Untitled Sermon

Welcome back to our series through Acts… I hope you’re enjoying the book of Acts as much as I have been over the last few weeks! And we’re still in the early days of Acts… not just the early days of as in ‘the beginning of the series’ but we’re also still in the early days of the church!

So far we did a study on the whole book of Acts and looked at some of the history of the book… and then we started looking at how the disciples spent their time with Jesus after the death and resurrection… and Jesus first started by showing them many convincing signs that he was alive… and we looked at the proof of the resurrection in that week.

Jesus took them as far as Bethany, which might sound like it’s a contradiction to mount of olives, but it’s actually the same place.

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.”

Acts 1:9-11 — 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.”

Luke 24:50-53 — 50 When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. 52 Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

Redemption of Humanity

Heaven had been opened for us

Worship is appropriate

The New International Version. (2011). (). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

He is coming again

Last week we looked at one of the theme verses for the book of Acts… that we will receive Power when the Holy Spirit comes on us so that we we can be witnesses for Jesus…

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

You as a church have been in my prayers over this last week… well, you always are, but this week I’ve really been praying for you that you would be filled with the Holy Spirit and that God would have opened doors for you to witness about Jesus…

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.”

In our evening Bible study, a lot of the themes that we have been going through have linked up with what we have been looking at on Sunday Mornings, and last week was no exception. So tonight, some of the members of the Bible study are going to come and share their testimonies with the group. So it might be nice to come to the Bible study tonight if you don’t normally do, and hear what God has done in the lives of your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ!

— 50 When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. 52 Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

I can’t remember if I said this before or not, but when I looked at the series ahead, I tried to space out the passages in such a way that the week before Ascension Day, we’d look at , and then when we come to Pentecost in two weeks’ time, we will be looking at onwards.

Redemption of Humanity

Heaven had been opened for us

So, our passage for today is

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

Worship is appropriate

He is coming again

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.”

I don’t know how many of you have realised before that… considering the incredible significance of Jesus’ ascension… the accounts we have of it is Scripture are very limited…?

We have it described here in , and then only in one other Gospel… can you guess what book of the Bible?

Luke!

— 50 When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. 52 Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

We’re going to return to the passages again just now, but I want to use this as a quick teaching opportunity to talk about Bible translations…

I think we all know that the Bible wasn’t written in English… It was written in Hebrew and Greek and some manuscripts contain some Aramaic as well. So every Bible you’ll pick up is a translation of the original languages into English.

I said earlier that only two books in the Bible give us an account of the resurrection… Acts and the Gospel of know that there are many different translations of the Bible in this church depending on your preference… and if you turn in your Bible to the end of Mark, from … there might be a little asterisk or a note saying something like “the earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have ”

Just to clarify what that means…

No-one has the original scrolls that the gospels or any of the letter in the Bible were written on… we only have manuscripts of copies of those letters. And they didn’t have photocopiers 2000 years ago… documents like this was copied by hand by a scribe…

So when the Bible was first translated into English from the original languages, with for e.g. the KJV in 1611, they translated it with the best and earliest copies that were available at that time.

Over time though, through particular archaeological digs in Israel etc… other manuscripts were discovered that, through dating, was proven to be older copies… closer to the original…

One of the biggest of these discoveries was the Dead Sea Scrolls that was found in caves in the Judean Desert on the shores of the Dead Sea in 1946 that had been hidden from the world for hundreds of years.

We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, in their original writings as fully inspired of God and accepts them as the final authority for faith and life.

Jesus took them as far as Bethany, which might sound like it’s a contradiction to mount of olives, but it’s actually the same place.

Redemption of Humanity

Heaven had been opened for us

Worship is appropriate

He is coming again