Sermon - The Ascension of Jesus
The Ascension of Jesus
Acts 1:1-11
John Stott in his commentary of the book of Acts, rights, �It appears, then, that Jesus� two main topics of conversion between his resurrection and his ascension were the
The words of Jesus to his disciples �When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with power, and you will be witnesses for me in
The disciples received their commission as all of us do upon our conversion to Christ! Jesus� ministry is to continue through his followers with the same urgency that he expressed, and in the same power that he possessed! The emphasis of God through Luke is that Jesus is now in heaven and that from heaven he will return. ��he will remain in heaven until the time comes to make all things new�� says Peter on the day of Pentecost; It� s a time known only to God as Jesus had said to his disciples in the moments before his ascension.
In the early chapters of Luke�s book of the acts of the followers of Jesus, Luke will major on the ascension of Jesus to his glorified position at God�s right hand side in glory as he records the words of Peter in his first sermon on the day of Pentecost, �God has raised this very Jesus from death and we are all witnesses to this fact. He has been raised to the right-hand side of God his Father, and has received from him the Holy Spirit, as he had promised.� The Holy Spirit was to be poured out, not on one or two special people as in the Old Testament, but on all who wish to follow and serve Christ in continuing his ministry on earth. (Acts
What is God stressing through Luke�s account of the words of the angels who spoke with the disciples after Jesus had been taken from their sight? He is stressing that we must not be a people looking up with our heads in the clouds waiting for the return of Jesus in despair, but a people getting on with the mission of Jesus to spread the Good News of the gospel to the whole world! The commentary of John Stott on the words of the angels when they said �Men of
There was something fundamentally irregular about the way the disciples stood gazing up into heaven when they had been given the great task to go out to the whole world with the message of Jesus. They were meant to be preoccupied with their witness not standing around stargazing. Their vision of the returning Jesus was meant to be their motivation to reach out in compassion with the message of the love of God in Christ Jesus to a lost world which needed him! The same is true for us! Too much curiosity about heaven and the end times and seasons can distract us from our God-given mission. There is a work to be done in the power of the Holy Spirit as we wait for the personal, highly visible and glorious return of Jesus.
One last quote from John Stott is important. �The remedy for unprofitable spiritual stargazing lies in a Christian theology of history, an understanding of the order of events in the divine programme. First, Jesus returned to heaven (Ascension). Secondly, the Holy Spirit came (Pentecost). Thirdly, the church goes out to witness (
As in the sketch earlier in the service where the young teenager was not listening, hearing, or obeying the voice and wishes of his Mother, and in the video clip we are about to see, we can be so wrapped up in our world, and in our church life, that we are not hearing from Jesus that there is a vital work to be done, a work only we can do, of reaching out to the unsaved! (Show 3 min Video �Family Outing�)
There is a cartoon strip to illustrate the dilemma that all of us find ourselves in from time to time. In this cartoon strip there are basically two camels talking to one another. There is a mother camel and there is her three-year-old child. And like any three-year-old child this young camel begins asking her mother a lot of questions and so she begins by saying, �Mum, why I have these huge two-toed feet? The mother replies, "When we go across the desert, your toes will help you stay on top of the soft sand." "Okay, but why have I got these great long eyelashes" as she bats her eyelashes at her mother. And the mother replies, "They will keep the sand out of your eyes on trips through the desert." And then she asks again, "Thanks, but what about this big hump on my back?" And mum, starting to show a little exasperation at this point says, "You know, they help us to store water during our long treks across the desert." "Okay" the child says. "So we have these huge feet to keep us from sinking in the desert, long eyelashes to keep the sand out of our eyes and humps to store water. But I have just one more question." "Yes, what is it" says the mother. And the artist pans out in the last frame and you see the child turning to her mum and saying, "Well what in the world are we doing in the London Zoo?"
Yes, we are designed by God for church, for the Christian community, but we are also designed for the vital task of spreading the good news about Jesus through word and deed! We are not designed to live sheltered lives huddled up together with no concern for those outside about to be separated from the love of God for all eternity. We perhaps need a fresh vision of lost souls dangerously close to the edge of a cliff and about to fall off into Hell. We need to feel the Father heart of God and weep as he weeps over those not yet reached with the good news of Jesus. God waits to empower us by his Spirit so that the world might be amazed! The potential of every believer is world transforming!
All of us are tempted to do what those early disciples did, which was basically to look into heaven for another word from Christ, a new revelation, a fresh sense of His instruction, when Christ has already given us our instruction for living, and we need to come down off the mountain, and engage the world in the time in which God has placed us in, in order that we might make a difference in other peoples lives and build the kingdom of God. That is the task of this church and every church!
What tumultuous time it had been for these disciples! After the cross they might have been disillusioned, grief stricken, but the resurrection and ascension changed all that!
With the anointing of God upon them, the disciples became an incredibly focussed team charged with evangelising the whole world and they were not fazed by that daunting task, and neither should we be. Theirs was the whole world and ours is only our locality, our friends, our neighbours and relatives, although someone hear today may be receiving a call to consider work abroad.
There has been a TV commercial recently, with many well known actors taking part, urging us to get involved with the �Make Poverty History� campaign; it ends with the slogan �You can change the world�. We should prayerfully consider getting involved with such things, but only the message of Christ, that we have been commission to spread, can really change our world, because the gospel is heart changing and deals with the underlying cause of suffering and poverty, the corrupt sinful hearts of men and women!
The disciples were given great joy and had shared with Jesus not a brief moment between resurrection and ascension, but 40 days of life changing, life clarifying, continuous ministry of Jesus. They received many convincing proofs that Jesus was really alive! We have had many convincing proofs of how Jesus is very much alive to day during this last year at ABC. Looking back over the last year one can see the increasing joy many have in your hearts, joy that fills this place every time we gather to worship, joy that radiates from faces around this congregation where before there had been sad faces. The transforming Spirit of the risen Christ has been with us, is with us now, and will be with us in the months ahead through continued faithfulness. The Spirit of God is here to empower our lives. He is here to brighten our every moment and to transform the lives of those God is calling to himself through the witness of this congregation! We need to be Spirit filled, supernaturally living, life transforming, resurrected Jesus revealing witnesses! Amen!
Because Jesus is glorified in heaven the Spirit of God has been poured out in fulfilment of the prophet Joel. �This is what I will do in the last days, God says: I will pour out my Spirit on everyone.�
The appearance of Jesus may have ended for the disciple and for us, but the presence of Jesus continues in the form of the power-giving Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity of the Godhead. I know Jesus lives in me, because at times I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit surging through me like an electric current when I am praising Jesus with others, reading his word, when I am praying with my brothers and sisters in the family of God, and when I am witnessing to those seeking the meaning of life!
We have the promise of presence! We also have the promise of power! It�s the Holy Spirit�s enabling and anointing that each of us needs for effective service for the
The disciples were given the promise of his presence, the promise of his power and the promise of his second coming, his �Parousia�. ( Original Greek) �This same Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way that you saw him go to heaven.� (Acts 1:11)
All of this was enough to energise the disciples and it should energise us. It filled them with hope as it should fill us with hope. What was given to the disciples when Jesus returned to heaven is available for us today, nothing less and nothing more! We have a task to do in talking the message of Jesus around during the cause of our daily lives, and we have the presence and a power of Jesus to experience for that task, and a coming Jesus to inspire us!
Getting on with the task of spreading the Good News is the order of the day. Jesus is knocking at the door of our lives with a shopping list of souls to save and good works to express. Are we hearing that voice? Are we hearing that call? Are we excited about his return and is that driving us forward in seeking those that God is calling to himself?
We need to be a people moving in the dynamic of God, moving in the supernatural of the unseen world. I believe God is going to do that for ABC! God might have something coming that turns our world upside-down. That scares me, �will I be able to cope�, I cry, but that's okay as we are a people with the banner over us that says, �I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me�. We can deal with what comes, but, we have got to be ready for change because we are in for a great adventure, and the way we get ready for God�s new plan for ABC is by expecting God to work, by being ready for change and by being filled with the Holy Spirit so we can enter into greater power ministry!
As one preacher put it, �The Spirit empowers us, first of all, to be God�s people. Secondly, he empowers us to be transformed into witnesses who are faithful and holy. Thirdly, he empowers us to resist evil. But fourthly the Spirit also empowers us to do the work God calls us to do. We simply cannot do these things alone.�
We have been called to take the gospel to whole world! That world for us might be neighbour, friend, or relative, for others it might be wider call on our lives. Which ever it is, are we hearing his voice? Jesus wants us to set the world on fire for him! (Show 1 min Video Clip �Light up the world�)
Perhaps we need a fresh baptism of fire today. May our hearts cry be, �Lord, fill me afresh with your Spirit today!� We need to understand the terms �Baptism in the Spirit or �Being filled with the Spirit�. It is vital for God�s people to known and experience the power of God working through them, in what might be these final few years before Jesus returns! May today�s message bring you the desire for a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit for your service for God, as we need to be filled afresh every day, or may it begin a search in you to enquire of God for the baptism in the Spirit, so that you can exercise the supernatural gifts that Jesus himself ministered in on earth. That power is to make us effective witnesses!
The ascension of Jesus is about his glorification and rising to the place of all power at his Father�s right-hand side, but it�s also about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that his mission can continue here on earth through us!
Reflection Song: �Spirit of the living God fall afresh on me�
17/4/05
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