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2008-05-04pm Acts 1:1-11 Witnesses to the World
The ascension of Jesus into heaven has been described as one of the most important events in history.
Some say it is even more important than Christmas or Easter.
Of course they realise that without Christmas or Easter, there would be no Ascension Day.
What they are trying to say is this, the ascension of our Christ is important.
Even though we’re not celebrating the ascension on the actual Thursday, it is worth our time to study it.
The ascension tells us two things.
It informs us about Jesus and it relates a promise to us.
First, let us look at what the ascension tells us about Jesus.
After Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to his disciples, indeed to over 500 people during a period of forty days.
Now, at this point, the disciples were wondering what’s going on.
Jesus is here, but what’s next?
By now, they’ve all recognised Jesus, and at various times he’s proven that he’s real.
No, really this is important.
Jesus’ appearance, which was both expected and unexpected, was amazing.
He could do things after His resurrection that He couldn’t do before.
He could appear and disappear at will.
He could enter locked buildings.
He could do things that were the same as before his death and resurrection.
He could eat and drink.
He could touch and be touched.
He was real, He was no ghost.
In this, he sure was different from Moses and Elijah at His transfiguration.
But what else happened during those 40 days?
Well, we know that he told the disciples to stay in Jerusalem.
We know he told them to expect the arrival of the Holy Spirit, an event that we’ll celebrate next Sunday morning.
He also instructed them to find someone to replace Judas.
But what else happened?
What was Jesus up to, before going up?
Most scholars believe that Jesus spent those forty days teaching the disciples about the kingdom of heaven.
In other words, Jesus taught them how to evangelise.
He taught them how to preach, how to teach.
He taught them how to tell the truth about Jesus and His ministry, which they’d seen with their own eyes!
Now, naturally the disciples would have been excited.
They remembered the times Jesus sent them out, (once just the 12, another time seventy disciples went out) with huge success, they were able to do the same things Jesus was doing.
They cast out demons, they healed people!
They called the people to repentance and faith.
Don’t you think they were excited to do those same things?
And now they had a greater story to tell!
They had to tell people about Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Now, we know that the healings were a big part of Jesus’ ministry.
But they were not the main point of his ministry.
We tend to focus on that because, well, we don’t see that kind of stuff anymore, or we’re so accustomed to the success of pharmaceutical healing that we don’t give those healings much thought anymore.
But the main focus of Jesus’ ministry was preaching.
Jesus at almost every opportunity was preaching and teaching, even in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was teaching his disciples.
Now, Jesus wants them to be clear about their ministry.
Their ministry was to preach the good news!
Oh, healing and miracles still happened, make no mistake.
We know that Peter and John healed a crippled man.
We know that Paul raised a young lad from the dead.
Other miracles happened as well, but those accounts serve to show the apostle’s authority.
Those miracles, just like Jesus’ miracles served to demonstrate who they were, who Jesus was, that their authority came from Christ.
But the main point of their ministry, the very thing that Jesus spent 40 days on earth before ascending to heaven was to teach His disciples how to share the good news.
Can you imagine learning evangelism from Jesus! Well we do, but we’ll get there in a bit.
So, having ascended into heaven, we must ask also, how did that help?
Jesus pronounces, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
So, if he has all power and authority, why is he going away?
Why isn’t he taking over?
Where’s the angelic army?
They helped out Elisha, delivering the Aramean army right into the king’s hands, so where are they now?
Why aren’t they surrounding Jerusalem?
Don’t you think the disciples would have been ready to do some marching around Jerusalem, a la Joshua?
Come on, now is the time to kick out the Romans!
Jesus, you just said that you have all power and authority!
Let’s get cracking!
Hey Peter, don’t you still have that sword you used on Malchus?
But Jesus took that time to make them ready for reality.
There will be a second coming.
His time is not now.
Yes, he does have all power and authority, but the time is not yet arrived for His final conquest.
But there’s more to Jesus’ ascension.
Yes, we’re still looking at how the ascension informs us about Jesus.
Jesus’ ascension shows that His death and resurrection was pleasing in God’s eyes.
God was glorified in it.
God the Father accepted Jesus’ sacrifice.
And the sacrifice was sufficient to save all whom the Father has given to the Son.
Therefore, we have confidence in Christ!
We know that His faithfulness, His obedience, His love was perfect.
His sacrifice has brought life to all who repent, believe and receive!
We also know where Jesus is.
He has ascended, He is sitting at the right hand of God the Father.
But did you notice the significance of Jesus physical ascension?
The disciples were able to see him ascend up, and up until a cloud covered him from their sight.
Jesus ascended with his body.
The same body he was born with, but also at the same time a new body.
Jesus body was changed, it was made new in the resurrection, it was, as I’ve already mentioned, able to do things that our physical bodies are unable to do.
Jesus physically ascended and, it says, he is sitting at God’s right hand.
This is very good news.
This means that we too will be resurrected.
We too will be with Jesus, and our physical bodies as well!
Our bodies will be changed, purified, cleansed, made holy and perfect.
And, as we’ve seen already in Ephesians, we’ll be sitting with Jesus in heaven, in fact, the apostle Paul says that we’re already sitting with Him!
This is great news!
All these things not only inform us about Jesus, but they impact us, our lives.
And now we get to our second point.
Jesus’ promise to us.
Well, the promise is on different levels.
We have the promise that Jesus will send us the Holy Spirit.
The reason that Jesus didn’t want the disciples to take off and start doing the ministry he commanded them to do, is because they were not perfectly prepared.
You see, while Jesus was on earth, he was with his disciples.
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