The Ascension
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
This morning we look at the forgotten work of Christ.
That is really how I view the ascension.
When it comes to the First Coming of Christ, that is what the Ascension really is.
We stop at Christmas and make sure to rejoice in the birth of Christ, as we should.
We stop at Good Friday to remember His sinless life that was sacrificed in death.
We stop at Easter to stand on the resurrection and proclaim the grave is empty.
But rarely to do we stop forty days later to remember the fact that Christ ascended.
“Christ’s ascension is one of the more forgotten doctrines by evangelicals.” -Albert Mohler
And yet, it should not be this way. The Scriptures show us the importance of Christ’s rising into heaven.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
This is a passage that tells us of Christ’s first coming.
His birth: emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men
His life: though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped
His death: he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross
But the passage does not end there.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
He has resurrected and ascended to the right hand of the Father, the place of exaltation, and gave Him the name of Lord and He will remain there until He returns—which is exactly what the angels will tell the apostles in this passage today.
We cannot end the story of Christ’s first coming with the resurrection, but that is so often what we do.
And what we miss is the finishing of Christ’s first Advent.
He sat down at the right hand of the Father because the work was done.
He took His title of Lord and now creation and the church and the Spirit who dwells in us, await the day when He returns and every tongue will confess to the glory of God the Father.
It is certain that Christ fought and overcame all his enemies: he gave them the last blow upon the cross, he seized on the spoil at his resurrection, and led them in triumph at his ascension into heaven, and by his peaceable possession of his throne his subjects enjoy the benefit of all.
Thomas Boston
This passage today gives us that certainty that the enemies of Christ are overcome.
They are decimated and defeated by the Cross.
The spoils of victory belong to God’s children through the resurrected Son.
And the triumphal procession to hold that victory out for the church and the world to see was when Christ ascended into heaven
But without the ascension, there is no procession.
The last chapter of the first Advent is incomplete.
If not for His position of exaltation, we might be left wondering what happened to the resurrected Jesus? Can we even trust in Him to be saved?
But the ascension leaves us sure of the double-conquering we have in the resurrection Savior who is seated on high.
We pick up where we left off last week.
This is the overlap with the end of Luke.
We saw the repeated account of Jesus’ disciples being commissioned for the work of building the church.
They are to go be witnesses, beginning in Jerusalem.
And they will wait there for the Holy Spirit.
We focus on verses 9-11 this morning and consider how:
The Ascension shows us that Christ is alive and exalted (v. 9)
The Ascension shows us that Satan is defeated (v. 9, 11)
The Ascension shows us that the ministry of Christ continues (v. 10-11)
ALIVE AND EXALTED (v. 9)
ALIVE AND EXALTED (v. 9)
Verse 9 gives us facts of the events of physical ascension of Christ. Luke says that “he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.”
This is much more detail than we got from Luke in the final chapter of his gospel.
While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.
Already, from Luke alone, we have two different ways of describing the Ascension.
“A cloud took him out of their sight”
“carried up into heaven”
The different descriptions keep coming in Acts.
beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”
he was taken up from us
that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.
whom heaven must receive
Jesus also had His own way of talking about the ascension:
No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
So Jesus uses the straightforward “ascension” language
And then the rest of the New Testament writers had their own little phrases to refer to Christ’s being taken up into heaven:
Paul
In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul talks about how Christ was raised from the dead by God’s great might. And he also says that great might “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:20)
In Ephesians 4:10, Paul speaks of Jesus, “who also ascended far above all the heavens.”
As he wrote to Timothy in his first letter to his true son in the faith, Paul confesses the “mystery of godliness and says Jesus was “believed on in the world and taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16)
And Paul nods to it in Colossians 3:1, when he says to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”
Others
In 1 Peter 3:22, Peter says that Jesus Christ “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God.”
The author of Hebrews speaks about how Jesus is the Great High Priest who “has gone through the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14)
You can see that the New Testament is packed with references to the Ascension of Christ, just like it is packed with references to His life, death and resurrection.
That is because it is of major importance.
And in all of the different descriptions and in all of the different words used, the New Testament writers are all communicating the same thing to us—Christ is alive and exalted.
So that is our first teaching point this morning:
Teaching Point #1: The Ascension shows us that Christ is alive and exalted (v. 9).
Teaching Point #1: The Ascension shows us that Christ is alive and exalted (v. 9).
If Jesus had simply vanished one morning and disappeared, that would have been problematic for a couple of reasons:
One—His own words about Him ascending to heaven would not have come true and that would make Him a liar.
We know that Jesus doesn’t lie.
Two—His disciples would have been tempted to spend their time roaming the earth searching for Him
And what we will see in Acts is that they are not supposed to spending their time searching for the location of Jesus, but spreading the Good News of Jesus.
Instead, Jesus wanted His disciples to go out in the power of the Spirit, which I will get to in a moment—and He wanted them to go with absolute assurance that:
He is alive and authoritative.
If they see Him ascend, then they know that He has been taken up into glory, just as He said He would be.
They know they are not seeing Him die. They have already seen that. They know what that looks like. This is not that.
They are seeing Him be exalted. He is taking His rightful place as Lord. His place of authority.
The Old Testament promises are coming true:
You ascended on high,
leading a host of captives in your train
and receiving gifts among men,
even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there.
Jesus is being given His promised seat, where He will remain until His enemies are shattered and under His feet:
The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
The Lord is at your right hand;
he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
But until that day, the apostles are taking the message of the Kingdom from Jerusalem to the end of the earth.
And as they do this, the fact that they know Christ is alive and exalted ensures them of having Advocacy in heaven.
He is alive and the Advocate.
Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
As Peter and John and the apostles take to the world with the Word of God on their lips, they know that there is no accusation that can be brought against them that will separate them from God’s love.
You can beat them. You can try to stop them from preaching by putting them in prison. You can threaten their lives. You can even kill them.
But you can’t condemn them. There is an Advocate in heaven who has seen to it.
You can’t accuse them. The Accuser has already been thrown down in the first coming of Christ and we know that work is completed because The Advocate is in heaven interceding.
APPLICATION: All of this is true for you as well. You are on the same team as the apostles. You have the same Ascended Messiah seated at the right hand of God.
And what did He tell the Eleven?
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Go in light of My Authority.
And that is what we do. We go with His authority as the basis of the mission.
If He had not ascended, we would have no confidence about His authority.
We are not not Muslims who say that Muhammad ascended to heaven one night in Jerusalem and came back down the very same night.
And then, sometime later, he went and died like everyone else.
No—we are saying that Jesus died. He rose from the grave. And then after forty days of proving His aliveness, He ascended into heaven and took at seat at God’s right hand.
See—God’s right hand is important.
You left-handed people are not going to like this.
But the “right hand” was seen as the opposite of wrong. It was seen as the standard.
Do with that what you will.
And the right hand of the ruler became known as the place of honor.
To sit there meant you completely met the King’s standards in every way. You embodied the glory of the King.
The fact that Jesus sits there tells us that He is who He said He is. He is God in the flesh. He is the Second Person of the Trinity.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.
And in that authority, He sends us out.
And as you go, you go with the same confidence of being forgiven and wrapped up in God’s love as the apostles because He advocates for you from that place of sovereign authority.
Truly—if He is for us, who can be against us?
Look around you at the people God has placed in the orbit of your life.
Who needs an invite to church?
Who needs a Bible verse shared with them?
Who needs the Gospel?
Go give it to them, without fear, because He advocates for you.
He has all authority.
There is nothing to stop us from going.
It is the basis for the mission in Acts and it is the basis for the mission in your life.
SATAN IS DEFEATED (v. 9, 11)
SATAN IS DEFEATED (v. 9, 11)
As we keep moving along, I also think there is a spiritual warfare aspect to the Ascension and how it relates to our mission.
As Christ is ascending into heaven, he is putting the finishing piece of the puzzle in place for His first Advent.
He is securing Satan’s defeat.
I cannot help but draw a connection between our study of Revelation 12 on Wednesdays and what we are seeing in this passage.
In Revelation 12, the Old Testament Israel are depicted as a woman giving birth to a male child who will rule the nations. That is Jesus.
But Satan, the Dragon, is there, waiting to eat the offspring of the woman.
His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne,
He can’t devour the child. He tries, but he can’t do it.
So what does he do? He turns his anger on the woman.
And that is why the next verse depicts the New Testament church being hunted by Satan, but fleeing into the wilderness where she is nourished by the Lord throughout the age of the church.
and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
So what happened when the Dragon tried to eat the child? He was caught up to God and to His throne.
Here, John’s vision is depicting the ascension as encapsulating all of the work Christ did in His first coming.
Only the ascension is mentioned, but what is assumed is that if He ascended, He lived, died and resurrected as well.
It is His being caught up that signifies the work of the first Advent is done and Satan’s fate is sealed.
A fate that will come to pass when Christ gets up from the right hand of the Father and returns on clouds.
But for now, Satan is pursuing the church and we see that throughout Acts.
Everything is moving along for the first few chapters and then all of the sudden, the message of the Kingdom meets opposition:
And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.
Who is behind this opposition? We know. It is Satan.
Scripture teaches to look beyond the physical reality of things and realize that we are not at war with states and governments, but with the principalities behind those states and governments:
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
And the opposition is not just coming from the outside. Satan is seeking to destroy the church from within:
But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?
So as you read Acts and you see the apostles arrested and freed and you see preaching being responded to with persecution, you know it is the same Serpent who slithered into the Garden.
The same one that wound his way into the heart of Judas.
The one who stood and waited to murder the male, snake-crushing Child, born from Eve’s line.
He is hunting the church and seeking to destroy her.
In the first half of Acts he is using Saul as one of the main agents of persecution:
But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.
But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest
But then he is converted after meeting Christ on the Damascus Road and everything changes.
As soon as Christ’s message starts coming out of Saul’s mouth, the enemy turns the blade of persecution against him too:
When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.
And Paul recognizes this because as he tells of his conversion to Agrippa, he talks about how he was sent to the Gentiles to preach and see them turning from the power of Satan to the Lord:
delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
So that is what hangs over the entire narrative of Acts.
Just as Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness in Luke, he is hunting the church in the wilderness in Acts.
But Acts begins with an implied guarantee of his defeat:
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.”
He will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven
Just as He ascended, He will come again, and when He does, He will lay waste to the Serpent and anyone who has joined in on his rebellion against God.
And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
So in verse 11, we have this urging for them to go on mission in light of not just the Ascension, but in light of the fact that Jesus will return from heaven in the same way.
So as they go, they go with an assurance that Christ will come again and Satan, the Oppressor who is hunting them and seeking to halt the progress of the Gospel, is defeated.
It reminds me so much of Martin Luther’s famous hymn A Mighty Fortress is our God.
And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God has willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo! his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.
How is it that we do not fear the enemy who prowls like a lion seeking to devour us?
How is it that we tremble not for him or his demons who rage against the church?
Because we know his doom is sure.
One little word shall fell him—and that Word is the Word of God.
It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Word Incarnate.
The Word tells us that the Word will return. And the Word will see to it that the sure doom of Satan comes to pass.
APPLICATION: In the same way, as you leave from here and you go on your mission, you are operating in the same victory and in the same divine power.
The world of devils threatens to undo you as a member of Christ’s body, but their fate is sealed by Christ who has ascended into heaven.
You will still be hunted. Persecuted. Stretched. Attacked.
But you will not be abandoned.
And you will not be defeated.
God has willed that His truth, His Gospel truth, will triumph through His church.
So as you go on your mission for Christ, fulfilling your calling, be watchful of Satan, but do not tremble for Satan.
The Puritan Richard Sibbes says that when we go to pray, Satan knows we are going to get strength for our fight against him, so he wars against us all he can in our prayer lives.
Don’t tremble and say, “Well then, I won’t pray.”
Instead, be watchful as you pray, knowing he longs to distract you and cause you to doubt that you are even talking to God at all.
As you share your faith, Satan knows that attempts are being made to rescue people from his power. He will oppose this because his own power is what he loves the most.
Don’t tremble and say, “I just won’t share my faith.”
Instead, be watchful and prepare yourself the best you can for whatever rejection or question or reception you might receive as you invite someone to church, knowing that Satan lurks as the church witnesses.
But don’t disobediently neglect sharing your faith out of fear of him.
Fear God—he can kill the body and the soul.
Satan can only kill the body.
He is not worthy of your disobedience of God. He is not worthy of your fear.
He is a loser.
We have to watch him. He is dangerous.
But he has lost.
MINISTRY CONTINUES (v. 10-11)
MINISTRY CONTINUES (v. 10-11)
Let’s move toward landing the plan and focus on the instructions given to the apostles.
And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two 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.”
We can assume these are angels.
They remind the apostles that it is time to get to work and the work they are to do is specifically tied to Christ ascending into heaven.
“He has gone up. He will come again.”
Implied in that is that between these two events, the apostles have work to do.
It is the work of being witnesses from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, to the end of the earth.
Jerusalem is the geographical epicenter of the church.
It makes sense.
The New Covenant Community of the Jewish Messiah starts with Jewish people.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In Acts 1-12, you are mainly seeing the Gospel witness move from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria
But as you get into chapter 13, there is a clear momentum toward Rome.
Paul and Barnabas are commissioned and sent off by the prophets and teachers at Antioch and they head off on Paul’s first missionary journey.
They sail for Cyprus and the Gospel is on the move in the Roman Empire.
By the time you get to Acts 23, Paul’s face is set toward Rome, much like Jesus sets His face toward Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel.
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
The following night the Lord stood by him and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.”
3. The Ascension shows us the that the ministry of Christ continues (v. 10-11).
3. The Ascension shows us the that the ministry of Christ continues (v. 10-11).
Throughout Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is preaching one message—the message of the Kingdom.
The call to repent and believe.
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And as we read Acts, the church will do the same thing.
In Acts 2, the Spirit of the Lord will fall on the apostles, just as Jesus promised and God’s Spirit will continue on the work of God’s Son.
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
We will get more into the meanings of the tongues when we get to chapter 2, but for now, we see that Jesus’ promise-filled instruction to go to Jerusalem and wait for the Spirit has come to pass.
The Spirit is poured out on the apostles and then they build the church by taking the same good news that Christ proclaimed to Judea, Samaria and the end of the earth.
And Jesus actually told the apostles that this mission would be better off with Him gone and the Spirit’s anointing:
But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
How could that be?
Wouldn’t it be better for the apostles to have Jesus traveling around with them throughout Acts directing them and guiding them the way He did in the gospels?
Not according to Jesus.
Because while they were near Him in the flesh, He did not dwell in their hearts.
But in the gift of the Spirit, God dwells in the hearts of those who are spreading the news.
And then that Spirit helps believers spread the news with spiritual gifting that are given to the believer as a part of their new life in Christ.
He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
Do you see that? He who descended, ascended and that He might fill all things.
And the ascended Lord has sent the gift of His Spirit—the spoils of victory—to His people so that they could do the work of proclaiming the Gospel and building the church.
APPLICATION: And now you are sent out in the same way.
Where Acts ends, we pick it up.
We are charged with this same work in between the first and second coming of Christ.
To go in the power of the Spirit proclaiming the Good News and building the church, with the spiritual gifts He has given us.
He is on His throne in heaven, but His Spirit is empowering the mission in our hearts.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
Prophets cannot save us, psalmists cannot save us, philosophers cannot save us, politicians cannot save us, education cannot save us, nothing, no one can save us. There is only one who can—Jesus the Son of God.
Authentic Christianity (2), 93
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
And He has ascended on high and sits at the right hand of the Father.
He is alive and exalted.
Satan is defeated.
And His Spirit is with you on mission
His position has put you in position to be obedient and to be a part of God’s great plan to redeem the world
Keep your eyes fixed on Him
And He will keep His mission going through you
Until one day when the final one who will believe believes.
And then He will return. Maranatha.