I look back at the map section real quick just to see, you know, Judea, Samaria, Galilee, just, and on my way there to that Palestine in the time of Jesus map, I hit the Exodus and Israel under the 12 kingdoms. I thought, man, there's a lot of history here. And we get ready to sing. Moses wrote Psalm 90 with the Exodus probably around 4,000 B.C. and we're 2,000 A.D. I mean, that's 6,000 years ago, a long time, just a drop in the bucket in terms of everlasting. And Moses wrote it, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God and we sing it again today and nothing's changed. He is still everlasting and he is eternal. Let's stand together and sing about everlasting, eternal. Everlasting Everlasting Everlasting I'm changed by all the vanities of heaven And as the nations are rising for your sovereignty You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one With faithfulness your love extends Through the times and through the past Adopting those who call upon your name Every generation joins in songs of glory You are, you are, you are the one Everlasting. Everlasting. Eternal, eternal life. Eternal, eternal life. It's a long way to your heart. It's a long way to your heart. Everlasting, everlasting. You are everlasting You are everlasting You are God You are God You are God Above all else, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the good news about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again, or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the good news. Philippians 1. What is the truth that ever anchors me? It's the weight of all my guilt That Christ has shed His blood and part of me At the cross, at the cross He bore my sin, I bear His righteousness Oh, what grace, oh, what grace. Beyond the cross, there is no greater love. Heaven's son laid down his life for us. Oh, my soul would be lost with no hope to find. But for the cross, oh, God. How do I walk with humble confidence? I look to Christ, who is my peace. He's still my hope and my endurance. There is an ever-growing stream His cleansed blood Revives my soul again Oh, what grace Oh, what grace Revealed the cross There is no greater love Heaven's Son One day I'll stand before the King of Kings One day I'll see Him face to face Christ has won! Christ has won! Before the cross, there is no greater love. Heaven's Son laid down His life for us. All my soul will be lost with the Lord. Oh my soul would be lost without you my love. Oh, my soul would be lost with no home to find but for the cross of Christ, but for the cross of Christ. Come, behold the wondrous mystery in the dying of the King. In the theme of heaven's praises, broken, frail humanity. In our longing, in our darkness, now the light of life has come. Look to Christ, who now descended, to unfleshed, to ransomed us. Come behold the wondrous mystery, be the perfect subject. In His living, in His suffering, never trace nor stain of sin. See the true and better Adam, come to say the Alabama. Christ the great and sure fulfillment of the law in every sense. Christ the Lord, the God of the King. In the stead of ruined sinners, thanks of heaven and glory. See the rise of our redemption, see the Father's plan unfold, bringing many sons to glory, grace unmeasured, love untold. ♪ Behold the wondrous mystery ♪ ♪ Saved by death, the God of life ♪ ♪ Unknown grave could ever restrain him ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, he is alive ♪ ♪ What a foretaste of deliverance, how unwavering ♪ How unwavering our hope Christ in power resurrected As we will be when he comes What a foretaste of deliverance How unwavering our hope resurrected as we will be when he comes. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you again, just grateful for what you have so freely given to us, and your Son in the blood that covers the multitude of our sins. Lord, as we give back to you that this would be used in honor and pleasing to you. Grace is precious. Yeah. Let's stand together and sing, There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from the There is a fountain filled with the blood from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. ♪ Lose all their guilty stains ♪ ♪ Lose all their guilty stains ♪ ♪ And sinners burned greedy and bloody ♪ ♪ Lose all their guilty stains ♪ Rejoice to see that Thou didst live. And there may I, though vile as Thee, wash all my sins away, wash all my sins away. ♪ Wash all my sins away ♪ ♪ And there may I go mild as he ♪ ♪ Wash all my sins away ♪ ♪ To dying lamb thy precious blood ♪ ♪ Shall never lose its power ♪ of God, be saved, to sin no more. Be saved, to sin no more. Be saved, to sin no more. Till all the lands of church of God, be saved, to sin no more. And shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. Dearly love has led my feet, and shall be till I die. My heart was a stone that was covered in shame when He came for me. I couldn't run, couldn't run from His presence. I couldn't run, couldn't run from His arms. Jesus, He loves me, He loves me. He loves me, He is holy. It was a fire deep in my soul I'll never be. I could run, could run from His presence. I could run, could run from His arms. He holds the stars and he holds my heart With healing hands that bear the scars The rugged cross where he died for me My only hope, my everything He loves me. He loves me. Oh, Jesus, how can it be? He loves me. He is holy. He loves me. My God, it's amazing, oh, Jesus loves me. If you'd like to follow along, we're going to look at Luke chapter 24, verses 45 through 53. Luke 24, verses 45 through 53. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things, and behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.' Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. And while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple." Blessing God. I gotta come up here and preach after that. Jesus loves me. Every time. Karen, you put that the last song before I preach all the time. But it's a wonderful song because it's reflective of the fact that I didn't do anything to deserve his love, that he loves me because he loves me. And so as I think of that, what joy it brings in our life to know that the Savior, the creator and maker of everything in the world, looks down on us individually, corporately. But he looks down on us and he expresses his love and joy and delight in us. And so we are grateful for that. So why don't we just... I'll get composure as we pray and then we'll look at what the Lord has for us from Luke chapter 24 and beyond. Father in heaven, we come to you now and we are grateful for the love that you have for us to save us from our sin, that we can rejoice in you, that we can respond to the prompting of the Spirit of God in our life to to just know you and to see you and just delight in the fact that you sent your son, Jesus, to be our Savior and that, Lord, as we look at your word today, may the Spirit of God embolden us, empower us, strengthen us to accomplish your purposes and your will, deliver lives for you through the days that you've given to us, and as we do so, may it be done for your glory. We praise you for it in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Psalm 126, Psalm 126, one of the Psalms of Ascent. I believe it was written possibly by David. It says, when the Lord restored the fortune of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy. And they said, among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for them. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams of the Negev. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed of sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. As I think of that passage, it reminds me of the fact that there's a transformation that takes place. There's a movement that we as Christians have when we come to understand the nature of who Jesus is. There's sorrow that we have in our life, but then when we reflect on the fernality of God and who he is, and the fact that he lives forever, we have joy of the light. And we move from a position of sorrow and grief and dissatisfaction in the world we live in today, but then we go to a place where we rejoice and we just can't help ourself with overwhelming joy. And as I look at this, as I look into Luke chapter 24, the Ascension, as we look into that particular passage, We see that Jesus has led his disciples out as far as Bethany, what, maybe about five, seven miles from Jerusalem. He goes up the Mount of Olives and he goes to Bethany, and I just wonder, is it possible? He had his disciples there. It was probably more than just the apostles. I wonder if Lazarus was there. You know, Lazarus was from Bethany, you know? You just wonder if he was there when Jesus was ascended into heaven. But the thing is, we see the emotion. And as I was reading through Luke chapter 24, 50 through 53, about the ascension, as I was reading it, it's like, I had this sense that I wanted to know more. Like, okay, I see what you're saying here. He led them out as far as Bethany and lifted his hands and he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, who was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God. I feel I want more. I need to understand more. I need to have a better understanding of what happened. How did this take place in all of this? Well, fortunately, we have another book that was written by Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke in Acts. And I want to turn to Acts chapter 1. And let's look at the continuation, maybe his expansion on that. And I've got to believe as he's writing to Theophilus about this, he's got these thoughts rolling around in his mind. The Spirit of God is moving him. What do I say next? What should I say? He says, you know what, I'm just going to go back to explain What it is, what happened? And that's what we see. We begin in Acts chapter one. He says, in the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with what Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. So we see that in this, we have this understanding that Luke is explaining that Jesus was taken up, just as is explained in chapter 24. He was taken away from them, and he had commands. He had given them commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. To them, he presented himself alive, you know, and again it goes back through the proofs of his resurrection that Luke is reminding us and those who he was writing to in his day that there is truth behind his resurrection, that he suffered, many proofs appearing to them for 40 days, speaking about the kingdom of God. After the resurrection, Jesus lived among them. He would come and go as he decided amongst his disciples to teach them, to train them, to prepare them for the ministry that is yet to come for them. And then it says, and while they were with staying with him in verse four. He ordered them not to depart Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father. And so we get a little more data, a little more information about what happened next. I mean, that's just the way we are. We want to, what happened next? Tell me what's next. Okay. And we like how a story builds and it explains things. And so we see that Jesus has explained to them, you gotta wait, there's something gonna happen. the Spirit's gonna come. And he said, you heard from me for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. And we're not gonna look at that directly at this particular time, but we do know that there was a day that happened very shortly. They were in the upper room and the Holy Spirit came and empowered them. And then in verse six it says, so when they came together, so when they had come together, Jesus had called them to himself. They were being one final lesson. They were, he was teaching them. They asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? And he said to them, it's not for you to know the times or seasons that the father has fixed with his own authority, but you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And so he's defining to them the breadth of what their ministry is. If you were to go through the whole Gospel of Acts, you would find that that doesn't happen until 10 chapters later. There's a lot of building up, there's a lot of things going on for the disciples to get to understand and know in order to be ready to go to the ends of the earth. And so the book of Acts explains that to us. And when they had said these things, 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 beside them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go. So as we look back at the Gospel of Luke, we see in the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, we see the descending of the Son of God in the flesh. John chapter one, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word became what? Flesh. He became humanity. In Sunday School today, we're gonna look at that a little bit more. The incarnation of Jesus, and who is Jesus? And we're gonna look at that, but I'll develop that later. What we have in there is an explanation that says he became flesh in the beginning. John starts with in the beginning of the word, he explains what the word is, he was with God, he was God and all of that, but then Luke in the beginning of it says here's how it happened. He came of a virgin. He was born of a virgin and became human. He was the product of the Holy Spirit who had hovered over Mary, the virgin, and she was with child, a virgin with child. It was Jesus. And the Gospel of Luke begins with the descension of Jesus coming to earth. At the end of the gospel, we see the ascension of Jesus from this earth back to where he came from. He came from heaven. We're gonna be looking at that, but I wanna look at the text a little bit. The name of my message is, just words, just words. Are these just words? We can say, just words, you know, that just, do words matter? Absolutely, just words. There's many times you use, we could use that phrase to say, those are just words. I remember when I was in seminary, my theology teacher, Dr. McKeown, used to say, you know what? It doesn't matter what people say. You need to look at which way their feet are pointed. And how true that is. In one sense, words don't matter. Actions matter. James actually tells us about it. He expands on the fact that we need to be doers of the word. So as we look at this and we understand this idea, in the text, words do matter. And I want to look at these words in particular in Luke chapter 24. There's a few words I want to draw out. The first one is the word blessed. Three times he lifted his hands and he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and then at the end of the sentence, the end of chapter, in verse 53, he says, and they were continually in the temple, blessing God. God was blessing, Jesus was blessing them, and now they're blessing God. What does that mean? What does that blessing mean? And if we were to look into the Greek, the Greek word is eulogio. Eulogio. We get our word eulogy from that. Okay. You know what a eulogy is? Have you ever done a eulogy? I mean, as a pastor, I have, I've done several eulogies, but you know, usually what it is, it's somebody who knows the person who died, and they have something they want to say about them, and usually, hopefully, it's something that is good. It's good words, and that's how that word breaks down. You, la ge'o. Good word, logos, good word. And that's what the eulogy is. And so what Jesus was saying to them, he was saying good words to them. He was, in one sense, pumping them up, preparing them to get ready for the ministry, and then they go back to the temple blessing God, but it says they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. There was joy in their heart. They were, in modern vernacular, they were pumped. Okay, you've heard that idea of being pumped. They were ready to go. That's what was going on. And as we go into Luke, the gospel of, I mean, we go into the book of Acts, we see how that worked out amongst the disciples, the gospel being worked out in Acts. So three times he mentions this word eulogeo here eulogies giving good words of what is happening the next word i want to look at just words these are good words i'm going to say just words We could use the word just words as like, well, they're just words that don't mean anything. Words don't mean anything. Or we could say they're just words. These are words that have deep meaning. They're just. They're justified words. These are words from God. Jesus was blessing them. He was saying good things to them about who he is, about what they're to do, about where they're gonna go and all of that as we look into the gospel, I keep calling gospel, to the book of Acts. So they were blessing them. Then there's this other word. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem. They worshipped him. Proskuneo. Proskuneo. Now, if I want to proskuneo, and if I were to do that right now, I might not get up. Because I'd have to go down onto my knees, I would have to fall onto my face, and lay down before a just and holy God. Now, I'm not gonna do that because I may need somebody's help to get me up off the floor. Not so easy anymore these days to get up off the floor. But that's the meaning of worship there. We can say, oh yeah, we go to a worship service, you're here to worship God, to worship him, to sing songs, to hear messages about him. But in this particular context, worship proskuneo, to be for or towards him, To kiss him, kuneh is the word kiss. Remember it says, you heard in Psalm 2, it says, kiss the son. You know what that means? It means worship him. Worship him. Proskuneo, that's another word, that they returned back to Jerusalem with great joy. not too much earlier in the Gospel of John chapter 16. And let's take a minute, let's just go look back there to John chapter 16. We can see how the disciples felt about Jesus going away. Jesus has already explained to them, I've gotta go away. I must go away. It's better for you that I do go away. It was better, and it's actually today, it's better for us that Jesus went away. It's better for us now that he's gone than he's not because we have the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We have the Spirit of God who's come upon us that was promised to us in Acts chapter one. Chapter 16. I could jump back and go into the larger context, but let's just start at verse 16. Jesus is talking to his disciples. He's already told him about the spirit of God coming. When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but he will speak and will declare to you the things that are come. That's a prelude to what he's gonna say. And then Jesus says, a little while, you will see me no longer. And again, a little while, you will see me. So some of the disciples said to one another, what is this that he says to us a little while and you will not see me? And again, a little while you will see me because I'm going to the father. So they were saying, what does he mean by this a little while? We don't know what he's talking about. They're confused. Matter of fact, they're a little disappointed. We don't want you to go Jesus. I mean, you can get the feel for that. Now let's go back to Luke, chapter 24, and he says, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Jesus has just left. Yeah, Jesus is gone. No, that's not what it's about. They have a greater understanding of what Jesus is all about and his ministry and his purpose, and their eyes are open to see, now we know. Why he has come? What was it about the ascension of Jesus that brought great joy to them? I'm going to say it's GPS. GPS. We know what GPS is, right? Global Positioning Satellite. How about we change that to glorious, gloriously powerful savior, okay? And so what we see is they had great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God. They were giving glory to God. They knew that he was going back up for a purpose, that he would receive glory. Back to John chapter 17. John chapter 17. This is Jesus' high priestly prayer. He says in chapter 17, verse 1 to 5, when Jesus had spoken these words, he's in the upper room with his disciples. He's praying to his Father. He's spoken these words. He lifted his eyes to heaven. the place where he's just gone to, and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that the son may glorify you. They remember this prayer. His disciples were in the room, they heard his prayer, they knew what was gonna happen when he was exalted to heaven. He knew that he was going to be glorified by the Father, all the disciples. And that brought great joy to their heart. And that should bring great joy to our heart. knowing that Jesus was raised from the dead and then exalted to heaven to be restored the glory that he had before with the Father. And we know if we were to read Philippians chapter 2, we know that Paul captures that essence. That it was, he came in humility and left in glory. His incarnation was a humiliation His going back was glorious. And so that's one reason I believe that the disciples were rejoicing with joy, great joy exceeding. That's the G part of the GPS. Then the powerful part, well that goes, we would have to go into Acts chapter one again. We see that they would be empowered that they would have the paraclete who would come. You remember the word paraclete? If we would go back into John chapter 14 and 16, Jesus has promised that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, would come unto them. And so we think of that word Comfort but comfort is you know and it's true that we do receive comfort from him We have this idea that comfort is taking away my pain and restoring me from my troubles like in like in Psalm chapter 126 that we just read But there's more to that word than just bringing a comfort that way we think about it. To bring comfort in the earlier language of English, if you go back to the early English, that word comfort took on a different understanding for us. And that word has the intent to say that it is bringing strength and power. And isn't that exactly what the Holy Spirit does? When He comes, He will empower you. We will be empowered to be able to go through the difficult times, to be able to go through the hard times so that we can worship Him and glorify Him. We can't do it on our own. I can't do it on my own. We need the Holy Spirit to empower us to be the paraclete, but you know, Jesus had to go so that he could send the paraclete? No. The text says another paraclete. Who's the other paraclete? It's Jesus. Jesus is the comforter. He is the one who prays for us. And you think about back when Judas was getting ready to betray Jesus, and in the upper room, and Jesus tells his disciples, you're going to all turn away from me. And Peter says, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not turning away. He says, Peter, Satan has asked to sift you, but I'm praying for you. That's what Jesus said, I'm praying for you. He said that to Peter. And you know that continues on. I'm not going to go there for sake of time. But if you want to go back to Jesus' high priestly prayer in chapter 17, verses 6 through 11, it talks about his prayer for his people. How Jesus is praying for his own, the ones that you have given to me. That's the second reason that they had exceeding joy. They had exceeding joy because he was the glorious one and that he came in power. And then they asked, well, he came to be the savior. What does it mean to be the savior? He was going back to heaven to go to his session. Okay, GPS. Session. He went back for his session. And what is that session? What does it mean? It means that he was seated at the right hand of the Father. The session of Christ is that he is in session with his Father. We think about in our own government, you know, in the American government, we have the Congress that goes into session. Right? That means that they're seated and they're discussing the laws of the land and discussing should they create more laws and all of that rather than stripping away some of the laws that we have. That's a side note. But they're in session. Jesus is in session right now. He's on the very throne of God at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, praying for us, encouraging us, giving us the Holy Spirit to empower us. What a glorious God He is. What a magnificent God He is. And there's another word. And that other word is They returned to Jerusalem. The word there, returned, is the word strepho. And that word strepho is one of the Greek words that needs, it requires a proposition. Strepho. means to twist, or to turn, or return, or something like that. But when it's attached with a preposition like, for example, let me look at my notes here. Anna Strefo. which means to be overturned or turned upside down, isn't exactly what happened. Jesus turned things upside down. Or we could look at the word apostropho, which has to mean to turn away. They turned away from where they were headed to go back to Jerusalem. Or we could look at the word diastrepho, which has another idea as to distort or pervert, which is what happens in the world. Or we could look at the word epistrepho, which has the idea of turning or putting the sense against somebody. Then there's the word katastrepho, which is a downward trajectory, tossing and turning. Then there's metastrepho. And then there's strebobleo. But then the last one is huperstrepho. Hupestrepho. That's the word that Luke uses. Hupa, strepo. Hupa, meaning super, hyper, hyper return. They went back, pumped. They were pumped and ready, knowing fully well that when they went back to the temple, what was gonna be happen to them? They were gonna be rejected. In some way, they were empowered knowing that Jesus went back to heaven to receive his throne, to become the King of Kings, to become the Lord of Lords, to rule and reign over all of the universe, to live so that we can delight in him and see him for who he is. I think we'll finish with this. Revelation chapter 5. Revelation chapter 5. And then we see the response. Who is worthy to open the scroll? Revelation 5. Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals? And no one in heaven or under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into it. And I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, weep no more. Stop your crying. Weep no more. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered so that he can open the scroll and the seven seals, which means he can rule and reign with authority. He's the only one, the only king on earth, the only Lord that can open up the seal and reveal what's going to happen in the future. In verse six it says, in between the throne and the four living creatures among the elders I saw a lamb, Lion and the Lamb, the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, our Savior, standing as though it had been slain with seven horns and seven eyes, and there were seven spirits of God sent to the earth. And he went and took the scroll in the right hand and was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls of incense. which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, and I'll finish with this. And this has got to be the heart of the disciples and the joy that brought them. Why they were transformed, why were they changed to say, please go Jesus, receive what is due you. Worthy are you to take the scroll, to open its seals, for you were slain. for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priest to our God, and they shall reign on earth." Two more things that they were excited about, that Jesus was going back to take the throne. and ruling reign of the universe, but also be the priest, the high priest, who had atoned for their sin, who had ransomed them from their sinfulness and restored them back to a right relationship with God. One of the things that brought them, one of the major things that brought them joy was that he was the mediator between them and God and they knew him going back. He would mediate between humanity and deity because he is the God-man. He became the God-man. In the beginning was the Word, the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and then he ascended to heaven. Nobody has barely touched on the ascension of Jesus. One of the most ignored doctrines of all Christianity. We talk about his death, burial, and resurrection. We talk about his teaching his disciples. We hear about the sending of the Spirit of God. But we have much time thinking about the fact that he ascended to heaven and how important that was, and that he is coming again. And that should bring great joy, that when he comes, we will see him face to face. We just sang a song that acknowledged that. So I hope that you will be encouraged as we look, as we finish out this gospel of Luke, began the Gospel of Luke a long, long time ago. Two years ago, I think. And now we're coming to an end. But actually, we're coming to a beginning. Because I'm really thinking about going through Acts now. So why not? Why not consider what happens next? And, well, we'll see. But I hope you're encouraged the fact that Jesus is coming again and we can rejoice just like the disciples who found great joy in the fact that Jesus ascended to heaven and he rules and reigns there until he comes again. Let's pray. Father, we are grateful for the fact that you departed from this world You didn't leave us just to say, okay, you're up on your own, but you were taken up. You were taken up in a cloud. And Lord, as we look at the clouds, we see the cumulus clouds above us and we look at the clouds, but you know, with that cloud that took him up was not just a regular cloud. It was this kind of cloud, Lord, that represents your glory and your beauty in your greatness, Lord. And so as the Shekinah cloud took you and lifted you up before the very throne of God, to the throne of God, to your rightful place, and the disciples watched in awe and joy, and seeing this glorious cloud taking you to your rightful place, restored to your glory that you had with the Father before. Lord, we know that there was life changing for them, and Lord, it's life changing for us, that we might be transformed and changed into your image, that we can see you as you are. We can't figure this out on our own, and it takes your revelation to us. We have the revelation of Christ, And we have the Holy Spirit that applies those truths to us and brings to mind the glory and greatness of who you are. And Lord, I pray that as we look to you, as we live our lives for you, Lord, may this idea and this thought and this truth of an ascension to heaven would be real to us. Not because it's real, we make it real, it's because you tell us it's real. And we look with joyful hope and a glorious return. And when you come, what a great day, what a glorious day that will be. We praise you for it now, and we thank you, Lord, in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Would you stand with me as we sing? Blessed is the one, blessed Blessed is the one whose sins are overcome, whom God has sheltered deep within his grace. ♪ Blessed is the one ♪ ♪ Trusting God the Son ♪ ♪ Steadfast love, the sinner's hiding place ♪ ♪ Jesus, your blood is pure ♪ What a Savior, Jesus. I will always hide. ♪ In my refuge, in His sovereign care ♪ ♪ When low waters rise ♪ ♪ God will hear my cries ♪ ♪ A steadfast love will hold me safely there ♪ Jesus, your love covers all my sins. Jesus, your love draws my heart to sing. Oh, what a Savior! Father, we do praise you that we can stand here today and sing these words, knowing from the end of Luke and from the first part of Acts that you spelled things out, that Jesus explained why he'd come, and the price that was paid for our sins, and then he ascended. It was David that wrote that. He didn't know Jesus as we know Him, but He understood that His sins were forgiven. How much more can we understand through Your Word what Christ has done for us? Father, help us just to ponder these things, just to imagine that scene, to think of where Jesus is now, to know that He's at your right hand, interceding for us. He's coming again. Just stir our hearts, Father, help us to long to be more like Christ and long to have the fruit of the Spirit being produced in us so we can be good witnesses of who Christ is and what he's done for us. Father, help us toward that end, in Jesus' name, amen.