And when I come around certain times of the year and he'd say, what are you doing for the holy days? And my response then would be, well, we have 52 holy days in a year. They're called the Lord's Day. another planet, and I was never really quite satisfied with that answer, as good as an answer it was, but that's something of a dilemma that we're in as reformed people wanting to do what we do, bound by what the Word of God says. And incidentally, parenthetically, as I was listening to the drama of the election of the new Pope, and the I thought to myself, Lord, I'm so thankful I'm a Protestant. Hallelujah. Because all that, folks, is empty tradition. That's really what it is. Putting other issues aside. Anyway, the Reformed faith, we're bound by what the Word of God says. Now, okay, and that's true. The only holy days that are established in Scripture are the Lord's Day, or the Christian Sabbath, which is really a good term for that, in which every week we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and we look forward to glory. At the same time, God did work in history. We don't know when Christ was born exactly, but we have a day that we've agreed to celebrate, it's what we call Christmas, and there was a day that Christ was crucified and the great drama of his bearing the sins of his people and really stripping the devil of his power by the cross and how that happened in history. The resurrection of the dead, which is Christ for your sins, here it is. And he's the firstfruits of all those who sleep. The fact that he was raised means all of his people will be. Wow, we celebrate that. Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit is sent, and God willing next month we'll take a Sunday to deal with the profound meaning, but you get the point. At days in history, God did these spectacular changed. So you can make the case from that for remembering those holy days and especially in our culture there's benefit in that. Christmas. How do you know God? Well that's what Christmas is about. The God-man is born. How's our sin problem dealt with? Well that's Good Friday. How's death dealt with? Well that's Easter Sunday. Is there really any hope for this world I guarantee it. I mean, the temporary respite. That's what Pentecost is all about. The other one is the Ascension of Christ. And that will be May 29th, Thursday, May 29th, but we don't have a worship service on Thursday, May 29th. This is my Sunday to preach this month. So, we're going to deal with, today, Christ's Ascension. Very boldly, the title is My quick answer is this, so what? It's a call for you and me to have nothing less than a totally different view of this world and everything in it. How's that for a good answer? It's nothing less than a call and a reason for us to have a totally different view of this world. earthly ministry. So we're dealing with Jesus' last days of earthly ministry. That's number one. Number two, what's he doing now? We say Jesus is alive and at work. What's he doing now? And then number three, how is and that he's getting to lead in the congregations. And Pastor Silva preached yesterday. That man has really got passion as he preaches, and it was wonderful. But he dealt with the larger thing, the theme of looking unto Jesus. And that's what I want you to be doing. We're going to end looking unto Jesus. And he said that means death to autonomy. What's autonomy? And he kept saying that, looking unto Jesus is death to autonomy. I'm going to add something to it. It's not only death to autonomy, it's life to Christonomy. Thinking always, having a world that revolves around Christ. Okay, so here we go. Let's start, number one, with Jesus' last days of earthly ministry. And those you read about, interestingly, primarily in Luke and in John, okay? So, again, other reasons why Mark doesn't have much about it or Matthew, although Matthew has a significant thing. But if you want to read about the last days of Jesus' ministry from his resurrection to his ascension, it's largely in Luke's gospel and John's gospel. It's interesting what he did in those 40 days. I mean, some of the big things. The first one is Thomas. And Thomas apparently was not wanting to be with the disciples on that first Easter Sunday, but he was there a week later when Jesus appeared. And bold Thomas said, I'm not going to believe he's resurrected from the dead unless I can put my fingers into his hands. And Jesus says, all right, I'll call you back. And he puts out his hand. There's no record that Thomas did that. It was enough that he saw the hand of this resurrected Christ that doubting Thomas believed. And Jesus said, Thomas, now you believe when you've seen. Blessed are those who have seen. That's what we are. We haven't seen Jesus, but we believe that. That's one of the things. The other that's so cool, the disciples. And you can imagine, they said, what are we supposed to do now? On the earth, Jesus is ministering to people. He couldn't be with them. He wasn't with them at the time. So I guess we'll get back to work. something to eat and make a living for ourselves, and they have a very unsuccessful time fishing until Jesus appears on the shore and says, oh, your nets are on the wrong side, put them over on the other side, see what happens, and there's so many fish that they can't get them out of the net properly, and 153, I don't know what that means, who knows what that means, that's not the point. The point is, Jesus is powerful. He's powerful over the creation, and he says to the disciples, and whatever you're gonna be called to do, And then for faltering Peter. Don't you wonder what Jesus would say to Peter personally when Peter denied him three times? There's a beautiful picture. If the first is the truthful Jesus to Doubting Thomas, and the second is the powerful Jesus to the disciples, the third is the You have that account that's in there. Probably most significant is the Great Commission in Matthew 28, which is in Galilee. We'll get to the reason for that in a bit. But in Galilee, Jesus has the disciples go there and he says, not just go make disciples, he says all authority. and heaven on earth is given to me, it will be very shortly in its ascension. Therefore you go and you make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep everything I've commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age." Wonderful addition. Why Galilee? Well, remember, the Jews still misunderstood this mission. And if Jesus had stayed in Jerusalem too long, they'd say, hey, why don't you just go ahead and get rid of the reigning power there and assume your power as Messiah King. And Jesus didn't do that. That wasn't his role. His role was to be the one to lead his church, to make disciples. And so he says, Galilee, which is Galilee of the Gentiles. That must have been a little bit of a slight to the Jews. He goes to the place known for its Gentile population. He says, no. See these Gentiles? Your goal is to make disciples of them, baptizing them and teaching them to keep all I've commanded you. And you say, how are we going to do that? Behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. And one of the things we mentioned at the Lord's Supper as I did last Wednesday, one with his people, and yet he's absent from his people. But we'll get to that later. Anyway, so those are some of the things in those 40 days of ministry. And if you had to summarize it in one way or the other, was a fulfillment of what the Old Testament taught to the disciples. On that first Easter Sunday, he opened up in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. For 40 days, Jesus developed all of that, and then he ascends into heaven. And that's Acts chapter one. In Acts chapter one, you don't read the whole section. He has spoken to them about the kingdom of God, And he says, you wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come. They ask him a question about the kingdom in verse 6, and Jesus says, that's not your business. As to when the kingdom's going to come in glory, the Father knows that. Something else is going to come. You're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. That's the day of Pentecost. And the fruit is you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And that's the outline of Acts. Acts begins with the ministry in Jerusalem, it continues with the ministry into the region that is there, what we would know of as Palestine, and then to the their side of it, but then the Daniel text, which is the other side of the coin, behold, with the clouds of heaven, now you're in heaven looking at this picture, and one like a son of man, he is the quintessential God man, and he came to the father, the ancient of days, he's presented before him, and to him was given dominion, days 40 days of earthly ministry before he ascended it's all in this phrase the kingdom of God the kingdom of God was the kingdom of God begins with your own heart Our Father who is in heaven, where Jesus is, let your name be holy. Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done on the earth as it is in heaven. Give us our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, because yours is the kingdom And what I want you to be thinking about with me is the fact that the Lord's Prayer is the skeletal outline that pictures for you everything Jesus is doing right now. We're going to develop that as we go on. But I want to do an illustration. Well, in general, he is answering the Lord's Prayer. Folks, if he taught us to pray the Lord's Prayer, and that is the standard for our prayers, and it's part of our life in prayer, don't you think that Jesus' current ministry, as one who has all authority in heaven and on earth, is to see that prayer fulfilled? And it is, it's the skeletal outline for his work in heaven. They were the ones anointed for special office. Those are woven together in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. In his earthly ministry, he was a prophet, he was a priest, and he was a king and showed himself in that way. his prophetic office, he taught, he's the truth, his priestly office, he died on the cross, he prayed, and his kingly office, well he even made the winds and the waves obey him. So you see the proof that Jesus is the Messiah even in his humbled state on the earth. Now he's exalted into heaven. What's he doing now? He's the exalted prophet, priest, and king reigning from heaven and so working that everything he has taught us to pray regularly, he is fulfilling. All right, so that's kind of the general picture of it. Now being very specific, what does that mean? Number one, he reigns as the exalted prophet and spirit, the will of God for our salvation. And our eyes glaze over, what on earth does that mean? Christ's work as a prophet is revealed to us by his word, gotta get that, by his spirit. Okay, we know that's the Holy Spirit, his will for our salvation. And beyond that we say, come on, tell me what that means. All right, let's do that. The Lord Jesus Christ sends forth the Holy Spirit. Number one, the Holy Spirit works through the Apostles, and they complete the Scriptures. They complete what we know of as the Word of God, from the Gospels right through Revelation. There is, by the Spirit, through the various writers, an opening up of basically what the flowering of the Kingdom of God is. So that's really, that's not necessarily He ascends on high and he gives pastors and teachers. Now, I don't want to get diverted into this. One of my favorite topics is somebody that teaches pastoral theology, but I'll put it bluntly. Jesus didn't give the internet for your instruction. to lead you to algorithms to be your pastor and teacher. He gives human beings. He gives men like Pastor Guerin, given to a particular congregation at a particular time to minister them in a particular way as a shepherd of flock. He gives pastors and teachers to, by God's word and spirit, reveal God's will for our salvation. He makes people alive. He makes the blind to see. He makes the deaf to hear. And we become new creatures in Christ. That's why as a Christian you say, I don't know, I never saw this before, but now it all makes sense. That's what the Holy Spirit does. so that there's a desire within, if we're true Christians, to do what God says in His moral law, right? He gives knowledge. He gives discernment. He gives wisdom. He gives you one another. And in all of those gifts of the Holy Spirit, under the authority, the final authority of the Word of God, Why do you have that? Because the Word of God is objective. You say, Pastor Shishko, I need some wisdom about what I'm dealing with with my work. Well, I hope that I can guide you a little bit as a pastor or teacher from the Word of God. My words aren't the Word of God, but they're guides, they're helps. And in that mix, God reveals to us by His Word and Spirit, meaning what the Spirit gives as gifts and what the Spirit does in people. He gives those things so that you might know God's will for your life. By these means, the Lord is answering the Lord's prayer for you. The Lord's prayer for you, put your name in it, But he's acting. Sorry if you're a lefty, but the right hand is a place of action, okay? And skillful action. And so the right hand of God the Father, Jesus is saying, put your name in it. Lord, let them howl your name. Let them live with your name as holy. Cause your kingdom, which begins with the human heart, to work in them and reign in them, to show that I am their Lord, that I am their Savior. And so do that, our Lord, put your name in it, that he or she does my will on the earth, just as the angels do it in heaven. And Lord, please give them everything meant by their daily bread. Lord, please don't lead them into temptation. Deliver them from evil. Jesus as a prophet does that for each one of you. His second office is priest. How does Christ execute the office of a priest? In his once, not repeatedly in a mass, once for all dying on the cross. In his once dying to satisfy the justice of God for our sins. In his reconciling for us, and jot down the text. We're going to look at one in a moment, so it kind of washes over you, but that language, he ever lives to make intercession for us. Hebrews 7 and verse 25. The writer of Hebrews deals a lot with Christ's current ministry. He ever lives to intercede for us. goes, if I could put it this way, it's beyond prayer, but its heart is prayer. He ever lives to make intercession for us. And a text we'll look at momentarily, Romans 8, 34. He ever lives to make intercession for us. But what does that mean? The Apostle John, in his first letter, 1 John, chapter 2 and verse 1, calls Jesus an advocate. and advocate the closest I concept that we would have to it in our culture is he's a lawyer. Jesus represents your case before the father and because he's man And because he was tempted in all points as we are, he knows everything you're dealing with, everything, your grief, your sorrows, your fears, your pains, your doubts, your failings, all of it. He, in his own earthly ministry, without ever sinning, he was like, well, if he never sinned, how can he identify with me when I sin? gave them to him. And so he knows all of those things that you face as man. And as man who accomplished redemption for you, but he's the God-man, so the work is of infinite value. And as God the Son, not Mary the mother, but as God the Son, he pleads your Yeah, she sinned again. Jesus said, I took away the punishment of that sin by the cross and by my blood shed once for all. the way the devil slanders that person. And the devil's right. He brings up all the accusations. Shield of faith. I've given them the shield of faith that can put up all of my promises to them. And I do the same thing. Because for all those accusations, I took those on myself when they became sin for them. Yeah, he's trying to destroy them. imagine the immensity, the vastness, the depth, the variegated quality of the work of Christ. His intercession is to bring all of those things before the Father and this is the picture the Bible gives the priesthood of Christ in heaven when Paul answers this question, what then shall we say to these things? God who chose his people, justified them, adopted them, in principles glorified them by his Spirit, what shall we say to these things? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? There's a window on the kingship of Christ. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. Job to deny the Lord, he'll do exactly the same thing for you. And part of Jesus' ongoing priestly work as your lawyer, as your advocate, is to say, oh no, the devil's not going to separate them from me. I died for them, and I know my sheep, and not one of them is lost. And tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger of sword, let those winds to my people in all the world, and they're not going to shape me off. They'll take the cloak of my righteousness, and they will cover themselves even more with it because I'm praying for them. Satan would sift you as wheat, Peter, but I pray for you." See? See what it is? No, and all these things were more than conquerors through him. sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Why? Because Jesus prays that way. And he takes this prayer as part of the Lord's in heaven, forgive them. Give them their daily bread. Deliver them from the evil one. And you see how all these things in Christ's priestly work are prayed for so that He might answer the prayer He taught you to pray. See? That's Christ's current work as your priest in glory. One of the most pitiful things I hear from an aged saint, they say, Pastor, I'm not praying the way I should. And I love to say, Jesus is, and he's doing it perfectly. And see, that puts the meat on the bones of what it is that he's your priest from heaven. Well, if that's wow, wait till this. He also reigns from heaven. the exalted King subduing us to himself, restraining and conquering all of his and our enemies in glory, and he rules and defends us. With the goal of what? Answering the Lord's prayer in the fullest possible way of the place of the service of the Lord are to be holy. Wow. Imagine what it will be like when Christ the King so works by his sovereign powers, all authority in heaven and on earth, to make everything perfectly holy. And then to so work that the power of his kingdom comes not just to you, but throughout the world. before him every knee shall bow of things in heaven and things on earth. And Jesus as King is working right now to see that that is going to be fulfilled. That your will be done Give them their daily bread. For all of the Lord's people and all of the world, however He does it, until He comes again, His people aren't going to lack what they need. Forgive them, O Lord, and make them a forgiving people. He's going to do that by His own sovereign power until He comes again. dwelling sin and the power of the devil and the Now, let me give you an example. You want to read something interesting. Or you can see it on the Discovery Channel or whatever. Black holes. A black hole. What's a black hole? Well, in our amazing universe, there are stars that are self-destructing. And as they self-destruct and their galaxies begin to collapse in on themselves, there is a gravitational pull that according to physicists is so strong that even light itself can't resist it. And in fact, Even time is altered by the gravitational pull of this star or stars that are being destroyed, collapsing in on themselves and creating a gravitational pull that will destroy every single thing in its path. Forgive me, excuse me if I mistook some of the physics in that, but that's at least as best as I can understand it. Teenship is a white hole. There's no star or galaxy collapsing. There's a king who's reigning. And his power is more powerful than any gravitational pull. No king, no prince, no government, no force of nature, no economy, no act of the human will, nothing, nothing. can stop the gravitational pull of the power of the exalted Christ the King. And he is pulling all of those things, even as it were time and light, not to destruction, but to a new heavens and a new earth. And it's interesting that God is designed in a universe impacted by the fall These pictures of dissolution, of negativity, of fallenness, so that you might hope and pray and believe that there's something that counteracts it, and there is. That's Christ, the exalted King. If you look in your bulletins in page five, and to that, folks, you say, wow. Let me add this while you're doing it. It's interesting how the New Testament gives a little picture of that. You know, I want you to think I'm imagining this. The New Testament gives, if you're in a museum of the wonderful works of God, this would be the last room. Colossians chapter 1, beginning at verse 18, and that's in your pew Bibles, page 1168. embodying the Church. See how important the Church is? Incidentally, Christ's kingship as to the world. See, we look out at the nations of the world, and the leaders of the world, and the political dynamics of the world, and the economies of the world, and the sociologies of the world, and the cultures of the world. We look upon that as being primary. It's not. It's all scaffolding. in which the Lord builds this thing. I'm sad to say that many professed Christians despise. I love Jesus, but I hate his church. I'm sorry, folks, that doesn't fit with true faith. The best you can say is that it's very, very to dwell, and here's that picture in the Museum of God's Wonders, and through him, to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace, peace here is shalom, fullness of blessing, not only getting rid of the black holes, but replacing them all with the blessings of God. They might be making peace by the blood of the cross. Wow. Does it make you say, wow, Father? Yes. It should. This alters your whole view of the world and everything in it, and it should. So that brings us to the third point, and then we're done. How should that make your whole Christian life different? Well, in the larger catechism, and what we profess, this is on page 5, How was Christ insulted in his ascension, right? Number 53 in the Catechism. And go down to the sixth line, seventh line. chapter three and verse one of Colossians, if then you've been raised with Christ. Wow, you're seated with him. Union with thee, we sang about it. Keep seeking the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. What's that? We just talked about that. The things that are above is how Christ is the exalted prophet, exalted priest, and exalted king, is answering the prayer that he taught us to pray in the Lord's Prayer in his reign. Seek, though, keep seeking those things. Where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, set your minds on those things. Not on the things that are earthly. Sure, you'll find out what's going on in the political realm. Relatively important? Sure. Not ultimately important. For you've died. And your life is hidden with Christ in God. Do you realize that when In terms of, if I could put it this way, your own inner reality, that's crucified with Christ when you're in Him. You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When He appears, when your life appears, you will also appear with Him in glory. Incidentally, you know another reason why it's important to remind people of these things God did in history? This Jesus, who acted in history, isn't going to come back. The last holy day as the human history is the day of his return. Christ came into the world. You better come to know him as your God. Christ bore the sins of his people on the cross. If you don't want to bear the eternal punishment of your own sins, you run to Christ. Christ conquered death. You want to conquer death? It's only in Him. Only in Him. You want a holy life, you need the Holy Spirit when you ascend. And you want to know what's really going on right now. The ascension of Christ. And I suggest, if you want to really address the people around you, you capture those things. news network. My world is MSNBC, my world is Instagram, my world is Facebook, my world is social media. May I suggest you're probably wasting too much time on that garbage. Not social media, folks. How about Savior media? How about the media of the Savior who is the mediator, who really tells you how to look at this world? That's not wrong. You need to know what's going on. We're in the world, but we're not to be of it. But let's face it, we're all too much of it. And this grasp of Christ's current reign as king, you let that seep into you, and your whole world will be different. Let me use this illustration as we close. And brothers and sisters, I'm trying to preach the word. It ain't gonna happen unless a real miracle works. but how long do you listen to a movie? You get a little bit weary. He preached for 30 minutes. Excuse the expression, what crap do you watch for 90 minutes or two hours? Let me use this illustration. And so I don't apologize for using the word. Paul uses the word skupala to describe our righteousness. I won't use the four letter word that it's equivalent to in our culture. So the Bible's blunt. It's more blunt than we want to be. When Paul, when Isaiah, Isaiah's speaking to Israel and they're boasting in their righteousness, all the things that they do to honor God, to show that they're special. The Holy Spirit through Isaiah says, your righteousnesses, they're menstrual cloths. So folks, please, okay, sounds too blunt. You go to the word of God, the menstrual will be honest and you need to be correct. I don't think it's going to be, but hey, let me end it with this or we'll never get done. I'm intrigued with hearing about Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and their estates and these multi billions of dollars that they have The legal hassles that are going to come, oh my, it's almost like the fall all over again. But they're going to be dead. They're not going to administer those estates. And they're still limited estates. Jesus has an inheritance. We are joint heirs. with Christ. The New and the Old Testaments refer to what Christ secured by his own life, what his will and testament is, and it's all these blessings that are given in the scriptures. And Christ's present reign from heaven is to be the executor of his estate. Isn't that great? He's alive. And he's going to make sure it's all carried out. As prophet, priest, and king. There's no limit to resources. No matter what your need is, his needs are infinitely greater. And what's that going to look like? What's that going to look like when it's culminated in a new heavens and a new earth? My Lord fulfilled in me and in all of human history, hallowing His name, causing His kingdom to come, causing His will to be done on the earth as it is in heaven, providing all the needs of His people, forgiving them of all of their sins and making them reflectors of that is forgiving people. and not leading them into temptation beyond that they're able, but delivering them from the evil one. And now, Lord, I know what it means in eternity. Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. And all of God's people said together, Amen. Our Lord sealed these words to us, we pray, so that when we look at the trees, and the sky, and the clouds, and the plants, and the flowers, and the waters, and all the things we see. We might know that behind these things, and moving over