The Promise We Have
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Situation
Situation
A slightly enriched and expanded retelling of Luke 24 50-52; for the sake of having the whole story, we’ll read it all
And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them.
While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.
And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
The Assumption
The Assumption
“Will you at this time restore the Kingdom..?
May have been a logical question
They’d seen him do miraculous things
They’d seen him bring the dead to life
They’d even seen him conquer death—coming back from the grave
They’d heard his teaching about the Kingdom
The promise of the Spirit—his giving it to them
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
The OT prophets were full of information about the Spirit coming, ushering in the Kingdom
Isaiah 32 & 44; Ezek. 39, Joel 2, Zech. 12…if not a few other places
But…they had it wrong
Jewish thought had the Messiah as a military ruler, removing those horrible Romans—or whatever nation held sway over them, and setting up a restored version of the Kingdom as it had been under David/Solomon
He never really answers that question; but diverts it
It is not for you to know...
The Father has fixed times and seasons
He gives them something else to think about
The Kingdom will be ushered in using THEM!
Already/not yet
God’s Kingdom is anywhere that God’s will is being carried out
In fact, God’s will is being carried out, seen visibly in places at times in powerful ways
We do not see, however the totality of the Kingdom—that will come when Christ returns…the Millennium, then the eternal state
In Lk 19, Jesus had told about a ruler that had to leave his kingdom before returning to set it all right…that was a prophetic parable
You will receive power...
They Were to Be Witnesses!
They Were to Be Witnesses!
NOTE: witnesses—martys, the word from which we get martyr
Witnesses, not prosecutors
They were to proclaim the Gospel, to call out—condemn—sin; call sinners to repentance
More on this later
The Ascension
The Ascension
A rather startling event… not what they were anticipating
Two men…apparently angels—most scholarship, most logical understanding
We get an interesting promise
He will come again; it will be another rather startling event
In the same way as you saw Him go into Heaven
He left in the form of man, with the glorified body
He will return in the same form!
The Anticipation
The Anticipation
For believers, truly anticipation
We anticipate something that is good;
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
For non-believers, there can be no anticipation; they have a promise as well
Their promise is not for something good; it’s something very bad
Something bad is dreaded, not anticipated
There will come a sheep/goat judgment Matt 25 31-32
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.
Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
The sheep, the believers, will enter into the Father’s rest Matt 25 34
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
However, the non-believers—on His left cannot argue or bargain their way into the Father’s rest Matt 25 41
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Non-believers should live in fear and dread of that time
We must be ready for His return
Our Action
Our Action
The book is one of action; what do we find that is actionable?
First, don’t let tradition run your doctrine
The apostles were correct to assume a connection between the coming of the Spirit and the coming of the Kingdom
…but that misinterpreted what the Kingdom was to look like
Jesus had said, more than once Mt 3 2
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Any place, any time, God is at work, we see the Kingdom present
There will be times and seasons
We have history’s record of some of those great times
The Reformation of the 1500s with the work of Calvin, Zwingli and others
The great revivals with preachers like Edwards, Whitfield and others of those days
The work of Moody and others of his time frame
The work of Billy Graham
…the work of hundreds…thousands of other preachers, teachers, evangelists who proclaimed the Gospel of Christ—the Good New of repentance, rebirth, restoration, reconciliation
The Kingdom is here already…but not yet in its full glory and power
Our Job
Our Job
To be his witnesses
Not to be the accusers, not the prosecutors…the witnesses
Telling the story of what Jesus has done…
We may not be so fully knowledgeable about all the history contained in Scripture
BUT we each know what He has done for us
A great song—a kids’ song packed with truth
Stop; and let me tell you, what the Lord has done for me.
Stop; and let me tell you, what the Lord has done for me.
He forgave my sin and He saved my soul,
He cleansed my heart and He made me whole.
Stop; and let me tell you what the Lord has done for me.
There is motion to our witnessing
Much made of the ever-enlarging circle given in the instructions: Jerusalem, Judea...
But the idea is to be telling the story…making disciples…as we are going
That’s the thrust of the Great Commission