I'm a timeline kind of guy. I I like a a timeline to help
sort my thinking on things. When I first learned something
new, I found that I can categorize things well if I kind
of sorted into a timeline. And so timelines have helped me
very in various ways. When I first decided to get
serious about reading the Bible, one of the first things I did
was kind of put together a timeline in my mind.
So I know where Moses was and Elijah and Elijah and the
Babylonian captivity, King David, those kind of things.
I kind of sorted it out into a timeline that would kind of help
me to Orient myself. Now I realize that not everybody
is a timeline kind of a person or that operates with a timeline
possibility. So you're going to have to
suffer with me for a few seconds while I Orient those of us who
do. I want to give a quick timeline
of Jesus Christ, a quick timeline of Jesus Christ.
It begins way back at the garden than before with the promise of
the coming of the Savior. The promise of the Savior coming
from the very beginning, Genesis 315 and on forward Speaking of
the coming of Jesus Christ. And then that promise is
prophesied over and over again throughout the Old Testament,
that Old Testament section where we hear of the comings of of
Jesus Christ. And then of course you have the
birth of Christ, His life, the last three years of which were
spent in ministry, in public ministry with his disciples and
with the population as a whole. And then at the end of those
three-year period, of course, His arrest, His crucifixion, His
death, and then His resurrection.
Following the resurrection, there's a 40 year, sorry, a 40
day period during those 40 days where Jesus resurrected,
continued to minister to the population, continued to
minister to his disciples in particular.
Now 40 days is a either a real short period of time, if you
think of it that way, or it's a long period of time. 40 days ago
was somewhere a little bit after Thanksgiving.
So you can kind of think about that.
If you're like me, a whole lot has happened between now and
Thanksgiving, last Thanksgiving and and so you can sit there. 40
days is a long period of time. That 40 days ends with Jesus's
ascension into heaven. So you have the resurrection,
then you have 40 more days of ministry, then you have his
ascension into heaven. This is where Jesus is taken up
into heaven and then in heaven he rules during the next X
number of years. We are now in that period of
time where Christ is in heaven and he is reigning over this
world and he is reigning over this world until the 2nd coming.
You don't have the second coming of Jesus Christ, which is at the
end of time. You don't have the second coming
of Jesus Christ until you have him reigning in heaven, which
follows his ascension, which follows his 40 days of ministry,
which follows his resurrection, etcetera, etcetera.
That's a timeline in which we're operating with.
We're about to read a passage of scripture that focuses our
attention upon the ascension. The ascension of Jesus is
something that is kind of happens as a coda.
I think for most of our our thinking.
It's kind of an epilogue. You kind of throw it in.
You realize that something happened at the end of 40 days,
but it's crucial from a biblical standpoint and also from a
theological one. We don't get to the Second
Coming unless we have an ascension.
It's crucial, you know, we do not have Christ reigning now in
this world if we don't have an ascension.
It's crucial that we recognize the, the, the essential nature
of the ascension and how absolutely crucial it is for us
in life. This is not something that is
just thrown out there or A tag on one of the fears is that
you're left with the thought it without the ascension.
You're left with the thought that Jesus just kind of faded
out, or maybe he just disappeared at one point, or he
just wasn't present anymore. But the Scriptures want us to
recognize that that's not the case.
So it throws a lot of emphasis, a lot of weight on this
timeline, in this moment in the timeline, the ascension, where
Jesus goes from being with his disciples, physically manifested
with his disciples, to physically going up into heaven.
And we see that in Acts chapter 1, verses 9 through 11.
But we're going to start in verse 6.
And as always, I like it when my imagery here is the idea that
when God speaks to us, we snap to attention.
When God speaks to us, we pay attention.
And I like the imagery of that when we stand.
If you are able, please stand for the reading of God's Word.
Acts chapter 1, beginning in verse 6.
So when the disciples had come together, they asked him, Lord,
will you at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?
Jesus said to them, It is not for you to know the times or the
seasons that the Father is fixed by His own authority.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon
you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
And when he had said these things, as they were looking on,
he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.
And while they were gazing into heaven, as he went, behold, 2
men stood by them in white robes, and said, Men of Galilee,
why do you stand looking into heaven?
This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the
same way as you saw him go into heaven.
And this is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God, the grass Withers and the flowers fade,
but the word of our Lord, it stands forever.
Amen. Please be seated.
If you would grab your Bibles, we're going to have the
Scripture in front of us as we walk through it on the screens.
But if you have your text with you, I think it's always helpful
in following along with the passage.
As we work our way through this. We are of course, focusing on
those verses, those 9/9 through 11 verses that talk about the
ascension, and we want to take a look at those.
So if you have your Scriptures in front of you or follow along
on the screens. Verse 9 And when they said these
things, when he had said these things, Jesus is speaking as
they were looking on the disciples.
He was lifted up and the cloud took him out of their sight.
This is a technical spot and I only tossed it out there For the
few of you that like to think about these kind of things.
Notice that this is passive voice.
Jesus was lifted up. Something happened to him.
This is not Jesus lifted himself up or Jesus decided to be lifted
up. This is something passive that
takes place. Jesus was lifted up.
And so of course, the question is by what power?
How did Jesus, how was Jesus's lifted up?
And this gets us into the interactions within the Godhead,
the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and
the power by which the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus Christ
through the Father and lifts him up into the into the heavens.
It's worth mentioning only for those of you who want to think
more deeply about the ascension and and what it actually entails
for a human being, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to be
nevertheless lifted up. Something happening to him, it's
passive voice there. He was lifted up and a cloud
took him from their sights. So you got to kind of picture
there on the Mount of Olives, by the way, or somewhere nearby.
So they're a little to the east of Jerusalem.
They're outside of Jerusalem, the walls of Jerusalem.
And the Mount of Olives is a place where Jesus has met very
frequently with his disciples. It was important.
It was a meaningful spot for them.
So they all gather at the Mount of Olives and Jesus has been
with them for 40 days. And I'm sure the excitement, the
overwhelming character of the fact that someone has risen from
the dead and is present with them in all of his glory and
majesty and displaying his divinity consistently to the
people, I'm sure that's overwhelming them.
And then he has this conversation with them, and
while they are looking, while they're talking with him, he is
lifted up before them. This is where we get the term
ascension. He ascends, He is lifted up into
heaven. Now think about how different
this is than just blinking out of existence.
He doesn't blink out of sight of the disciples.
He doesn't disappear. Rather, he's taken up into
heaven. And I don't know how you've
envisioned this. Imagine him, him rising up
before them, and then there's this cloud, cumulus cloud, or
something along those lines that he lived.
When my kids were young, we built a model rocket.
Folks build model rockets. We built a model rocket.
We took the time to care for it. We painted it and we named it
and all this kind of stuff. We we were all excited about it.
We took it into a field and we set it off and it was slightly
overcast that day. Kel's laughing because she
remembers after all this time. We did this.
Then we fired off the rocket. It zooms up into the clouds and
never comes down. And there's the three of us, the
four of us standing there the whole time, staring into the
clouds. OK, if you have something like
that in your mind when we're talking about Jesus, get it out
of your mind. That's not correct.
When we're talking about a cloud enveloping Jesus, we are not
talking about a cumulus or an overcast night or a rainy cloud
or stormy cloud. Fluffy little white clouds.
This is the glory cloud of God. This is a Shekinah glory of
God's presence, that physical manifestation that has been
present throughout the Scriptures of demonstrating the
reality of God's glory there before God's people.
When the Shekinah glory of God shows up, he shows up for
whatever reason, for their good reasons back in the in the Old
Testament in particular, to demonstrate that there's a
cloud, this pillar of cloud, this pillar of fire.
And this is a fulfillment of Jesus prayer to the Father just
days earlier where he prayed Father, the end is near.
Glorify me with the glory that I had with you before the world
began before the world began. The Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit together in this massive beauty of glory.
And here it is Jesus Christ who is now ascended, who, sorry, who
was resurrected from the dead, displaying divinity in every
way, yet nevertheless at this spot now being surrounded by the
glory cloud of the God the Father as he ascends into
heaven, surrounded by the glory. Now, what does that mean?
That helps us to understand what's happening between the
ascension that we just read about and the second coming that
is yet to come of Jesus Christ. We have the period in which we
are living in now. What is happening during that
time? Where is Jesus, what's he doing?
Hey, he's had a hard life. Let's face it, He was crucified
for my sin. That on its own takes plenty of
effort on on his part. And not just that, but he was
crucified for your sin, for the sin of the entire world.
He has taken upon himself. He gets to heaven and he kicks
back. Give me a lazy chair, boy and a
clicker and then you know this is what I'm doing in heaven.
That's not at all the picture. The picture here is that he's
swallowed up in the glory cloud of the Father, the glory that he
had before the beginning of the world.
The rest of the Scriptures portray for us as picture that
the Lord is reigning in heaven. They describe that as sitting at
the right hand of God the Father Almighty, sitting at the right
hand. Now.
Now the right hand is the hand of power.
It's it's the hand of of authority.
It's the hand of blessing and glory.
And so when Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God the
Father, when the scriptures articulated like that, they're
trying to give you the picture that he is in authority up in
heaven. Now, what does authority mean
for those of us? It means that every minute that
you live your life between the ascension and his second coming,
again, every minute in that time is covered by the authority of
Jesus Christ, dominated by his authority.
Now it's easy for us. We often talk about God having
God being sovereign, God being all powerful and all this kind
of stuff. And OK, we can appreciate that,
but that's God. Here we have Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, God himself, who we have spent weeks reading about
in the Scriptures. The disciples spent years
walking with him daily. We get every minute of our lives
spent engaged with Jesus Christ who has revealed himself to us
through the gospel message, who has revealed the Father through
the gospel message. That's the one who is reigning
in heaven for you. That's the one who is exercising
authority over your daily life right now.
Who can imagine a life that is free of difficulties and and
struggles? None of us have that life.
And yet in every minute, the joys of your life, all the
blessings, everything good and glorious, our God reigns and
rules over all of that. Our Christ is authoritative in
every one of those moments and equally in every moment of your
suffering, in every spot where you're sitting there saying,
God, where the heck are you? He is reigning and rolling in
heaven for you. That's the God, the God who has
ascended into heaven. But the Scriptures always talk
about authority in ways that we don't.
When we think of authority, we think of power.
We think of might. We think of ability to
accomplish things and certainly that's true.
That is the authority that God, that God has it Christ exercises
in heaven. But authority also biblically
means care, nurture, responsibility.
If you have authority over somebody, it is your
responsibility for their for them to have care, nurture,
love, goodness, kindness. All of the qualities that we see
in Jesus Christ are not the qualities that he somehow leaves
behind when he ascends into heaven.
But when he ascends into heaven and claims the authority that
God has in store for that the Father has in store for him.
That authority then is exercised in the way in which he
communicates himself to us, the way in which he expresses his
authority in our lives. It is a care, it is a nurture,
it is a love. It's one of the reasons why the
scriptures talk about Jesus is interceding with the Father.
Imagine the fact that there is not a concern in your life.
There's not a a hope and a prayer that you ever experienced
that the Father is not consistently being whispered
into his ear by the Son. Christ is sitting at the right
hand, nurturing, caring, compassionate, kindness,
goodness for you, and He does so in part by interceding on your
behalf, by giving of himself on your behalf into the Father's
ear. This is the kind of imagery that
is built into the idea of him being taken up in a cloud and
sitting at the right hand of God the Father.
In a couple of months we're going to talk about the stoning
of Steven, the first Christian martyr.
And I'm going to let the cat out of the bag now because none of
you will remember a couple of months from now, but you've got
a great picture. While Stephen is being stoned,
the heavens open up before him and he's able to see the
heavenly throne. Do you remember this?
Some of you were picture this. And he sees the Father sitting
on the throne and at his right hand, Jesus Christ not sitting.
It's the only time in Scripture where Jesus is sitting is at the
right hand of God the Father. Not sitting, but standing at the
right hand of God the Father. I got to tell you, for me, this
gives me goosebumps because it's one thing to think of Jesus
sitting that's passive at the right hand of God the Father.
He's powerful, he's active, he's going to control, he's reigning
and all that kind of stuff. That's true, but he's sitting.
That's the way it's usually described for me in with the
with the martyrdom of Stephen. You see him, he's not sitting.
He's he's arisen, he stood up, he's standing actively working
on behalf of Stephen. And that's the way I love the
picture of what Jesus is doing with each of us.
He is at the Father's right hand actively pursuing our good and
our kindness back to the text. And a cloud took him out of
their sight. And while they were gazing into
heaven as he went, behold, 2 men stood behind him with two white
robes. These guys were coming back from
laundry, so they want. That was funny.
You know, it's really not good if I have to cue you two things.
No, no. OK, Two men in white robes
coming in our present. This Harkins easily back to the
resurrection scenes where again we're told that two men show up
in white robes. We have the picture.
These are angels. And so angels, God's messengers
come, and they speak to the people and they say, men of
Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?
This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the
same way as you saw him go into heaven because of the ascension.
In the same way he will come again.
Now what does that mean? In the same way, how, how, how
are we supposed to anticipate the coming, the second coming of
Jesus Christ In the same manner, in the same fashion, in the same
way that the ascension took place.
How did the ascension take place?
Here's the key. Look at the beginning of that
sentence. This Jesus who was taken up from
you, this Jesus, it's not the Jesus of our minds.
It's not the Jesus of some spiritual entity.
It's not the Jesus that might exist 20 centuries from now when
Christ comes again or whatever. It's this Jesus, the one that we
saw going into heaven, the one that we worked with and walked
with, the one that we talked with and heard from, the one who
we cared for and cared for us, this Jesus.
Here, what we see is the understanding that right now
reigning in heaven is not OK. Two ideas here.
First is theological. The theological idea reigning in
heaven right now is not the mystical essence of Jesus or the
spiritual form. It is the physical form, the
human being, Jesus Christ, yes, the Son of Man, Son of God, yes,
indeed. All of the second person of the
Trinity, God himself fully and divine that Jesus Christ, but
also the fully human Jesus Christ with a physical body,
with a physical presence in God's presence right now, in the
Father's presence right now. Which is the promise of course
for us that we too will be able to dwell in God's presence in
physical form. We too will be able to
experience his love and his care.
Why? Because we've experienced,
because Jesus himself has experienced that.
Jesus himself has known that. So firstly, in the same way that
he went up with a physical form as a human being, so in that
same way as a human being, he will return to earth.
It is not a feeling of goodness or, you know, we're all kind of
reflecting Jesus's goodness while we live in this world and
stuff like that. No, what we are anticipating is
the physical return of the human being, the Son of God, Jesus
Christ himself. That's what was going to return
to us. That's the theological, the
discipleship picture here is the way the angels say this Jesus.
This is the Jesus that is reigning.
This is the one who you come to in heaven when we come in
prayer. This is the one that we come to
when we come to the Lord with our needs and with our desires
and with our yearnings and with our hopes and our expectations.
It's this Jesus, the one who raised that will they saw go up
into heaven and who is now reigning in eternity until the
2nd coming again. That's the Jesus, and you can
know Him, and you can have a relationship with him, and you
can love him, and you can walk with him and serve him and be
beloved by him. All of all of the pictures that
we see from Jesus. This is why we spend so much
time focusing upon Jesus Christ in the Gospels.
It's why the Scriptures provide us four different accounts of
Jesus's life and teachings. So we get to know this Jesus
because it's this Jesus who is reigning in heaven.
And when you say to yourself, I don't know what to say to this,
to Jesus, I can't imagine talking to the one who was
rolling in all of heaven and controlling all the world.
It is the one. He has revealed himself
consistently in scriptures that we are to come to him and to
give ourselves to him and to abide by him.
This is the Jesus they who is up in heaven right now reigning on
your behalf. Take a look back at the text
again for us, verse 11, men of Galilee, why do you stand
looking into heaven? And I sit there and think, how
can you really ask that question?
OK, Does it strike anybody else as a bit of a rebuke as a mild
rebuke here? Strikes me as a mild rebuke that
the angels are kind of saying Now, I suppose there's different
tones you could read this in, but I kind of read it like, hey,
guys, why are you staring up into heaven?
Why are you being a stargazer? Now this is a challenge to all
of us who are stargazers. Kell and I went to Steeler game
a little bit ago. Somebody gifted us with tickets
really down near down low was beautiful.
We got to see a lot of happening.
The game wasn't that exciting. And so I very quickly got caught
in watching other things take place.
One of the things that I saw was the broadcast team that was
running back and forth and the and the and the reporters that
were around. I watched the coaches as they
milled around, around the medical staff.
I kind of got distracted by everything else that was
happening and I was engaged in that.
But I really got caught in the security personnel.
There was a security guard that stood with her back to the game
and staring up at the stands the entire game and never flinched.
The crowd would go wild and she was staring at the stands.
The crowd would Boo. She was staring at the stands.
People would come and jostle her.
The the reporters would walk by the broadcast teams, everything.
She stared at the stands. This is the kind of commitment
and the dedication that the angels are saying to the fair,
to the to the disciples. What are you doing?
Why are you staring into the sky?
Take a look back in verse 9 for me with with me, if you would.
And when Jesus had said these things, when he had said these
things, what things did he say? The stuff where he said
beforehand, where he identified the power of the Spirit, the
calling of the church to witness to him, and the role of that we
are to play in this world as a whole.
The power of the Spirit, the role of the church and the needs
of the community of the world as a whole.
Last week we read this passage in verse 8.
And you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon
you. You will be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
By the way, I if you were here with me last week, we, I
challenge you to think in terms of 321.
Remember that if you were here with ME3.
If you have 3 individuals near and dear to your family, be
praying for them every single day. 2 institutions that are
functioning here within the Pittsburgh community or the OR
the country as a whole. 2 institutions that are bringing
forth the gospel message, the Kingdom of God in in God's
service. Pray for them.
One nation somewhere around the world, somewhere around the
world, one nation around the world.
OK, here you go. I'm not going to be offended,
but if you did this, look at your neighbor.
Look to your neighbor and stick your thumb up.
Go ahead, look to your neighbor. If you did this, stick your
thumb up. If you did, OK, now stop.
OK, put your thumbs down. Some of you are doing terrible
things. Put your thumbs down.
OK, Encourage your neighbor after this.
If you got a thumb up, encourage them by going to them and
saying, hey, what country? Don't ask after the three
people. That might be too personal.
Don't ask after the the two institutions, but ask after the
nation. Hey, what?
What place in this world are you praying for?
I talked about last year my 40 year prayers for Afghanistan and
I've recommitted myself to doing that. 25 years ago, Kelly began
praying for North Korea. Now, if you know anything about
the church in North Korea, you know that it is devastated.
There's a, there's a group absence of witness there.
Can you imagine how glorious it'll be if somewhere yet in
Kelly's lifetime, God breaks through into North Korea and
brings a gospel in that place? And Kel can say for 25 years,
for 30 years, for 40 years, I have been praying faithfully for
that. People pray faithfully for that
nation. This is in part how we fulfill
the calling that God has given in verse 8, that we will be
witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and to the ends of
the earth. But back to verse 9, when he had
said these things. Now, it's possible that this is
simply chronological. It is possible that this is
simply a chronological statement.
First he did this, He said these things, and then he did.
Then he went ahead and ascended into heaven.
It's possible it's chronological, but I don't think
so. I think it's thematic.
It's after he has said these things, once he has commissioned
us, once he has said, hey, be on the watch for the power of the
Spirit. Form yourselves into the Church
to be my witnesses and minister in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and
to the ends of the earth. Once he has said these things,
once he has given this charge to the church, then he was free to
what? To ascend into heaven, into a
position of authority and power so he can oversee, so we can
watch, so we can guide and direct the church in the
fulfillment of its task. Once he's done the thing, then
he's in a position to ascend into heaven and fulfill that
task that God has given to him. Notice the looking nature of
this and when they looked at they were looking on they lifted
him up out of sight in verse 9 and then in 10 while they were
gazing into heaven and then in verse 11 he says why are you
staring into heaven? What we have here are disciples
understandably taking an awe hello, we just saw a guy fly and
then get wrapped up in the glory cloud of God.
I'm going to stand there with my mouth open staring into heaven.
It's understand the rebuke from the angels to me seems a little
tough, but they've got a point. Jesus has said go, go, wait for
this power of the Spirit and then go and be my witnesses and
go here, here, here. You've got all this territory to
cover. Don't stare at the stars.
Don't be gazing at the stars. Don't be get distracted.
Be like that, that security guard who knows her task and who
is focused on her task and is locked in that that's what she
is supposed to do. So the so the angels here are
saying to each of us, you've got a task.
God has called you into a thing and now he has put himself in a
position to enable you to freely and completely accomplish it.
He is reigning in heaven in the glory of the Father.
He is reigning in power and He has blessed you with the gift of
the Holy Spirit. He has called you to be the
church and witness together and He has sent you into this world.
Don't get distracted. Don't get distracted unless you
are Superman, Superwoman, like that security guard.
If you're anything like me, you're going to get distracted.
You're going to spend a whole lot of life being distracted.
Built into the idea of the ascension is Jesus ascended into
heaven to enable us to be faithful to the calling.
So we need not be distracted and we can't afford to be distracted
because he's reigning in this world.
I don't know your distraction, but my guess is family is part
of it. I don't know your distraction,
but I bet job money is part of it.
I don't know your distraction, but if it's mine, it's comfort
and calm and peace and can everybody get away from me for a
little bit? Not to speak person, never mind,
I don't know your distraction, but the Lord is saying to you,
why are you gazing into heaven? He is ruling, He will come
again. He is ruling.
Now let's go about the task of being my witnesses in the power
of the Holy Spirit, to be the church witnesses of Jesus Christ
in 321, in your family and community, in the surrounding
areas and to the whole world. Let's pray together.
Gracious Lord Jesus, we thank You that you did not just wink
out of existence or that you didn't just pass away without
telling us, but rather You gave us the blessing of witnesses of
the disciples to see you ascend into heaven and to claim that
glory that the Father has blessed you with before the
creation of the world. Lord, we are grateful that You
have called us also to the task of witnessing to this world and
the opportunities that we have to be filled with Your Spirit,
empowered by your Spirit serving you as the Church, ministering
this world. Help us, Lord Jesus, to do that.
We are dependent, needy, needing you to do that, trusting You,
the reigning in heaven that you hear our prayers.
And so, Lord, we pray that you would hear us as we pray the way
you taught us to pray. Our Father who aren't in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day Our Daily
Bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, and
lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.