Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Today, we are going to continue our study through the Apostles’ Creed.

Because it’s Easter or Resurrection Sunday, I’ve skipped ahead in the Creed to the stanza that speaks of Christ’s resurrection and His ascension.

“On the third day, He rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.”

Today is going to be a content-heavy and fast-paced sermon on these topics.

Sometimes a sermon is meant to call us to action (Do this! Don’t do that!), but today’s sermon is meant to call us to believe… which should affect every aspect of our lives… our thoughts, our words, and (of course) our actions.

Buckle up and put on your thinking caps… It’s going to be a ride today, and you’ll get a lot more out of it if you actively follow along.

Scripture Reading

Acts 1:1–11 (ESV)

1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Daniel 7:13–14 (ESV)

13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.

14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Main Idea:

Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, He ascended into heaven, and He presently rules as God the Father’s anointed King.

Sermon

1. Jesus Really Lived and Died

In the first verse of the book of Acts, Luke was possibly acknowledging a benefactor named “Theophilus,” or possibly using a pseudonym (false name) to represent all those who loved God and who might read this account of the earliest spread of Christianity (“Theophilus” literally means God-lover).

But the opening three verses are packed with important content, which we will (Lord willing) unpack during our time this morning.

The bulk of my sermon today will be devoted to the topics of Christ’s resurrection from the dead and His ascension to glory, but before I lead us down that road, we must first take a look at the big map to see where we are.

Luke said that he’s already “dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach” in his “first book” (v1).

The book of Acts, then, is a sequel – a part-two – of Luke’s Gospel account.

Therefore, Luke tells the reader that everything he wrote in Acts builds off of what Jesus had already “begun to do and teach” (v1).

Well, what was it that Jesus did and taught, according to Luke and the other Gospel writers?

We will dive more into The Historical Jesus in our next sermon on the Apostles’ Creed (in June), but for now, we have to at least touch briefly on the facts – Jesus of Nazareth really did live, and He really did die.

His life and death are as much a part of the wonderful story of the gospel as His resurrection and His ascension… it all fits together as the greatest story ever told.

The Bible teaches us almost everything we know about Jesus.

Of course, there are extrabiblical sources (historical documents, archaeological finds, and other stuff) which corroborate the biblical record, but the Bible is the only place we can go to learn about what Jesus truly did and said.

The Gospel writers either heard it directly from His mouth and saw it with their own eyes (John and Matthew), or they worked closely with someone who did (Mark and Luke).

And the Gospel writers all believed that Jesus was the culmination of something God had been doing and predicting for centuries (really since the beginning of time).

Jesus came on the scene, in one sense, like every other human.

He was born of a woman, an infant in need of care and protection.

But, in another sense, Jesus was unlike every other human.

He was born of God, a child who was announced as universal “Lord” by a multitude of angels (Lk.

2:11-14).

And, when Jesus began His earthly ministry (at about 30 years old), He began to announce that the Old Testament Scriptures were “fulfilled” in Him (Lk.

4:17-21).

Jesus showed His power over “demons” (Lk.

4:31-37), He healed all sorts of “diseases” (Lk.

4:38-41), and He even brought “dead” people back to life (Lk.

7:11-17).

All of this, and more, was/is evidence that Jesus was/is the Messiah or Christ of OT prophecy (Ps.

2:2).

Christ is not Jesus’s last name; it’s the claim to a title with huge implications!

But the Messiah or Christ who came was not what many in Israel were expecting.

They were looking for a powerful king, who would subdue all of Israel’s enemies and rule the world with authority from a throne in Jerusalem.

Instead, they got a suffering servant, who gave Himself over to be killed by His enemies and who died a scandalous death outside of Jerusalem, where those accursed by God are condemned to die.

Ah, but friends, this is precisely the sort of Messiah or Christ we all need!

Before God’s anointed King comes to crush all His enemies, we need Him to remove our names from the enemy list!

You see, all humans (including me and you) are sinful rebels.

We have disobeyed God’s law, and we have rejected God’s authority over us.

When we sin, we know full-well that it’s sin, and we foolishly imagine that, somehow, we’ll get away with it.

But we won’t.

In fact, the Bible teaches that Jesus Himself will stand in judgment against all sinners everywhere, and He will Himself unleash the fury of God’s wrath (Rev.

19:15).

And yet, Jesus is both Judge and Savior!

King and Redeemer!

When Jesus the Christ came to live and die, He did both as a substitute.

He lived the obedient life God requires of all sinners, and Jesus died under the penalty of God’s curse, giving Himself as the sacrifice which satisfied God’s justice.

In His life and death, Jesus earned salvation for all those He came to save.

And by faith or trust in His good work, all sinners may turn from their sin and find forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

Friends, Jesus really lived, and He really died; and because He did both on behalf of sinners, we may all celebrate the grace of God on display in Jesus Christ.

May God grant us all repentance and faith, so that we may turn from our sin and put all our trust in this marvelous Savior.

If you want to know more about what this means or what it looks like, then please ask me or another Christian about it after the service today.

2. Jesus was Resurrected

If Jesus’s death was the end of the story, then all I’ve described so far would be meaningless.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “If Christ has not been raised [from the dead], then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain… your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor.

15:14, 17).

But, as Paul also wrote, “In fact Christ has been raised from the dead” (1 Cor.

15:20)!

This was also Luke’s claim at the beginning of Acts.

Look at v3. Luke says that Jesus “presented himself alive to them [i.e., to His disciples] after his suffering [i.e., His death] by many proofs…” (v3).

The “proofs” Luke is talking about here are the ways in which Jesus showed His disciples that He’d truly been raised to life again.

Jesus wasn’t just a figment of their imagination, and He wasn’t a ghost.

Peter testified that the Jewish and Roman leaders had “put [Jesus] to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him up on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us,” Peter said, “who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:39-41).

Peter’s point in testifying to eating and drinking with Jesus after His resurrection is that dead guys and ghosts don’t eat or drink.

Paul later argued that Jesus “appeared” first to Peter and the rest of the disciples, and then Jesus also “appeared to more than five hundred… at one time, most of whom are still alive…” (1 Cor.

15:5-6).

Paul was implying that anyone with doubts about Jesus’s resurrection could go and ask those who had personally seen Him alive and well.

You know, for the last few decades, it has been common for news stories to pop up around this time of year that claim to raise new objections or new questions about Jesus’s resurrection.

But any honest historian will tell you that the resurrection of Jesus is the most attested ancient fact we know.

And the supposed new questions you hear about today are just a recirculation of the earliest attempts to deny the obvious.

Just after Jesus was raised from the dead, the religious and political leaders of Jerusalem tried to pay off the Roman soldiers so that they might tell everyone, “[Jesus’s] disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep” (Matt.

28:11-15).

Friends, the fact is: the tomb is empty.

And the most plausible explanation is that Jesus did exactly as He’d said.

Jesus said, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (Jn.

10:17-18).

The rest of the New Testament, after the Gospels (which focus explicitly on Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection), points back to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as that pivotal moment which shapes all of human history (including the part that’s still future to us).

The calendar of the western world is an illustration of the reality!

All time bends around a single event in the human experience – there was the time before Christ and there is the time after.

Whether you call it BC and AD or BCE and CE, your calendar still centers on the God-man, Jesus Christ.

And one of the main reasons that Jesus’s resurrection is so important is that Jesus has promised to raise others in the same way that He Himself was raised.

Jesus has power not only over His own grave, but over all graves!

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live…” (Jn.

11:25).

And again, Jesus said, “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn.

6:40).

Brothers and sisters, our Christian hope is not to depart; we are not looking forward to the day when we shall fly to some home far away.

No, we are looking forward to that day when Christ shall come here… to this earth, to renew every aspect of it, and to raise to glory, power, and immortality those who have died in Christ, whose bodies were put in the ground as dishonorable, weak, and perishable (1 Cor.

15:42-44).

We are not awaiting escape; we are awaiting resurrection!