The Ascension And Return Of Christ

Why Christ Had to Ascend: The Coronation of the King 0:37

Why did He have to go to begin with? If you think about it, coming out of the resurrection, Jesus Christ had all the clout, all the validity, all the credibility in the world. The people had seen Him crucified. This was a dead man.

He was buried. He was in the tomb for three days. This was a man that the people knew to be dead. Upon rising, upon rising in power, you would have thought that He was in a greater position than He'd ever been.

To go into Jerusalem and to minister and to teach and to maybe kick out the Romans and to usher in the days of milk and honey. Now, a lot of folks wanted just that. That was their objective. Jesus is risen.

Hooray. Now let's go deal with Rome. Now let's go deal with the problems of this fallen age. Now let's erect a throne.

Now He will reign on high from the seat of Jerusalem. It's what a lot of people desire, that Jesus would set up His kingdom. Well, any New Testament scholar will tell you this. Jesus did desire to set up His kingdom.

Jesus did intend to set up His kingdom. Jesus did go to set up His kingdom. Where we mess up, what we confuse is this.

Christ's Throne Is in Heaven, Not Jerusalem 1:39

Christ's throne is not in Jerusalem. Do not confuse the throne with the footstool. And there are people with eschatological views who do just that. Christ's throne is not found anywhere on earth.

His kingdom is not governed from Jerusalem or from some other city made by men. It is governed from on high. It is governed from on high, and Christ sits on His throne at the right hand of the Father. And far from being a bad thing that that's where He went, far from being a bad thing, Christ's ascension to that heavenly seat was both necessary and it has all the aspects of a coronation, if you see it aright.

Luke's Account to Theophilus and the Forty Days of Proofs 2:16

All right, let's expand on all this by looking once again at verses 1 through 3 of the text, and we're just going to work our way through the passage. Verse 1. The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach. He's referring to some other writing, and we'll talk about what that is in a moment.

So the former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day in which He was taken up after He, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs.

There was a lot of attestation, a lot of eyewitness acts that proved who He was. Being seen by them during 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. All right. As we said earlier, what we're reading now takes place at the very start of the book of Acts.

Now, who wrote the book of Acts? Luke. What else did he write? Ah, not a trick question.

That's right. He wrote Acts and he wrote the gospel of Luke. So Luke had written both books. Now, Luke himself, we believe that he was a physician.

We believe he was a historian. He certainly had a great attention to detail. He wrote the book of Luke, the Gospel of Luke, and he wrote it to who? Theophilus.

The Gospel of Luke was addressed towards the Theophilus. That's what we see here in the book of Acts. They're both written to this man, Theophilus, or at least they're addressed to this man, Theophilus, to give Theophilus a summary of the ministry of Jesus and of the Acts of the Apostles. So Luke is explaining that when he mentions in verse 1 about a former account, he's referring to the Gospel, the Gospel we call Luke.

Wait for the Promise of the Father: The Holy Spirit 3:47

All right, let's look at verses 4 through 8. And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father. Let me stop there. Depending on what translation you have, the word promise may be capitalized.

If you've got the New King James, it is capitalized. Why do you think that is? Because it's a reference to a person. This is not just promise in the abstract that He promised you something.

It's a reference to a person. It's a reference to an individual. Being assembled with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise, capital P, of the Father. This is a reference to the Holy Spirit.

But to wait for the promise of the Father, which He said, You have heard from me, for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. And that's how we know this is what the reference is to.

Not the Restoration of Israel but Witnesses to the Ends of the Earth 4:38

“It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

— Acts 1:7-8 (NKJV)

Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? And He said to them, It's not for you to know. It's not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. We long to look into the things that are not ours.

And that's what Christ tells them here. But, and He redirects them. But, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and...

It's interesting that the sentence goes on there. And in Judea and Samaria and to the end of all the earth. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes. And you shall take this power, not just to the confines of our holy city, but ultimately you're going to take it to places that you would never dream it would go.

Samaria, and to the far ends of the earth. Alright, after Christ's resurrection, again it's notable that He didn't immediately ascend. Now you might think that he could have, I mean right, He was risen, so He was crucified, He was died, He was buried, three days later He arose. I mean at that point, I guess He could have gone straight up to heaven.

However, He stays, He stays for a period of 40 days. But why? What did he do with that time? Well, what we saw in the earlier verses is He used that time to minister and allow people to see Him.

He went out and He taught and He spoke and so forth. And I'm sure there was value to that. Of course, there was value to that. But one of the greatest values was that people could look at Him, their jaws would drop and say, I saw him die.

I saw the spear. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Countless hundreds saw the risen Lord. Our faith is not just some abstract thing that was cooked up by a bunch of lonely men in the upper room.

Our faith is based on verifiable facts that are eyewitnessed by a multitude and not just a handful. And there's no greater miracle to witness than a resurrected Lord, a resurrected Savior. So this was a large part of the reason that Jesus stuck around for this time frame. Now, by the time we get to verses 4 through 8, a lot of folks have encountered Him at this point, and they've seen Him, and that part of His work is wrapped up.

So it's time for Him to go. And so He draws His disciples close. He draws His loved ones close, and He tells them, or at least he's explaining to them, that they need to wait in Jerusalem until after He leaves. Because something wonderful, something amazing is going to happen.

Something that they wouldn't understand in its fullness until it happened. Christ, on several occasions, refers to this coming event as just a really big deal. In the mind and eye of Christ, in the words of Christ, we see that to Him it was a big deal. But how did the people respond?

How did His own disciples respond to this talk of something that was going to happen and promises and all that? How did they respond? Well, there's no sense that they were too impressed by this idea that Jesus would go, but something really cool or even better might arrive. That was not something they responded too well for.

Anytime Jesus would talk about His departure at all, His disciples would kind of put Him at arm's length a little bit. They didn't want that. They didn't desire that. And His promises of some benefit that would come by His departure, That was nothing they were too interested in getting into the details about.

So oftentimes they would just kind of skip past it when He would say something along these lines. They weren't too impressed with all that. What did impress them, or what they really wanted, or what they expected from a resurrected Savior, from a resurrected King, was a kingdom. And that kingdom would take place in their midst.

Jesus had said it would be in their midst, but they heard something different.

The Disciples' Myopic, Nationalistic Understanding of the Kingdom 8:00

They had a very myopic understanding of the promises of God. And Christ would say, the kingdom is among you, or the kingdom is coming. Or when He would say, I'm ushering in the kingdom, or something like that. The way that the people respond, even as His own disciples, would be to see that through a nationalistic lens.

And say, ah, Jesus, it is now the time. It is now the time when we will finally restore the kingdom to Israel. Is this the long-awaited consolation? The restoration of who we are?

The glory days? The days of milk and honey? Are they coming? And if so, when?

Remember, that's what they ask Him. Jesus will respond with the equivalent of, that's not for you to know. That's not even really what I'm talking about here. He had to reroute them.

The amount of times you look in Scripture and see the confusion of His disciples, it's almost virtually every time Jesus speaks. If that's true, take heart. If that was true of them, take heart for us. If you don't get all of Scripture, if theology is still something you're kind of growing in and understanding, and you feel kind of like, gosh, I should have understood that before.

I don't even know what this word means. Don't worry. The disciples stumbled all the time, and they heard from the lips of God Himself. They were taught by none the less than Jesus, and they still misunderstood a lot.

If we misunderstand, God is patient with us as we work things through, and we should be patient with one another. In any case, to his disciples, Jesus would say, you know, Israel and the kingdom of God, they're not mutually inclusive, or they're not equivalent terms. They're not synonymous. The promise of the Holy Spirit was not what interested them.

It was when Israel would regain its prominence and throw off the shackles of Rome and the like. But again, Christ cuts them off. In verse 6, He says, The times and the seasons of these events are not your most pressing concern. You know, the amount of times that I've looked to share the gospel with folks and had them want to steer the conversation to the most peripheral things.

I remember once I was distributing bottles of water and Bibles in Gillette, Wyoming. Sharing there's another pastor with me where we're sharing God's word, distributing it, and this guy comes up to me. This happens with some frequency when I'm in a public setting. This guy comes up to me, you know, sees I'm a pastor, he knows I'm a pastor from giving up Bibles, and I, you know, it's got a gospel tract on it, and usually those conversations I try to drive it towards the gospel pretty quick.

But he didn't want any of that. He says, tell me about the white horse in Revelation. What do you think it means? Now, he already knew what he thought it meant.

He just wanted to hear whether I would validate what he said. And if I did, then I was a good guy, and if I didn't, I guess I was a heathen. So often what we do is we take the red meat of Scripture and we say, yeah, that's 101, put that to the side, let's move to other things.

In a sense, that's what Christ's disciples were doing. The idea of the Holy Spirit, which would be the most foundational and critical of importance and the growth and health of the church, that was less enticing to them than talking about, all right, what's the future of our people? What's the future of our nation state?

What is going to go on here? In any case, Jesus cuts them off in verse 6. He says, that's not your most important concern. Then He returns to the topic of the Holy Spirit.

He says this: you shall receive power. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. I am going, I will ascend, but here's a picture of dissension. When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, overshadows you and dwells you, and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Christ's love in His ministry and His covenant, especially under the new covenant that He declared in the upper room, had a plan that was far greater than even His closest disciples understood. What God was doing in their midst exceeded their expectation. This is true in our own lives as well. Sometimes we think God is a narrow God and He has narrow plans and it just isn't so.

God's plans exceed anything that we could dream or imagine.

A Kingdom for All Nations, Not One Geographical Epicenter 11:48

And His plan here is a kingdom that would not be located in one little geographical epicenter in the Middle East, but a kingdom that would stretch across the entirety of the globe. A kingdom that would go from one end to the other. And so Jesus, He's talking to people that are very immersed in their cultural identity.

Understandably, very immersed in their cultural identity. God had called them to be immersed in their cultural identity for the countless centuries. But He's saying now, something has changed. Now you will have brothers and sisters of the faith.

Brothers and sisters that are Samaritans. Can you deal with that? Not only to the Samaritans either. To the Syrians.

To the people on our borders. To the people beyond our borders. That is the kingdom. That is where the kingdom will go.

You're thinking too small. You're thinking too small is what Jesus' message is. He says, you have no idea what wonderful thing is going to come upon you. The promise, the Holy Spirit Himself, the third person of the Trinity, He will dwell His own.

He will be a helper.

It Is to Your Advantage That I Go: The Coming of the Helper 12:51

Back in John 16, He explained this in greater length. He said this, He says, it's to your advantage that I go. So He's talking to His disciples. Remember, this is at a time when they weren't buying what he was selling, at least with regards to His going.

And He says this, He says, it's to your advantage that I have to go. I know you don't want me to go, but it's to your advantage that I do so. Because if I don't go, the Helper, capital H, depending on the translation you have, the Helper will not come to you. If I don't go, He won't come.

You need this one. But if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin. He'll convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.

Now, how would the Spirit, how would the Helper, how would this promise be more helpful than Jesus? I mean, that's a fair question. Jesus was pretty helpful in His own right. I mean, this is God in the flesh.

How could this spirit, how could this one, this one that we can't tangibly see or touch, how could He be better? If we're being honest, you'd probably put yourselves back at that time frame. You probably would have thought that as well. How is someone I can't see and really hold a conversation with going to be better than the one I can?

How is that going to work out, oh Jesus?

The Limited Human Nature of Christ and the Boundless Spirit 14:00

The person of Jesus Christ, as they looked at Him, as they saw Him, as they touched Him, They saw Him in His human nature. Now, can His human nature be in more than one place at a time? No, of course not. Could Jesus be in Jerusalem and simultaneously in Samaria in His human nature?

No, He could not. Jesus was limited in this clear and obvious way. The human nature of Christ had human limitations. But the coming of the Holy Spirit, the coming of the Holy Spirit, it's like a divine wind that knows no boundaries.

A divine wind that would come and spread across the people and give gifts to the people. Gifts that it was the Spirit's role to give. Remember the Trinity? The Father, Son, the Holy Ghost, they have different roles.

They are one God, three persons, they have different roles. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to men. People needed His gifts. The coming of the Spirit would be like a divine wind, would know no boundaries, would rain down gifts upon the people.

Gifts that the church would surely and sorely need. You know, the Holy Spirit is not a lesser God than Jesus. Sometimes we think, well, you know, There's a hierarchy here in terms of which one's a little bit better or stronger or more powerful or what have you. That's not the way it works.

One God, one essence, one nature. This is the Trinity. We don't totally fathom it, but we know this to be true. The Holy Spirit is not a lesser God than Jesus.

They were not trading down by getting the Spirit and giving up their Savior. And the advocacy and the intercession of this helper, this paraclete, this advocate, the church would absolutely need in the time before. Now, did the apostles understand any of that? That's just a very brief overview of some of the issues at stake.

Did the apostles get any of that? Well, probably not, or at least just a very little bit. The idea of Christ leaving them really was their most pressing concern. But what if you talked to them the day after Pentecost?

I suspect if you talked to them then, if you talked to them then, they might have been a lot more appreciative and grateful and understanding of what we've just read in verses 4 through 8.

Taken Up in the Cloud of God's Glory 16:00

“Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”

— Acts 1:9 (NKJV)

Okay, let's look at verses 9 through 11 now. Let's describe what happened next and how Christ ascended up to heaven. Verse 9. Now when He had spoken these things, and while they watched, He was taken up.

He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly towards heaven, as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel. We believe these to be angels. Two men stood by them in white apparel, and they said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up to heaven?

What are you doing? You've been looking up for some time now. What are you expecting? Men of Galilee, why are you standing gazing up to heaven?

This same Jesus who was taken from you, who was taken from you into heaven, will so come. Will so come in like manner, just as you saw Him go into heaven.

Only the One Who Descended Could Ascend 16:45

Way back in John 3, Jesus had been talking to a man named Nicodemus. And He told Nicodemus this. He said, no one, no one has ascended into heaven but He who came down from heaven. No one has ascended in heaven, but He, He alone, who has come down from heaven.

Now, what did Jesus mean by that? Well, at the very least, at the very least, that statement suggested that the only one who could ascend was one who had descended. The only one who could ascend to heaven must have previously descended at some point in the past. Do you think that you could ever climb to heaven on your own?

If you had an outcome or a desire to go to heaven, could you get there on your own? If I see anyone nod their head yes, we're going to have a talk after worship. Of course, the answer is no, but sometimes people think that they could. Think of the Tower of Babel.

Think of times when people, you know, think you could construct something out of marble or wood up to heaven. Think of the modern temptation we have not to climb a wooden ladder up to heaven, but to climb a ladder of our works to heaven. I tell you, there are more than some who think that that's the way that they're going to get there, that they're going to earn their way in, that they're going to find their way on heaven's golden shores, but having gotten there on a raft of their good efforts, their good works.

This, of course, is not the way that it goes. Jesus, what made Him unique, one of the things that made Him unique, is He was not of this world. Heaven was His home base. It was His provincial kingdom, this heavenly estate.

His righteousness was the singular key by which its gates opened wide. The righteousness of this one. And to prove this, verse 9 says that He didn't have to climb or to strain to get there. Instead, He was just taken up in a cloud.

A cloud reflecting the glory of God. Now I want to stop and focus on this word cloud for a moment. When you and I think of clouds, it was the only thing in art school, you know, when I was in kindergarten and steps I could ever draw, you know, draw the puffy cloud.

That was all I could do. So when I thought of clouds over the years, I think of this little thing that I would draw, this puffy little wispy thing of hydrogen or whatever else clouds are made of. Obviously I didn't study science that well either. Whatever a cloud is that we picture it to be, this puffy thing that just kind of sits up there.

Sometimes it's big, sometimes it's small, but a cloud is a cloud is a cloud.

The Shekinah Glory: This Was No Mere Wispy Cloud 19:01

Well, that's not what is being depicted here. Way back in Exodus 24, you might remember that another cloud had come down upon the mount, down upon Mount Sinai. And this was the cloud of God's glory. There are all manner of thunderings and lightnings, of course, that testify to the power and the authority of the one who dwelt in the cloud.

But this cloud, the Shekinah glory, it was something far more impressive than whatever wispy thing we might think of. In the same way, this cloud, just like the Exodus 24, this cloud of Acts 1 was not just a bit of hydrogen. When Jesus was taken up, it wasn't a matter of Him just kind of floating up like a balloon and, you know, all of a sudden he goes into the vapors up there and he's just gone.

That's not what was seen here. That's not what is going on. And the way we know that's not what happened is look at the reaction of the men, the reaction of those who saw it. They look up, and then they keep looking up, and they keep looking up, and they keep looking up.

Whatever happened was so majestic, so amazing, this one was taken up in the clouds, they can't take their eyes off it. They can't tear their eyes away from what they're seeing. You can imagine the angels are kind of kind of standing here, kind of, you know, watching these these guys kind of looking up to heaven, and and ultimately they feel compelled to just say, guys, men of Galilee, what you doing?

Why do you stand gazing up into heaven?

This Same Jesus Will So Come in Like Manner 20:15

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

— Acts 1:11 (NKJV)

And then they introduce a doctrinal statement. They say this same Jesus who you just saw go, this same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven, will return in like manner. He will come in the same way that He went. At the outset of this morning's sermon, we emphasize this point.

We said that the Old Testament promised Christ's arrival. The New Testament emphasizes his return. The day has never been closer than it is today. And this is not a hidden, abstract teaching in Scripture.

This is not an appendix to Scripture. It is the continual teaching of God's Word. He is coming back. This morning, have you had a rough go this week, this month, this past year?

Are you tired of the hurts and the travails of living out your days in a fallen world? Do you have spiritual scars, physical scars on your back? Christ is returning. The one who went will come back.

And when He comes back, He's coming back for us. To collect us. That where He is, there we may be also. Jesus said the same thing.

Back when He knew His disciples had anxiety about this. Remember, He knew that His disciples didn't understand this. He knew that they were anxious. He knew that they were scared.

Remember what He said to them?

In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: A Place Prepared 21:34

In John 14, He said this. He says, alright guys, listen close. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.

In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you. On the day you see Me go, what will I be doing? I will be preparing a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again. And I will receive you to myself. I will receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go, you know.

And the way you know. Christ's ascension was not a cosmic surprise. Christ's departure was not or should not have been a shock. It was regularly referred to.

Christ's ascension, His going to heaven, was a consistent teaching of God's word and of Christ Himself. But that teaching always went hand in hand with the promise that He would return. He never once said, guys, I'm out of here. Best of luck to you.

No, He always says this, guys, the time is drawing near when I must go. But don't worry. Don't worry. I'm going to prepare a place for you that where I go, you might be also.

I'm coming back. I will receive you to myself. It's going to be okay. Guys, where I am going is where you really want to be anyway.

Guys, the fallen world we now live in, you were made for someplace better. All the hurts and pains and tears you've cried here, you will not cry but one. And the place that I'm taking you to, take hope. Tomorrow is better than today.

If I go, I will come again. Jesus said this repeatedly. The angels are saying the same thing.

Not a Distant Deist God but One Who Longs to Be With His People 23:12

This same Jesus who was taken up into heaven will so come in like manner. What I like about this is that we don't serve a God who just made us and then just went off to do His own thing in the cosmos. That's the view of the deist. That there is a God, we don't know a lot about him, he made things, it's like a top, he sat spinning, and he just stepped back, then he went off to do something else.

That's not a picture of our God. The picture of our God is the God who walks with Adam in the cool of the afternoon, a God who creates man and then wants to be with man. God formed you, He made you, He wired you in the womb to be who you are. He desires and longs to hold your hand, not just today, but everlasting.

God formed you not just to be a friend or an acquaintance, someone He'll keep in the broom closet of heaven, but He formed you to be a son and daughter. There's encouragement to be derived from these words. There's encouragement to be derived about what the future holds for us. The question is, do we believe it?

Do we believe it? We don't worship a dead or disinterested God. We worship a living God who desires to be among His people.

You Want Grace, Not What You Deserve 24:13

Now, what have we done to deserve it? You hear me throw the word deserve, your antenna should go up. We haven't just done anything to deserve anything. If we got what we deserve, we wouldn't want what we deserve.

The most dangerous prayer a man could ever pray is, God, give me what I deserve. If you ever hear someone pray that, step back. The lightning is coming. You don't want what you deserve.

You want what you don't deserve. You want grace. You want forgiveness. You want mercy when you deserve only justice.

You and I have done nothing to deserve this future. If I were to give you a pen and paper right now, how long do you think it would take? If you had to just write down the sins of this past week, how long would it take? Could you even remember them all?

Probably not. If I were to give you a pen and paper to write down all the sins of this past month, this past year, how long would we be here? I suspect the building would crumble around us before we got out. Given that that's true, if we're even the least bit introspective about our state and our problem with sin, given this isn't true, how amazing it is that God looks upon rebels who have rebelled countless times over and says, I want that one as my son or my daughter.

While this one has rebelled against me, deserves only my wrath, has lived their lives so frequently at enmity with me and what I have said, I long to hold this one in my arms. If you pray to God and you wonder if God is this punitive judge who's just smacking his fist, just ready to deal with you for what you did wrong last week, this morning, and the time ahead, that's not the God of Scripture.

He is a God of justice. Make no mistake. He is a God of wrath. Don't forget it.

He will deal with iniquity every last drop. But he's also a God of love and a God of mercy. And that mercy was manifest in the pouring out of His own son's blood on Calvary. He demonstrated the love He has for you, even now, even knowing all that He knows about you, things you would hesitate to name to anyone else.

He knows it all. And yet He gave for you what was most precious to Himself. The blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. There's nothing more He could give.

And if you want greater proof of His love for you, there's no greater proof to offer. He shed His own blood for your soul. I don't know if words fail me to explain it. It's one of the great frustrations of the pastor, is words fail.

The Love of God Manifest in the Blood of His Son 26:30

Words fail me to explain what I know in my heart of hearts to be true. Well, I think you and I mutually believe. I don't know how to explain how this God of love could ever desire me. You would think that a man's sin in Genesis 3, that there never would have been in Genesis 4.

But out of His love for us, God had a better outcome in mind. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. On the very night He was betrayed, on the night He was betrayed, Jesus looked out at the anxious and He told them, You're special to me. And I willingly go to do what I am to do for your sake and for the glory of My Father.

This morning you need to know that no matter who you are or what you've done, that the God who died for you on Calvary, He's not waiting for you in heaven with His arms folded. The arms are open wide. He cannot wait to hold you close. He cannot wait.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. God cannot wait to hold you. He cannot wait to wipe away your tears because He knows what you've been through. He cannot wait to wipe away your tears.

He can't wait to show you around a kingdom whose boundaries, to the degree it even has, exceed anything you could ever understand or imagine. He cannot wait to do this.

His Ascension Anticipates Our Own: The Mandate to Be Witnesses 27:47

Even now, Christ is preparing a place for you. His resurrection secured our resurrection. His ascension anticipates our own. A day will come.

I'll close with this thought. A day will come when the trumpet will sound. A day will come. God was right about what was going to happen in the Old Testament.

He's right about what's going to happen in the New Testament. A day will come when the trumpet will sound. We will rise to meet our Savior in the clouds. We will join Him forever in His heavenly estate.

When we do so, it won't be because we deserve it. It won't be because we've earned it. But instead, it will be because while we're yet sinners, Christ died for us. He had this sort of love for us.

When He was on the cross, Jesus counted the cost. And He endured the cross to make our reunion with Him possible. And when He ascended, 40 days later in Acts 1, that reunion was anticipated and typified. For we too shall ascend and join Him where He is.

Now what should we do until then? What should we do until that day? We should remember this. We should remember the last words He gave to His apostles, His disciples.

He said this. He said, be My witnesses. The truth that I declare to you, who I am, what I have done, take it to the far corners of the earth. This is not just a mandate for someone else.

This is not just a mandate for the super spiritual, for some other church, for some other denomination. This is a mandate for the whole of God's people. Let's pray for the grace to take part in it.