The Promises of the Ascension

Intro:

MEANING BEHIND THE ASCENSION

Big Idea: Jesus promises the growth of the believer, the spread of the church, and His return.

Jesus, in this passages, promises these three things, and the three promises are broken up into the individual, corporate, and future promises.

Before we can get into all of what this means, we have to do a little theology work because we’re going to talk a lot about the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity

The Trinity is the word we use to describe how God is three Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), but they are all collectively one God.

GRAPHIC

I think we all have an idea about the Father and the Son, right? We can conceive of the Father because that imagery is easy, and we know that the Son is Jesus, who is God the Son; but the Holy Spirit is the One who we get a little uneasy about. We think of Him either as basically nonexistent, the Force, or some weird magician, and He’s none of those.

Hopefully, this passage will help us to understand Him a little bit more

The Individual

v. 4-5

The first promise Jesus gives is to all of us individual

He tells the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for “the Father’s promise.”

What is the promise?

John 14:16-17.

This promise is what Jesus promised at the Last Supper: The Holy Spirit. The Counselor, Helper, and Comforter of all Christians.

Baptized with the Holy Spirit

It is with all of this background that Jesus says we will be “baptized with the Holy Spirit”

This is the individual promise to believers. If you are a Christian, you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Some churches will take this to mean that this baptism is an mystical experience where you start speaking in tongues (different languages) or rolling on the ground laughing or other experiences like this.

Story about psychic fair.

This is a temporary thing, it can’t last forever.

I think we see stories of this thing happening in the Bible.

In Acts 2, the disciples speak in different languages.

Even in 1 Samuel 10, Saul falls to the ground and starts prophesying

We have a powerful and mysterious God! He does what He wants!

So, I’m not someone who feels comfortable that this could never happen. I’ve never experienced it, but I know faithful followers of Jesus who have.

That being said, I don’t think that’s what this is talking about, considering this seems to be a followers of Jesus thing.

The Sealing of the Holy Spirit

Ephesians 1:13.

The Bible has this concept of the sealing of the Holy Spirit

What it means is that when you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you (indwells), protects you, and grows you to be more like Christ.

This, I think, it what vs. 5 is talking about.

See, Jesus doesn’t promise mysticism in John 14, He promises a Helper, a Counselor, a Comforter, and the Holy Spirit does that for everyone.

The Corporate

v. 8

After Jesus promises the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the disciples as if He’s going to take down the government and make His own.

He must have been so sad! He’s spent so long with them, He’s died and come back to life, and then they still think that government is the answer?

So, He points out that He’s not doing that right now, but then He provides an alternative

You will receive power.

He calls the disciples into something much grater.

Jesus promises power… to be a witness.

We like the concept of getting power, of control; but we see that this “power” isn’t’ what we expect at all.

We’re given power to serve others and point them to Jesus.

It’s not a power to tell others what to do or to force your will on others or to change the world, it’s a power that comes only from pointing others to Christ.

What does this look like?

If we honestly believe that we’re given power to be a witness, we should maybe have a conception of what that power looks like right?

Evangelism.

We see throughout the Book off Acts where Christians are given an opportunity and an ability to tell others about Jesus

Even right after this in Acts 2, the disciples start telling others about Jesus and tons of people believe.

So, if you are someone who follows Jesus, you’ve been given the ability and the opportunity to tell others about jesus.

And the cool part of this being done by the Holy Spirit is it’s not up to you!!

Ezek. 37:1-14 context

Ezekiel had nothing to do with that dry valley, it was God, Ezekiel just needed to be willing to talk!

The Scope of the witness

Jesus also tells us how far to go in telling others about Jesus.

Jerusalem, Judaea and Samaria, and all the earth

Local, regional, and global

The Gospel isn’t just for Lewis county or blue collar or white collar or a skin color, the Gospel is for everyone!

Go out and love people!

William Booth: Others story

The Future

v. 11

Jesus doesn’t just give us just a mission, He leaves us with a vision for the future.

Jesus ascends, and then two “men” (they’re clearly angels) in white clothes tell them, “Why are you staring there? Go out and do what He told you, He’s coming back!!!”

Jesus will return

This isn’t it! This existence of brokenness and sin is not all that we have to look forward to, because Jesus is returning.

This isn’t a fear thing either, it’s a joy! I’m looking forward to Jesus returning!

The return means that we still have something to do.

Jesus wouldn’t just leave if we’d already done everything we needed to do.

We have a job to do, we need to spread the Kingdom of God

We have to live our lives as if Jesus is coming back soon.

Someone asked the theologian John Wesley what he would do if he knew that this was the last day before Jesus came back. He said, “I would spend it just as I intend to spend it now.”

He wanted to live his life constantly reflecting on jesus.

Jesus is coming back, so don’t waste your time on halfway following God.

What does this mean?

For the non-Christian

You are invited into a relationship with God where you are given identity, value, purpose, and a future.

You are loved immensely by God! He died for you, He beat death for you!

Believe in Him!

For the Christian

You are called to a greater existence than you can imagine

God the Holy Spirit has sealed you into a much bigger life than just existing until you die and go to heaven. He’s given you a purpose: to be His ambassador on earth to everyone you interact with!

Imagine if we lived our lives believing that we’re held in God’s hands. How the fear and the loneliness would dissipate.

Imagine if we believed that we had the power of God in our lives to tell others about Jesus? What would that do to your family, your job, your friendships?

Imagine if we lived each day in complete service to God?

We would love people without a price tag or a transaction, we would be present with the people in front of us, we would sit and be with Christ for as long as we needed to get to know Him, we would serve joyously, not grudgingly.

We can live this way, we have the Holy Spirit in us making us new.