Please remain standing and turn in your Bibles with me. We're looking at Acts. We're looking at, sorry, in Acts chapter 1. We'll be reading verses 6 through 11. Acts 1, beginning in verse 6. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has 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 and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 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. Thus far, the reading of God's word. Please be seated. This morning I've taken a little bit of liberty and moved from the resurrection to the ascension. Without the resurrection, you could have no ascension, but I wanted us to speak on the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ and why it is so essential. In C.S. Lewis' book, The Horse and His Boy, we meet this young boy named Shasta. He lives in a fishing village with his father, who is a fisherman. But his father is extremely abusive towards Shasta. And so his big dream, as any young person abused, is to leave, to get out, to get out of his situation. He wants to leave his village. He wants to go make his life somewhere else and some better place. And so one day he saddles up his horse and he sets out on a journey that is going to be a series of adventures. And he becomes, he sees these series of surprises. First of all, I mean, his horse can talk. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. He finds that his horse is able to talk to him. He finds that he gets to this land called Narnia, so you know where this is going, and he finds out that he was actually born in this land, and that when he was a baby, he was taken out of this foreign land and adopted by this terrible fisherman. And so, he finds out that the life that he had been living is not actually how his life began. And that he is a citizen of this other foreign kingdom, this foreign land. His biological parents were actually royalty in Narnia, and he is the rightful heir to the throne. How wonderful to go from being this child in a terrible place, being abused, being mistreated, and to find out that you are actually royalty. Being told that you are royalty, that you didn't know it, It's hard to believe. It's hard to believe, I guess, unless maybe you're a part of it. You know, these are the things of glamorous people. These are the things of the rich. These are the things of the famous. These are the other people, the people that we look at them and we have to tell ourselves, you know, they're just miserable anyway with all of that money, even though I wish I was miserable too with all of that money. We have to tell ourselves this because it's not us. It's not our lives. We were not born in royalty. But the ascension of Jesus Christ after his resurrection tells us something very different. And I think it's May 26. It's not even for a month now, which is the ascension day on the Christendom calendar that we don't follow too much. This, I thought, would be a good time for us to look at this as He appears to His disciples for some 40 days after His actual resurrection. And it tells us that there's this thing that happened, is that He actually ascends into heaven. And that's where we get the word to the ascension. He rises, he leaves us, and they watch him actually leave and go and disappear into heaven. we read the Apostles' Creed, which is a summary of what Christians everywhere actually believe. And as we look at the Apostles' Creed, we realize that the fourth, one-fourth of the creed is actually about Jesus' ascension and what he ascended to do, the whole purpose of his ascension. And it's probably not what we talk about a whole lot, The creed talks about how, it talks about God the Father and then Jesus born, died on the third day, rising again. And then it says he ascends into heaven where he sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. And from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. There's a lot going on there with this ascension after his resurrection. And this is what I wanted to talk about today. And we see this in chapter 1 of Acts, starting in verse 6, and I think we read down to verse 11. Can you imagine the scene of these apostles watching Jesus speaking to them? He's gathered them around and he begins to teach those who were gathered around him. And remember, like as we've been going through John, just the utter sadness and fear that they had been going through, and now here Jesus is with them after his death, and every one of them saw him dead. The finality of that, and here he is speaking to them after the resurrection, talking with them, teaching them. You know, I don't even know if they, how could you even listen or understand? They had to have been just absolutely blown away at this point. The fact that Jesus was there teaching them after his own death. He's talking to them about the future. He's talking to them about promises. This is the Jesus who actually died, he rose again, and he is now with them in his very glorified body. And he's teaching. them and he teaches us. And as they're listening to what he's teaching, as he's speaking, and at that point, he begins to levitate and just go up into the clouds. I mean, what a strange thing to witness. And where is he going? Two men all of a sudden show up, and they say, he hasn't left. He's gone, but he's gonna return. He's left, but he's gonna return in the very same way. Why do you look up as if he's up in the skies? No, he's returned to heaven, and it's important that he said that, because I mean, if Jesus just kept going up and up and up, where does he go? I mean, there are satellites that are just going and going and going and going, And Jesus hasn't just been going up into the sky for 2,000 years. It's important that he says he actually entered into heaven. It didn't say he just went up into space and just started flying through the universe. No, he entered into heaven. He went to this place where the Lord dwells. And he says, And they are saying, well, we would prefer him here. But he says, I'm going to heaven. And as much as we've been looking through John and how important it was so that he could hit that spirit, Jesus went to heaven. And the reason he went to heaven is because of the things that he's doing, the work that he continues to accomplish right now. As we sit here today, he is in heaven doing this work. He went there first to intercede for us. That's what He does. He intercedes. And He also went there to rule over the heavens and the earth. Think about these two major works that Jesus does after the resurrection. As He ascends, He intercedes for you now. Now to intercede for someone, it means to advocate for somebody. One of the most important parts of our criminal justice system is that an accused person has a right to have counsel if they can't afford. And somebody might say, well, I'm going to represent myself. And that is the most ridiculous thing you could possibly do. Any good judge would look at them and say, you would actually perform open heart surgery on yourself? I mean, these are people that do this for a living. The criminal justice system and the legal system is extremely complicated. There's many layers to it. And you have to know it, and you have to be in it for years and years to truly understand it. And you're going to represent yourself? You need an advocate. You need somebody standing there for you knowing, because if you miss the wrong documents, if you don't say the right things, if you go to these places, how many times does somebody go to that very first, you know, that first hearing of the plea hearing, I think is what it's called, and they get up there and they start telling the judge, no, I didn't do it. And he goes, stop, stop, stop. Guilty or not guilty. Those are the only two things you're allowed to say, guilty or not guilty. But they're like, but no, I want to speak and say all this stuff. No, no, no, no. The justice system is complicated. You have to have an advocate. Just think, we're talking, those are earthly things. Those are complicated, earthly things that the lawyer and the advocate will help you through. Imagine spiritual things. Imagine the things that are truly spiritual that are eternal. I would think you would need an advocate. You need an advocate to get you through the very system of eternity. This is what Jesus does. He is in heaven as your eternal advocate, working on your behalf on things that, let's be honest, you don't necessarily understand all that well. You might say, I read the Bible. I kind of understand spiritual things. I get it. On what level? on a very small scale. No, the one who knows it the most, the one who is the one who is able to enter into the eternal criminal justice system, the one who knows everything about it, he is the one who is a perfect prophet, the priest, the king. He understands the system better than anybody else because he developed the system. And He is the one that can actually go in and do the work necessary for you eternally. How much greater? That's what He does. That's what the resurrection and the ascension brings into your lives is Jesus' ability to do all of that work that is so complicated. You're not representing yourself. How impossible is that? Especially as we live in a day and age where Christians kind of think they have to represent themselves. We live in a very individualistic spiritual world where we just have to do things on our own. Jesus is saying you cannot do it on your own. You can't represent yourself. You must be represented by Jesus and you have a perfect advocate in him. Jesus is at the right hand of God the Father as your advocate, doing the work necessary, that behind-the-scenes work. He has taken up our cause. He's working for our good in the very heavenly courts. This is what the ascension has done. And that's what the great theologian, writer, Augustine, tells us that he talks three aspects of this intercession. He talks about Jesus praying for us. That's what Jesus does. He prays for us. Thankfully, we have Jesus praying for us because, you know, depending on how much we pray, we need somebody praying for us. But not only does he pray for us, I mean, not only is he asking that the Lord would bless us, He is praying through us. That means that when we pray, His prayers are actually coming through us as we pray. And then the third aspect is that we are actually praying to Him. There's this interaction in this intercession where He's praying for us, He's praying through us, and we are praying to Him. How amazing is that? To think that when we are praying, because let's be honest, when we pray, however often that might be, it's usually when something bad is happening, but when we pray, we don't, I'll tell you why we don't pray very much. Because we don't think it's very effective. Because we don't actually think something's really happening. Can you imagine if you had the mindset that, I know for a fact that when I pray, Jesus is interceding through my prayers, and I know for a fact that this is, something is truly happening through this prayer. Imagine if that would just change our prayer life, just knowing that we're not praying alone. That's the problem, we think that we have to conjure up something in our prayers. Lord, if I do this, then will you do this for me? Like there's always this interaction with that. No, it's just simply this. We pray, the Lord prays through us. And it's legitimate, real, something is truly happening through Him. He is interceding for us in our prayers. We think that the whole burden of prayer is upon our shoulders. We have to say the right things, talk about the right stuff, and then all of a sudden God is going to do something for us. It's not how it works. Jesus is interceding. He is praying through us. That's comforting to me. That's comforting to me that my prayers are never in vain because Jesus makes something of them. Jesus is always making something of our prayers, no matter how small, no matter how simple, he's working through our prayers. And that's something that he's doing in heaven because of the ascension. That's what he's doing. But also Jesus went to heaven to rule. Jesus went to heaven to show and to demonstrate that he has authority over heaven and over earth. In Psalm 2, which we read, he pulls back the curtain on what is happening in the spiritual realm. And notice the tension that's going on there. The rest of the world is trying to break from the chains of God. It's trying to establish its own kingdom. It's trying to make for itself. And this is what we do. Who's really the ruler of our hearts? That's the fight, isn't it? We want to rule our own hearts. We want to rule our own kingdoms. And what does the Lord do? He sits, and he looks down at the earth, and he sees all of these kingdoms being built up, whether they're internal, we're doing it ourselves, we do it in our families, we make all of these in organizations, and we rise up against God's kingdom. And what does he do? He sits, and he looks down, and he sees it, and he laughs. Oh, you fools. Oh, you fools to make your own kingdoms to do as you please outside of my control. He sits in the heavens and he laughs. When it talks about wrath and burning and getting all excited, you know what He's saying? He's saying, your kingdom will crumble. Whatever it is outside of me, your kingdom will fail. It has to fail because any kingdom, think about this, any kingdom that rises up against God's kingdom, how much power can it truly have? How much sway can it really have in life? And he's saying, he's sitting in the heavens and he's laughing, and he says, your kingdom is no kingdom. It's foolish. And if it's even just in my sight, it's like light and darkness. The light comes and there is no darkness. It's gone and it's whisked away. And that's what every kingdom is outside of the Lord. And that's why he says, why? Why in vain do you fight against my kingdom? What is you realize how pointless that is? You make all of these kingdoms for yourself, and here there's this benevolent king who sends his most precious son, and he establishes the greatest of all kingdoms as he ascends into heaven, sitting at the right hand of God, and he is ruling with love and mercy, compassion, and he cares, and you fight against this. When we build our own kingdoms, and any kingdom, anything apart from God, it's a waste. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of effort. You think you're doing something wonderful, and at the end of the day, it turns into nothing, because we cannot build anything. that is truly eternal. And that's what Jesus has done is he's built the very eternal kingdom which will last forever. It will never be like that sandwich that sits in your refrigerator for months and months and months. Even though I did have a calzone from five days ago. Have you ever done that? You get a calzone and you're like, you got some meat on it and you're like, how many days can this really last? And then they say three to four and then you go, I can fudge a little. But the month after month after month sandwich? No, I'm good. It's not. The kingdom of God is eternal. It lasts forever. And that's what he's doing in heaven and he is building this eternal kingdom. God is building something that is indescribably glorious. And, you know, He built it from the very beginning back in Genesis as He establishes Adam and his kingdom, and He makes him this vice-regent to represent all of humanity, and He's giving him dominion over the entire world, and then, of course, Adam falls, and we all fall, and now we just have this view of dominion where we have to build stuff and make stuff, which is all good. But all of that outside of building it, under the very guidance, protection, the very love and the care of the Lord Jesus Christ, of God the Father, of His Son and the Holy Spirit. Any kingdom, any dominion that we take outside of that is useless. Why? Because Christ has ascended and He sits in the heavens. And he sits at the right hand of God the Father, and he is ruling over all things. And would he do anything different? As he would look down, what would Jesus do to all of those who are building these kingdoms outside of himself? And what would he do? He would sit in the heavens, and he laughs. And he's saying it is pointless for you to build any kingdom outside of himself. He is there to rule under God's authority. He is building according to God's Word. He's building according to God's glory. Where Adam failed, where Adam rebelled, where Adam could not build that kingdom, Jesus Christ is doing it and he's doing it perfectly. He was faithful. He was obedient even to the point of death. And then he was vindicated by the resurrection. And then he was ascended into heaven and he comes as the perfect God. It was always God's intention to have a king. The king of heaven and earth was going to be a human. He was going to be the perfect human. It was supposed to be Adam. but here is Jesus, the perfect God-man. Recognize it's not just saying, you might just say, well Jesus was always in charge, not as the God-man. Jesus is actually being placed as the very authority over heaven and earth that was not a position he had prior to becoming a man. And now he sits, just think about this, Think about this. The one who reigns over heaven and earth, you're gonna say, well, it's God. Yeah, it's the God-man. A man, just so you recognize how wonderful this is. Is it an angel that rules over heaven and earth? Is it another creature that runs over, that rules over heaven and earth? No. What? What species, what rules over heaven and earth? It is a man, just like you. just like you and one day you will be glorified and you will reign in heaven and on earth just like him. That's what's so fascinating about this. You can't say that just it's some entity out there that rules and has control over me. No, you're gonna say it's somebody that is just like me. That's what the ascension is. The ascension places a man upon the throne. And we know it's not just any man. It is the glorious, most perfect God-man, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, who was slain, rose again, who ascended, was given the very seat of power and glory and honor. And if you're in Christ, It is just like a father or a mother who has the very authority to give you the inheritance that he has. He is a king who can build a kingdom, and he is a king who does build his kingdom. See, what he's saying is something along the lines of what David said so long ago. He says that your house and your kingdom, what God says to David, your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. And that's what Jesus has been doing from the very beginning, building this throne, building this kingdom, establishing himself as the ruler over all these things. It's hard to believe, isn't it? It's hard to believe that being united to Christ is being united to a family of a kingdom that is being built up together as one body, one people, for this one purpose, to glorify God, to enjoy Him forever, to enjoy all of the benefits that come through the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what it's all about. And his ascension is how he is doing this. That's why in the beginning of our reading in Acts 1, the disciples being confused, they say to him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Notice, that's what he says right there. Are you going to restore now that you've been raised from the dead? Is it now the time that you're going to restore this kingdom? They were looking for it, right? No, it's much bigger than you can ever imagine. It's not just about a kingdom of Israel, a kingdom here. This is about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the whole world. And now that's what's happening. Jesus, as he sends out the apostles and the disciples to proclaim the gospel, they're building the kingdom. We're in that process right now of the Lord doing all of this work. He didn't go to heaven because he was finished, because he says, oh, I'm all done, my work is complete. No, he went to heaven to show the very magnitude of the work that he is doing. And we can see it, because all across the world, thousands, millions, billions are submitting and have submitted to the Lord Jesus Christ over the last couple thousand years. And he's not just making disciples, he's doing all kinds of things in the world. There's this interesting book that was, I think it came out in like 2018, it was called Factfulness. The author presents this compelling case that a lot of the things in the world are actually getting better. We're so used to just people talking about the world. The world is falling apart. Everything is getting worse. It's just terrible. He's saying, actually, if you look, I mean, when I was born in 1979, the life expectancy rate was something like 70 years old. Today, it is at like 77. I think that's just for the guys. The girls are like 97. I mean, girls live way longer than guys do, but the life expectancy of humanity is getting better. The technology is getting better. Life, they're saying we're getting richer. People are becoming more comfortable. And we're sitting here and we're saying, if these numbers show that the world is getting better, why do we struggle so often to believe that the eternal kingdom of Jesus is getting worse? I'm like, really? Jesus came to build his church. Jesus came to establish a kingdom. And we just talk, there's all this talk about things are just falling apart. We've left our roots. People are, no, Jesus is building his kingdom. And how do we know? Because he ascended into heaven. Because he is interceding. Because he is ruling heaven and earth. Because that's his business. And why would we deny that? Why would we say, oh, Jesus is sitting up in the earth, or sitting up in heaven, and he's freaking out, and he's looking down and going, ah, ah, how dare you people not do what I said? No, he sits in the heavens, and he laughs, and he says, I am building this church, and I am taking, I already have taken over everything. He has complete control. He's saying, and He's saying to you, church, He's saying, you have this authority as well. You are going to represent me. You're going to go and you're going to do my work with my power because you have my Holy Spirit. See, He always includes us, and that's the wonder of all of this. He ascends into heaven, and He says, I'm sending out my Spirit to my church, and you are included in this work that He is doing. And so, He tells us, the ascension also tells us, this is what we get to do. We get to go to our Father, and who is in heaven. And this is the fascinating part in all of this. Because even if you're like me, at my age, you would think at this point my parents would respect me and they would think that, you know, don't treat me like a child anymore. I'm sorry, you're always gonna be treated like a child to your parents. Like, your parents are always gonna treat you like a child. They just always do. Like, there's just this, there's this connection. And sometimes it's kind of nerve-wracking even going to your parents. Going to your mom or your dad, whatever age you are, and you're always like, you're still kind of on edge, and you're like, I gotta say the right word, I gotta act the right way. And this is, it's this funny concept of even going to your parents, but this here is going to a father even if it brings us to a little fear. And as we look at the Old Testament, we think that God is some kind of angry, malicious father, just brow-beating, you know? But the Ascension tells us the exact opposite. It says that we no longer have to be afraid to go to our Father, because Jesus ascended to His Father. He sits at the right hand of His Father. And if we're in Christ, and if he's our advocate, it means we have all the access to our Heavenly Father. It means that as if we're sitting there with Christ, with that ability to be there, and welcomed to be there. We come with Jesus, in a sense, to the Father in heaven. We're there because he is there, and we have the right to be there. So often to get our children to go in the pool, we have to get in the pool with them, don't we? Like we can just say, get in there, jump. And they're like, uh-uh. Well, you can throw them in there. That's going to be interesting, something I might do. You could, but the best way. to get your kids in the pool. As you get into the pool and you get excited and you're there with them, Jesus is up there with our Father in heaven. And He's saying, you have all of the access to come here. When you pray, you are entering into that very realm with the Lord Jesus Christ. Just like that. It's interesting that the New Testament has these great promises. In 2 Timothy we read, it says that if we died with Him, then we'll also live with Him. If we endure, we'll also reign with Him. I mean, that's the idea is you're reigning with him. You're entering in the very work that Jesus is doing by submitting all of the little kingdoms that are rising up around us. And I think it changes our view of the Christian life in a couple of ways. The first is that it breaks down our worldly identities a little bit. We're all involved with organizations and groups, and we all try to identify ourselves with particular social groups and whatnot, and we have these little identifications, but we recognize that there's something deeper in our true identity in Christ. In Psalm 2, we get to identify as those who are not the ones rising up against God. We identify ourselves as those who have kissed the Son, who have humbled ourselves and bowed down to Him. And all of the world, all Christians across the country and all of the world are doing the very same thing. They are kissing the Son. They are bowing down to Him. And we identify ourselves with that. But it also makes our faith to be much more about just getting saved and getting our ticket punched to heaven. Because that's just not how it is. For a lot of American Christians, our view of salvation is, you know, we either walked down an aisle, we said some kind of prayer, and if we did it right, and if we did it at the right place, then we're good to go. But I have friends, I have quite a few friends that they'll tell you that they became Christians years ago. But they don't find a lot of time to go to church. It's hard for them to find time to gather with other Christians. They barely ever would even consider reading their Bibles. They probably pray only when they really need to, but the Ascension tells us that what they are missing out is that Christ rules now and they have access to all of those things now. They have access to the very means of Christianity today. It's not like, get saved back then and just wait until your ticket's already punched and just wait to get there. No, they have access to the very kingdom now. and what it really means to be a Christian, what it means to truly have dominion over the earth in Christ and ruling and reigning with Him and working to bring everything on earth into obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what you get It's almost like you get to sit with the Lord Jesus and laugh as all of these other kingdoms are being built up. You are a part of the greatest kingdom that is truly eternal with the greatest advocate, with the greatest intercessor. This is the life you have now and it's all because of the ascension. Let's remember this great privilege that we have as Christians. Let's remember the ascension and take advantage of that for Christ's sake. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this resurrection season. We thank you for the ascension of Christ. We thank you, Lord, for all the benefits that we have in Christ. And we ask, Lord, that you would bless this day. Bless our fellowship together. Bless our worship. And Father, may we bless the Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask this in Christ's name, Amen.