Sermon Tone Analysis

*/Text/*

 

/In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach  2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.

3 After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.

He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.  4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.

5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

/

/6 //So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” /

/7 //He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

/

/9 //After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

/

/10 //They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.

11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky?

This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

/

 

*/Reading the text:  thoughts and reflections/*

 

This is kind of the “rest of the story” from the gospels because it takes over where they ended and described the birth of the church.

Jesus had kind of a 40 day post-graduate study time with his disciples and then issued his last command on earth:  wait.

I wonder how difficult it was for these disciples.

Certainly there must have been yearnings to return to their former professions and just get on with life.

What was the Holy Spirit going to do any way really?

What does it mean to be a witness?

Why is the Holy Spirit necessary for this?

These are perhaps just a few of the things that may have been going through their minds…/mine/ as well.

Waiting can be the most trying virtue, especially without really knowing what to expect.

Seems there should be better things to do than wait around all the time but that is precisely what the Lord commanded in order that they would received what he’d promised them.

They did and he did.

Their desire and trust in the Lord was more compelling than the same to return to their old professions and former ways of life.

Do we have the same at MMCC?  Are we tired of waiting?

Do we not desire and trust in the Lord and really receive the power of the Holy Spirit?

Are we content that we have done all we can to be witnesses to our own “Jerusalem, Judea & Samaria”?

I’m not so sure.

There’s a good part of our “Jerusalem” that doesn’t know about our Lord or us.

I am saddened that it appears there’s not much interest in these people and the potential of them being eternally lost.

If this is so, then we shouldn’t waste our time nor God’s by praying for the power of the Holy Spirit.

God won’t waste His resources.

If in deed we have received the Holy Spirit when we became believers of Christ then why have we denied or hindered this gracious power?

There isn’t much use in asking to use this power for the sake of the kingdom if we have no intention to use it.

So it rests dormant Sunday after Sunday, weeks, months, years….How long will God’s patience hold out and could we ever accept the fact that God doesn’t want Mt.

Miguel Covenant Church for His purposes and if He so desires wipe it clean from the face of the earth.

Yet I have hope that He doesn’t want to that…at least not yet.

It would seem illogical of God or at least inconsistent that He would send me here only watch Him destroy MMCC.

Still, I have to be willing to accept this as well.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

My desire is that our church be a God dwelling, honoring, and empowering place for the sake of the kingdom.

I am not so sure it has been in the last few years and the deadness of spirit today seems to attest to this.

Personally, I believe we owe God our apologies and should repent and ask his forgiveness for all of the heinous mistakes that have been made and start our slate clean again.

I pray now:  Lord, forgive us of our sins against you by not obeying your commands to love one another…to forgive one another as you forgave us.

Restore your glory and passion to your church.

May we live from this point on as disciples of Christ full of the power and conviction of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses to our community, city, state,…the world.

Move our hearts and our hands to move the universe.

As I write this, I am fearful of the words I might say and how I might say them.

Part of me frustrated and angry, impatient.

More me feels compelled that now is the time to deliver the prophetic message to plead with the Lord to restore the church by prayer.

I don’t if others feel the way I do.

I face the risk of really painting a doom and gloom scenario…where’s the Good News?

People could turn against me.

Yet it is a risk I must take.

How can I be true to my call if I abandon what the Lord has placed on my heart?

Lord, tomorrow will take more wisdom and spirit than I have ever needed since coming to MMCC.

May the message be one of love but also one of plea and sacrifice.

I would rather you cast aside this church if it is not glorifying you and your spirit will not be with us.

Blessed be the name of the Lord!

 

*/Scholarship helps/*

 

*ascension of Christ, the,* the risen Jesus’ departure into heaven after his final appearance to his disciples.

It is described only in Acts 1:2-11, although there may be a different and shorter version in Luke 24:50-51 and allusions to it elsewhere in the nt (e.g., John 6:62; 20:17; Eph.

4:8-10).

In the setting of Acts, the ascension is preparatory to the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost (2:1-4).

The forty-day interval (1:3) is probably symbolic, as this number is frequently used to denote indefinite periods of time.

The setting for the ascension has traditionally been regarded as the Mount of Olives.

For possible ot precedents, note the ‘translation’ of Enoch (Gen.

5:24) and the ‘assumption’ of Elijah (2 Kings 2:1-14); in the intertestamental period, similar stories appeared regarding other ancient figures.

*/See also/* Elijah; Enoch; Holy Spirit, The; Olives, Mount of; Pentecost; Resurrection.*

*J.M.E.

*ASCENSION*.

The story of the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ is told in Acts 1:4-11.

In Lk. 24:51 the words ‘and was carried up into heaven’ are less well attested, as is also the description in Mk. 16:19.

There is no alternative suggestion in the NT of any other termination to the post-resurrection appearances, and the fact of the ascension is always assumed in the frequent references to Christ at the right hand of God, and to his return from heaven.

It would be unreasonable to suppose that Luke would be grossly mistaken or inventive about such an important fact so long as any of the apostles were alive to note what he had written.

For other allusions to the ascension see Jn. 6:62; Acts 2:33-34; 3:21; Eph.

4:8-10; 1 Thes.

1:10; Heb.

4:14; 9:24; 1 Pet.

3:22; Rev. 5:6.

Objections are made to the story on the ground that it rests upon out-dated ideas of heaven as a place above our heads.

Such objections are beside the point for the following reasons:

1.

The act of ascension could have been an acted parable for the sake of the disciples who held this idea of heaven.

Jesus thus indicated decisively that the period of post-resurrection appearances was now over, and that his return to heaven would inaugurate the era of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the church.

Such acted symbolism is perfectly natural.

2. The terms ‘heaven’ and ‘the right hand of the Father’ have some necessary meaning in relation to this earth, and this meaning can best be expressed with reference to ‘above’.

Thus Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven when he prayed (Jn.

17:1; /cf./ 1 Tim.

2:8), and taught us to pray, ‘Our Father who art in heaven . . .

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.‘

In one sense heaven is away from this earth, whatever may be its nature in terms of a different dimension.

In passing from the earthly space-time to the heavenly state, Jesus was observed to move away from the earth, just as at his second coming he will be observed to move towards the earth.

This doctrine of bodily absence is balanced in the NT by the doctrine of spiritual presence.

(~*Spirit, Holy.)

Thus the Lord’s Supper is in memory of One who is bodily absent ‘until he comes’ (1 Cor.

11:26), yet, as at all Christian gatherings, the risen Lord is spiritually present (Mt.

18:20).

The concept of God above on the throne has special reference to the difference between God and man, and to the approach to him by the sinner, whose sin bars access to the King.

Thus we may see the purpose of the ascension as follows:

1. ‘I go to prepare a place for you’ (Jn.

14:2).

2. Jesus Christ is seated, a sign that his atoning work is complete and final.