Thank you. You may be seated. And our guys are handing out an outline that might be useful to you for this evening's time. We're going to read Acts chapter 1, verses 9 through 26. If you need a Bible, please hold up your hand. Anybody? OK. If you'd read with me this portion, and the men are handing out an outline that might help you as we go here. Here then, the word of our God, Acts 1, verse 9 through 26. And when he had said these things as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and the 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. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas, the son of James. All these, with one accord, were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers. In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers, the company of persons was in all about 120, and said, Brothers, the Scriptures had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand. by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. And he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so the field was called in their own language, Akadama, which is field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, may his camp become desolate and let there be no one to dwell in it. and let another take his office. So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 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. And they put forward to Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justice, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, You, Lord, who knows the heart of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place. And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles." There's a great deal here and some of this content we'll discuss later on in the hour using the screen and questions. But I want to focus on one particular point that's so pointed and salient and significant to us, the significance of the ascension of Christ. And these notes should help guide us too. The ascension of Christ is a subject that I found in my Christian life somewhat ignored along the way, somewhat de-emphasized. And as I grew in my faith, I began to realize that this is a very significant truth that we're seeing God emphasize here in the beginning of the book of Acts. There are, I think, are reasons, I think, in the Christian community, particularly today in the 21st century, particularly now in our history, I think there are reasons why this teaching, this truth, has been somewhat de-emphasized in our day. And it brings about the need for us to give greater thought and greater emphasis to it. The ascension of Christ is maybe the least known truth of His glorification. It has everything to do with Christ being glorified now in our day, but in eternity and in the culmination of all things. One Bible, the Geneva Study Bible says this, the ascension is a divine act of God the Father withdrawing Jesus from earth and from his disciples a full 40 days after his resurrection. This is a time 40 days after the resurrection of Christ. Christ has spent this time with his disciples, And now, God the Father is withdrawing Jesus. Why? And what's the significance of this occasion? If you go to the modern day city of Jerusalem and you leave through the east side of the city itself and you go down into the valley and up the other side, you'll come across a church called the Church of the Ascension, which commemorates the spot that historians sometimes think that Jesus ascended from there. just east of the Mount of Olives, just on that slope, that's a particularly notable place. I think that the attitudes of Christianity today does not desire to ignore this truth. I don't mean that. But I think there are some reasons why it's an unappreciated truth of Christian history. I think one reason is the holiday aftermath. When we have a holiday, we always kind of, as American people, have this kind of letdown afterwards. I think it's true of many of our holidays. And because Easter has become such an important holiday in American history, I think there's a somewhat of an aftermath of Easter tradition that brings about a kind of missing, of ignoring the day of Ascension, just 49 days, just seven weeks after Easter itself comes this day of Ascension, commemorating, remembering this truth. And I know I didn't even know when it was or what the significance of it was growing up and even in my young Christian years, but it is remembering this great event of the Ascension of Christ. I think also that people in our day tend to look at this ascension, yeah, we may be able to believe that Jesus was born and taught and and died on the cross, and even rose again from the dead. But this thought of his being taken up into heaven in the way as which is described here seems somewhat unreal to many people, and even many Christians. The unreal reality of Christ's ascension. And I think the third reason is that those who are not serious disciples of Christ, those who read the Bible at all, miss the fact that This teaching is in more than the writings of Luke. Luke, some might say, had some kind of vested interest in making a particular emphasis on it. And Luke does make a particular interest, not only in the book of Acts, but also in the Gospel of Luke. We see this truth being taught so powerfully and so clearly. We want to talk more about this subject in just a little while. There's a doctrinal disconnect there. If we don't give the right kind of emphasis, recognize in important ways the vitality and the prominence and the reality of this truth, our prayer life is affected. Our understanding of Christ's lordship is affected. Our worship is affected, our understanding or conviction about the second coming of Christ, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, our own bodily resurrection. All these truths that are fundamental to Christianity are enhanced by our understanding the ascension of Christ, and they're disabled by our failure to really give this truth adequate and important consideration. So let's go on and talk about at least four reasons for the significance of the Ascension. Why is it such an important truth to us? Well, first of all, it's important because it's prophetically announced in scriptures. We'll be singing Psalm 110 this royal psalm towards the back of the Psalter. We'll be singing that at the conclusion. This Royal Psalm, Psalm 110, speaks of the heavenly session, the reign of Christ after His resurrection, after His ascension. It speaks of the reign of Christ in heaven itself following His ascension. And we'll be singing it in just a couple minutes. It speaks of the God-given authority of Christ that we'll be seeing here. the reign of Christ that he did not have before his incarnation. Could Christ have more? after his resurrection and after ascension? Yes, that's what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that there's a new authority. And Jesus, as a matter of fact, announced that authority to us after his resurrection when he said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. It was after his resurrection. At the time of his ascension, he is being ascended. to the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence He will come to judge the quick and the dead. And so it's this truth of Christ's ascension that's so wonderfully announced to us in Psalm 110, particularly verse 1, that's then quoted for us in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 13. We read this. And to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet? Hebrews announcing the ascended Christ as the one who is given that special and important place. As a matter of fact, this Psalm, Psalm 1101, is announced and quoted and referred to again and again. over and over in the New Testament as well. Secondly, this prophetic announcement of Jesus is also given to us in Psalm 68, 18, that the triumphal pronouncement there in Psalm 68, the Lord giving gifts, giving the gift of his reigning and ruling as well. Psalm 68, verse 18 says, You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts from men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there." Again, the anticipated ascension, glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ again being announced to us in the Old Testament. But also, throughout the book of John, again and again, Jesus anticipated ascension is referred to as well. In John 6, in John 14, in John 16, repeatedly, three times in John 16, and in John 17, and finally in John 20, we read this, Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not ascended to the father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my God. And your God to my father and your father. Over and over again, Jesus himself predicted, prophesied, told, assured the disciples of his not only resurrection from the dead, but also his ascending to heaven itself. The disciples, of course, as we saw in the video just a few minutes ago, were surprised, were unsettled at the ascension of our Christ. They stood there for a long time. And I always am amused when I read Acts chapter one as the disciples are standing there, gazing into heaven, gazing and trying to catch the last glimpse of Jesus as he disappears in the clouds. And the angels standing there, chiding them, saying, what are you standing here gazing for? As if to say to them, get on with the task. Get on with what you're doing. Stop gazing into heaven. He'll come. He'll come the same way in which he departed. He'll come in glory and show you his glory once again. But in the meantime, you've got a job to do. and he says that to us as well. The prophetically announced reality of this truth in the Bible of the ascended Christ. Secondly, it's also a historic reality. This truth of the ascension of Christ, His resurrection and ascension, has been reeled against by many down through the ages. It seems this reality seems so profound but also unreal to many people. Hugh Schoenfield grew up in a Congregationalist church in which his father was a pastor in the early part of the 19th or an early part of the 20th century in the early 1900s. He himself became a great Bible student, but not a Christian. He's written at least 40 major intelligent and articulate books about Christianity, but himself not a Christian. And so it was rather shocking, rather unsettling for those of us who are new Christians in the 1960s to come across a book that was being promoted in the 60s and 70s called The Passover Plot. in the Passover plot, this very good Bible scholar, born in London, studied in Jerusalem, a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls team in its early history, wrote this very unsettling book about a plot that took place there in the first century according to him, John, and Joseph of Arimathea. were in on it but probably the only disciples and the only survivors that were part of this plot and in this plot this man Jesus was deceived, deluded into thinking that he was the Messiah and so he went ahead to make this plot that he would be crucified given a a drug in the wine in which would allow him to survive the crucifixion and survive until he was revived from the grave by Joseph of Arimathea and the Apostle John. Sounds like a very credible story until you look deeper into it and ask a lot of hard questions about it. There was scholars who attacked this book in my generation and successively and progressively asked the hard questions and began to see the whole thought of the Passover plot unraveling in the 70s and 80s in modern time. I doubt any of you even heard that book unless you're as old as I am. Another more modern story, the Da Vinci Code, which, interestingly enough, doesn't even go back to the first century. It only goes back to Leonardo da Vinci, if you've read it at all. These kinds of attacks on the historicity of the Bible have been assailed again and again. And so it's wonderful that Luke begins his book telling us about how he had studied into these things very carefully and presented them to us through proofs and Jesus appearing to us in the way in which he's told us of both in Luke chapter 1 and also in Acts chapter 1. One man who was pretty indifferent in his early life was named Lew Wallace. Lew Wallace was a Hoosier. He grew up here in Indiana and served in the Civil War as a commander of Indiana troops in the Civil War. Under his command during that time was a man named Robert Ingersoll. Robert Ingersoll was a great intellectual of his day. And through no coincidence of happening, Lew Wallace found himself boarding a train in Crawfordsville coming into Indianapolis in about 1875. on a business trip here and the two men wound up meeting one another again after 10 years in private life. Lew Wallace was captured by Robert Ingersoll's credible denial of Christ and of his forceful arguments against the truth of Christianity. And Robert Ingersoll became more and more known for his atheistic approach and his strong statements against the claims of the gospel. When Lew Wallace arrived here in Indianapolis, rather than taking a carriage home, the account tells us of his walking home instead and pondering what he had just and the thoughts that he had gone through his own mind of doubts about Christianity. And so Lew Wallace set about the task of doing a very deep and thorough study of the claims of Christ and the truths of Christianity. And so Lew Wallace began a three-year study of Christian truth. and came to the conclusion at the end, not only was the resurrection and the ascension of Christ true, but it was what he would give his life to. And so he set about writing what we now know as the great novel, Ben-Hur, as a result of his studies, of his being proven being able to show the world what he had now come to profess, and that's faith in Jesus Christ. The significance of the Ascension has been proven not only in the prophetic announcement and in historic studies, the historic reality of it. For Luke says, having followed closely for some time I came to write this orderly account for you, O Theophilus." Even Stephen's own words in Acts chapter 7. Tell us again, Acts 7 verse 55. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, Behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. And they cast him out of the city and stoned him to death." We have these testimonies of eyewitnesses persons of that day. We have the truth of this pushed towards us, helping us to understand the truth of it historically by mighty men of history as well. Thirdly, the significance of the Ascension is that it was accomplished by God. Over and over again, the New Testament tells us that it was God who did this, that it was, as we saw in the film, that it was something that God had told would come about, and the truth of the matter is that it was accomplished by God Himself. Christ often spoke of His ascension. In Mark 16, verse 19, in Matthew 28, 18-20, The Ascension is also even referred to in that Great Commission. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and then it concludes, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. The ascension of Christ is spoken of in great Christian documents. And so here, in the Westminster Confession, we read question 28, Christ's exaltation consists in His rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last great day. God the Father accomplished this act, this plan of His, to make Christ not only exalted, but sitting in His right hand. Paul spoke of this too, in Philippians 2, after the crucifixion and the resurrection, we read Paul's testimony. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that's 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. It's the plan of God. It's the accomplishment of God. to have risen Christ from the dead and ascend Him into heaven to be at the right hand. Here in Philippians 2, it's mentioned three times, exalted, His name exalted, every knee should bow, tongues confess to the glory of God, the resurrected and exalted Christ. It was prophetically announced. It's an historic reality. It was accomplished by God. And finally, it's an abiding significance, an enduring significance to us to understand, to believe, to embrace, to allow this truth to sink deep into our hearts. The abiding significance in the Ascension touches every Christian life and every Christian truth that we believe First of all, it proclaims the victory of Christ to us. That Christ is victor over the grave is spoken of in Colossians 3.1. If then you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. It's this great Christian truth that tells us of the anticipation of our own resurrected body. because he's raised from the dead, because he's alive today, because he has accessibility in the heavenly sanctuary. Hebrews speaks a great deal of this in Hebrews 4 verse 14. It's because of Jesus' heavenly session, His reigning and ruling in heaven. that we find great significance to this in our worship, in our prayer life, in our confidence of His victory over Satan and over death itself. Again, in our times of prayer, we should consider this. Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost, those who draw near to God through Him since He always lives to make intercession for us." It's because of Christ's ascension that He does now sit at the right hand of God the Father and pray for us. right now, all the time. And that should encourage our prayer life, to have a Christ who is ascended and seated at the right hand of God the Father. Secondly, it pictures our hope of eternal glory as well. So we see in Colossians chapter 15, Paul pondering this truth in verses 20 through 23, he says, But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man came also resurrection from the dead. For as in Adam all died, so in Christ all shall be made alive, but each one in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father. The resurrection and ascension of Christ has everything to do with our understanding of our own future on into death and into heaven itself. We have that confidence of our own resurrection and of our own presence in the thrones at the throne of God in heavenly order itself because Christ has gone ahead of us He's alive today and seated at the right hand of God the Father all. It anticipates also the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as it does here in Acts chapter 1 and chapter 2. It anticipates that the Holy Spirit will be ours and the fullness of the Holy Spirit will come upon us. And finally, it restores His glory. as the basis of world missions. It is that Jesus said, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age, that is the basis for our going. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. It's not without His presence. It's not without His outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It's not without His sovereign rule over all things. Therefore, we can go in the fullness and in the power and the confidence. And so, it's the significance of His ascension that He sits at the right hand of God the Father, that He inaugurates missions to all the world, that His ascension touches every Christian and every truth of the Christian life. May we pray together. Father, this wonderful reality of your ascension into heaven, of the angels saying to us, why do you stand there gazing into heaven? This same Jesus who went before you will come again from heaven itself. It's this prophetic announcement It's the outcome of the ascension of Jesus Christ. It's our reliance upon Him as our risen Lord. alive and in Your presence today, He ever lives to make intercession for us. This is our confidence, Lord. This is our promise. This is our prayer. And we ask that You would now touch our lives to grip us with the continuing reality of His being raised from the dead. If there's anyone here who doesn't know that truth, who hasn't yet been gripped by it, I pray that you would bring them to faith in Jesus Christ as a risen Savior, ascended and alive today, standing in the presence of God the Father. seated at His right hand to reign and rule over all things. Lord, we pray that we would live this thought out in our everyday lives today, this week, this year. And we ask your help in living that way. The ascended Christ touching our lives, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.