
actually Luke's gospel and the other three gospels, that's
about what Jesus did and taught when he was on earth.
And we come to Acts, that's about what the early church did
and taught after Jesus had ascended to heaven.
And in one sense that's true. But we need to see the point
Luke is making here. The years of Jesus earthly
ministry up to and including his death, resurrection and
ascension, they are only the beginning of what the Risen
Jesus wants to do in this world. Across the book of Acts, Jesus
is living and active through the Holy Spirit in the lives of his
people from beginning to end. The risen Jesus continues to
teach and to transform lives in this world even after he
descended into heaven through His Holy Spirit working in the
lives of his followers. So if you like the traditional
title of this book, again, it wasn't given a title in its
original manuscript, but we call it the Acts of the Apostles.
Some people have argued, actually a better title, a bit
more wordy is the Acts of the Risen Jesus through the Holy
Spirit. Is he saying Jesus is alive and
well throughout this book? He directs his church on their
mission. He shows them the way they
should go. He encourages them when they are
persecuted. His power enables them to
preach, to perform miracles in his name.
If like Acts is what Jesus did next, Jesus hasn't completely
left the scene. He's actually still working
through his spirit, through his people.
And that's what Jesus said to his disciples at the end of
Matthew's gospel. When Jesus preparing to leave
them, he says this, surely I am with you always to the very end
of the age. And the book of Acts shows the
reality of that. And it's a reality that still
holds for followers of Jesus today.
But we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves.
Before Jesus physically leaves his disciples and ascends into
heaven, he spends a significant period of time with his closest
followers. So Luke tells us in verses one
to five that Jesus spent 40 days with his apostles.
It's verse 3 on the screen there, after his suffering, he
presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that
he was alive. He appeared to them over a
period of 40 days and spoke about the Kingdom of God.
Now that time period, 40 days, that's a really significant one,
right the way through the Bible. So in the Old Testament, Israel
spent 40 years in the wilderness and after that period of time
God LED them to enter and conquer the promised land of
Canaan. Early in the New Testament,
Jesus spent 40 days praying and fasting in the wilderness, being
tempted by Satan. And after that period of time,
Jesus embarked on his public ministry.
In the Bible, 40 days is often a time of preparation ahead of a
time of mission. Before God sends his people on a
mission, he prepares them. And this 40 days is significant.
But actually when I was reading this the last few weeks, I just
thought what a precious 40 days this was for Jesus disciples.
And during this period, Luke says, Jesus gave many convincing
proofs that he was alive. Jesus wanted his apostles to
know he really had risen. Remember, these disciples had
seen Jesus arrested and kneeled to a cross and buried in a tomb.
And dead men do not usually rise from the dead.
The disciples knew this. Jesus knew this.
So Jesus takes this period of 40 days to convince them and assure
them his resurrection was real. Jesus really was alive.
He wasn't a ghost or a spirit or a failure of their imagination.
Jesus is alive. He is physically risen.
He really has defeated sin and death once and for all.
He was dead once, but now he's alive forever and ever.
And that matters because the resurrection of Jesus is at the
heart of the Christian message. It's at the heart of our hope
that we have to hold on to ourselves and to offer a dying
world. So Jesus spent 40 days with his
disciples to prove them beyond a shadow of a doubt he really is
alive. That would be their message for
this world. But even alongside that, I think
the risen Jesus spent this time with the disciples, I'm
convinced because he loved them and he wanted them to spend this
time with him. This 40 day period was an act of
love on Jesus part towards his disciples.
I wonder if if this summer or a different point in your life,
you've ever spent a holiday with friends and family that you
loved so much you just never wanted it to end?
One of those holidays where everything clicked.
Often holidays don't click, but sometimes they do.
So the weather is perfect, you're never bored, the
conversation flows freely, the food is really good, there's
laughter and honesty and rest and refreshment.
You can be yourself because you're with people who know you
and love you. If you've ever enjoyed a holiday
or a season like that, I want to suggest that is just a pale
reflection of this 40 day period Jesus spent with the apostles.
Just imagine it. 40 days with the risen Jesus. 40 days with
the Son of God who loves you and gave himself for you.
This was a precious gift for these disciples here.
Time to talk with Jesus. It's time to listen to Jesus, to
ask Jesus questions and hear his replies.
And I love that Luke emphasizes time to eat with Jesus.
They share meals together, they rest together, they they enjoy
time with their risen Lord. I believe this is a little
picture of what awaits everyone who puts their faith in Jesus in
the new creation. Life with the risen Jesus, with
him, enjoying him, eating with him, resting with him, receiving
his love for us. It's almost a glimpse of the new
creation before the apostles are sent out into the world.
And what was Jesus doing in that 40 day period?
Well, Luke tells us he was instructing his apostles.
Jesus knew that before they could begin the task of making
disciples for him in the world, they had to know the message
they had for the world and they also had to know the power that
was available to them in that. So they had to know their
message, but how much they would need to depend on God's Holy
Spirit to deliver that message. So Jesus is kind of two big
things he wanted to teach them were like sort of the the
Kingdom of God and the Spirit of God.
So the Kingdom of God that was that was the heart of Jesus own
public teaching ministry. He announced himself onto the
scene beginning of Mark's Gospel.
The time has come, the Kingdom of God has come near repent and
believe the good news. And what is the good news about
the Kingdom of God? It's this God's king has come
and his name is Jesus. God's king has come, and he's
not come to condemn the world. He's come to save everyone who
puts their faith in him. God's king has come to put all
things right in the mess that is our world.
And earlier in Luke's Gospel, the first book he wrote, Luke
records for us a sermon Jesus preached right at the beginning
of his ministry, which like his manifesto for the Kingdom of
God, he says in Luke chapter 4, he says the Spirit of the Lord
is on me because he's anointed me to proclaim good news to the
poor. He sent me to proclaim freedom
for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the
oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.
See, the message of the Kingdom of God is good news for everyone
who knows they need saving. It's interesting who Jesus says
it's a message for. It's not a message for the
strong, the the wealthy, the powerful, the beautiful, the
people winning life. Now Jesus says he's come with
this message for the poor, for the prisoners, for the blind,
for the oppressed. Amazingly, God's King has come
in all his power and authority. But in order to benefit from his
coming, you have to admit you need him.
You don't get to go. Oh, I'm quite strong and and
wise to Jesus. I'll.
I'll join your side. Yeah.
Yeah, I've got stuff to bring. Jesus.
I'll, I'll, I'll sign up. We have to come saying, Jesus, I
needed you to come. I needed you to rescue me
because on my own, I'm poor. I'm a prisoner of my own sins
and selfishness. I'm blind.
I don't see God clearly. I'm I'm oppressed.
I just feel like the things I want to do, I don't do.
I don't do. I just feel trapped.
Jesus come. Jesus, you are God's king.
Please help me. That is the message of the
Kingdom of God. God's king has come.
His name is Jesus. He's come to put things right
and to benefit from that we need to admit how much we need him
and to come to him. And then about the Spirit of
God, Well, Jesus really clear. The only way we can live as his
witnesses is by depending on the Holy Spirit he sends to us.
Verse 4, Do not leave Jerusalem, he says, but wait for the gift
my father promised, which you've heard me speak about for John
baptized with water. But in a few days you'll be
baptized with the Holy Spirit. Who is the Holy Spirit?
Well, Luke's going to tell us a huge amount about the Holy
Spirit in his book. The things we learned even in
this opening preamble is that the Holy Spirit, he's promised
by God in the Old Testament, we see him all the way through the
prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, promising there will come a day
when the Spirit comes near the Holy Spirit.
He empowered Jesus for his earthly ministry.
Luke's gospel in particular is really clear in that Luke
chapter 4 verse, one says Jesus full of the Holy Spirit went
into the wilderness. Luke 414 Jesus returned to
Galilee in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amazingly, the same Spirit who empowered Jesus for his life and
ministry and mission is about to come to empower Jesus followers
for their life and ministry and mission.
This Holy Spirit, he's an awesome power.
But ultimately, supremely, he's a person.
He's God himself come to live in his people.
He's the third person of the Trinity, God the Father, God the
Son, God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is fully God
with God in the beginning. And so in a few weeks time when
we come to his coming at Pentecost, this is God himself
coming to live with his people. So Jesus teaches his apostles
about the Kingdom of God and the Spirit of God.
And then comes the day when he is about to leave them and he
gives them their identity and their mission.
He says, you will be my witnesses in the power of the
Holy Spirit. Verse 6.
The apostles gather Ryan, Jesus. They ask him a question that
reveals a lot about their priorities of that moment.
Verse 6 Then they gathered around Jesus and asked him,
Lord, are you at this time going to restore the Kingdom to
Israel? No, actually there's a lot wrong
with that question. The French reformer John Calvin
on these verses said there are as many errors in this question
as there are words. Basically, this reveals what the
apostles priorities are. The apostles care about their
people. They care about their nation of
Israel. They're concerned solely for
what God's going to do for us and people like me.
It's clear the apostles need to have their vision widened by
Jesus to give them love for the whole of God's creation for
people not like them, Gentiles as well as Jewish people.
And the Holy Spirit keeps having to do that in his church
throughout every generation, not just this is for people like me.
I want these sort of people around me.
We need our vision widen just as Jesus widens the vision of these
apostles, but he's also gentle with him.
Verse 7, he just says pretty much that questions above your
pay grade apostles. Don't worry about that.
That's God the Father's call. Your responsibility is the
mission. I'm going to give you verse 8.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and
Samaria to the ends of the earth.
As Chris has already said, that was our verse for the term.
Last term. We were around for a little bit
of it, so we didn't learn it as rigorously as you all did.
But but that verse, it's kind of like John Stott says, it's like
a table of contents for the whole book to come because Luke
seems to organise his book around the three movements that
are in that verse. So busy.
Acts 1 to 7 is about the disciples being Jesus witnesses
in Jerusalem in their home city. Then Acts 8, through
persecution, they get sent out to Judea and Samaria.
Then Acts 9 to the end, the apostle Paul becomes a Christian
and they're off to the ends of the earth.
We're going to see how that command's fulfilled in the
coming weeks. But for now, we just need to
say, you will be my witnesses. See, our message for the world
is Jesus, who he is, what he's done for us, all that he offers
us who he is. He's God's king, He's the Son of
God. He loved us, gave himself for
us. He offers us eternal life, life
in all its fullness if we come to him.
And he does all that because he died and rose again in our place
to win the victory over sin and death we could not win.
Our message is Jesus. We are his witnesses.
And we say what he has done objectively, but also we say
what he's done subjectively, what he's done for me, who Jesus
is to me, what he's done in my life, what is like for me to
live for him and with him in my life.
As worth pointing out, we are different witnesses to the first
apostles. This country is worth making
that clear that they were genuine eyewitnesses of Jesus.
They spent three years with Jesus on earth, including this
40 day period we've been talking about.
They saw Jesus with their own eyes.
They listened to him with their own ears.
They touched him with their own hands.
Christians today are witnesses in a secondary sense.
We're not eyewitnesses ourselves.
We weren't alive 2000 years ago, but actually in a sense we're
like Luke writing Acts. He wasn't one of the 12.
He hadn't spent that time with Jesus, but he believed the
message of the apostles through the Holy Spirit opening his
eyes. And that is every Christian in
this room. We believe that message of the
apostles through the power of the Spirit, and we know who
Jesus is and we can be witnesses for him in this world.
Our message is Jesus, and it's called the Holy Spirit who gives
life to everyone who receives that message.
Again, it is the Spirit who saves, not us.
It's the Spirit who opens blind eyes, not us.
No one here is a Christian because they worked it out for
themselves, because they're smarter than anyone else, that
they're wiser than anyone else. It's the Holy Spirit who saves.
And Jesus wants these apostles to know, wait, don't leave
Jerusalem because you cannot live as my witnesses without the
Spirit. We might say, well, of course
they can, Jesus, they spent three years with you.
They spent 40 days with you. They know loads about you.
Of course they could be your witnesses.
Jesus goes, no, even if we had spent three years with Jesus
ourselves, we need the Holy Spirit to work through our
witness. And what does it mean to depend
on the Holy Spirit? We're going to see that in the
coming weeks. I think one of the hearts of it
is it's through prayer. Living by the Spirit is to live
in dependence on God. It is to pray.
It is to admit our need. It is to say, Lord, I can't do
this on my own. Lord, I need you to work in my
life. I need you to help me see Jesus
and then I need you to help me point Jesus out to other people.
Prayer is the heart of depending on the Spirit.
I am. It's my prayer that actually
doing time in this book together will give us a greater appetite
for prayer. Prayer depending on God and
expecting from God because we can only be witnesses in the
power of the Holy Spirit. And in the final verses of our
passage, finally the risen Jesus ascends into heaven.
But I want to see something. Often we struggle.
I know I have so many struggle to see the ascension of Jesus as
good news, but actually I think Luke wants to see here that
Jesus ascends to heaven for us. It's actually to help us.
Let me read verses 9 to 11 for us again.
After he said this, Jesus was taken up before their very eyes,
and a cloud hid him from their sight.
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going
when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.
Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into
the sky? This same Jesus who's been taken
from you into heaven will come back in the same way you've seen
him go into heaven. See the ascension of Jesus.
It's a really important transition.
It's the climax of Jesus life, death and resurrection.
For those 40 days. Jesus would have come and gone.
He would have appeared and gone and come back again.
The apostles needed to see Jesus leave the scene to know that he
had gone. It's like we've got Ruby and
Cayman and Mel up up the front. So we know they're leaving the
scene for a while. So we're not expecting to see
them next week. But actually they needed to see
Jesus go. OK, we're not.
Oh, maybe he's going to come back.
They're looking intently from the comeback.
And the angels say no, he will come back.
But for now, there is work to be done.
There is a mission to embark on. There is a Holy Spirit to wait
for see Jesus ascended to heaven for us to rule over creation for
us and then to send his Holy Spirit to empower us as his
witnesses. But again, there's there's times
that doesn't feel that comforting.
Again thinking of those 40 days with Jesus.
I would just love to have been there.
And if we're honest, Moses would like Jesus to be physically
present in front of us, standing in front of us, the way he stood
in front of the apostles. And the ascension can sometimes
have the effect of making Jesus feel like he's a long way away.
Once he was Emmanuel, God with us.
Now is he, God not with us? One writer put it like this.
He said the question the ascension makes many of us ask
is, where is Jesus when I need him?
And there's a sense where we should long to be with Jesus
again, the apostles looking up in the sky.
That's not a wrong longing. Jesus coming back one day.
The Angel say he's not here yet and we should long for Jesus to
return. One of the great cries of the
early church was was was Jesus come, come Lord Jesus,
Maranatha, we need you to come back.
That's a normal longing, a healthy longing for a Christian.
But alongside feeling Jesus physical absence, there's
another life changing reality every follower of Jesus holds on
to and that is the risen Jesus is present with us today through
the Holy Spirit. And that is why the gift of the
Holy Spirit coming in chapter 2 is so life changing for
Christians. The Holy Spirit makes Jesus
present to us even when Jesus is physically absent.
Here's how Jesus puts it. In John chapter 14, he says I
will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.
John 14 verse 18. So once he said, I'm, I am
preparing to leave you. He's with his disciples right
before the cross. There's kind of got a time guys,
I'm going to leave, but at the same time I'm going to come to
you. I'm going to come near to you,
nearer to you actually than you have ever known.
Jesus is absent from us in body, but present with us through the
Holy Spirit right here, right now.
If we are trusting in Jesus, he is in US and with us, loving US,
strengthening US, leading us, sustaining us.
Jesus is present by his Spirit even as we long for him to
return one day when our mission is done.
There's some questions from the ascension as we as we finish.
Really, who is Jesus now? Well, listen to how the Angel
described him in verse 11. He says he is this same Jesus.
It's all that Jesus sends into heaven.
And now he's suddenly more frightening.
Now he's like, he's a bit different.
Oh, I liked him when he was on earth, but he's a bit scary in
heaven. No, he is the same Jesus in
heaven. He's still fully God and fully
man, full of grace and truth and compassion.
He's still one of us and one with us.
He hears us, He helps us, He cares about us.
Where is Jesus now? He's both at the right hand of
the Father in heaven, ruling over creation, and he's present
with us by his Spirit. Surely, he says, I am with you
always to the very end of the age.
And what is Jesus doing now? He's resting and he's finished
work. He's ruling over creation for
us. So we cry out to him.
He's praying for us here and now.
Jesus prays for his people. It's an astonishing truth the
New Testament gives us, and he's working through us to build his
church. The Holy Spirit hasn't come yet
at the end of this passage, but he's coming.
And when the Spirit comes, Jesus is present again with his
people. This book of Acts, the acts of
the risen Jesus through the Holy Spirit, all that Jesus continued
to do and to teach is because his Spirit is active among his
people 2000 years ago and his Spirit is active among his
people today. That is our hope.
That is what we rest on. We are witnesses for Jesus in
this world in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is committed to us, Jesus loves us, and Jesus wants to
lead us into this term in the way that we should go.
Let me pray for us. Let's pray.
Father God, you know that we live in a world where there is
much confusion and we often don't know how to live.
There's so many different priorities in front of us.
There's things that we're excited about, things that we're
frightened of, things we think we're in control of, other
things we know we're not. Lord Jesus, we pray that through
our time walking through this book of Acts, this term by your
Spirit, you would make us more and more aware of the identity
and purpose you've given us and the power you put in us so that
we can live out that identity and that purpose.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, you haven't left us alone.
You've ascended into heaven. You rule at the right hand of
the Father, but you're also present with us through your
Spirit, as close to us as it is possible to be.
And Lord Jesus, we do long for the time when you as God's king
come finally to put all things right, to put an end to sin and
death and crying and pain. But in the meantime, help us to
know that you are with us and Lord Jesus, by the work of your
Spirit among us. Use us for your purposes, that
we can point others to you so they will find new life, eternal
life, life and all its fullness as they welcome God's King.
Lord Jesus, thank you that you are our King.
Help us to know You, to love you, and to depend on You in the
days ahead. We ask that for your glory in
the power of the Holy Spirit, independence on your Father.
Amen.