Ascended Not Departed

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins in salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Luke, chapter 24, verses 44 through 53. Then Jesus said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the

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Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and he said to them, thus it is written, that the

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Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

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You are witnesses of these things and behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

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Then he led them out as far as Bethany and lifting up his hands, he blessed them.

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While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, blessing

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God. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Today we recognize

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Christ's ascension into heaven. Now I want to make very clear that the word ascension is a very important word.

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When we say that Christ ascended into heaven, it was not his farewell party. It was not him saying,

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I'm out of here boys, good luck. That's not the idea. In fact, in order to understand ascension properly, we're going to need to understand it by way of contrast.

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I want you to think about some of your favorite stories or maybe your favorite movies. Oftentimes the plot line involves some evil character who is very powerful, very arrogant, and all of his minions obey his every beck and call and command.

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And this is an evil dude. And as stories generally go, the good guy rises up, usually a hero who's not looking for a fight, who the fight has found.

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And he rises to the occasion and takes the guy who is high and mighty and brings him low.

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How low? Well, six feet under low. That's generally how the stories go.

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Do they not? Indeed, they do. And so the idea here is that when we look at Ephesians chapter two, that wonderful text that reminds us that our attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he took on the form of a servant and humbled himself and was obedient to death, even death on a cross.

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You'll notice that the first part of that passage describes Jesus's lowering of himself.

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How low did Jesus go? All the way to the grave. But God has exalted him.

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And so you'll notice that after the low, then comes the exaltation, Christ's resurrection from the grave, his vindication by God.

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But today, we recognize his not departing, but his ascension.

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How high did he ascend? Well, that will be the subject of our sermon today.

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So with that, we're going to return to our first reading from the book of Acts, chapter one, and we're going to interweave it with our gospel text so that we can get a fuller picture of what occurred and what

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Jesus said on the day that he ascended. And then, after looking at these historical narratives, we're going to do a little bit of a biblical survey.

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It'll take us mostly into the Psalms, although we will be looking at Philippians again, as well as Daniel chapter seven, but we're going to note that the scriptures in several different places describe

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Jesus' ascension and what happened on that day. So with that, we are in Acts chapter one, verse one.

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In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all the things that Jesus began to do and teach.

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Now, the word Theophilus is a wonderful double entendre. And the reason why is because the person who

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Luke is writing this account to is named Theophilus. Theophilus, probably the fellow who helped fund the writing of this book as well as the gospel of Luke.

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In fact, Luke and Acts are volume one and volume two. They go together. And Theophilus is a great way to describe each and every one of you.

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And the reason I say that is because Theophilus literally means lover of God. And see, we who have been brought to penitent faith in Christ, who trust in him for the forgiveness of our sins, bear fruit in keeping with repentance, who have had our sins washed away, and God has regenerated, we too now love

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God. And so this is written to you in this sense then. And so you'll note the words. He says,

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I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. So you'll note that Luke thinks that what he wrote in his gospel of Luke is just the beginning of the things that Jesus, the

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God -man, began to do. Which kind of hints at this idea that Luke kind of expects that Jesus has been busy since then.

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But we'll talk about that in a minute. So all the things that he began to do and teach, until the day he was taken up, after he had given commands to the

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Holy Spirit, to the apostles whom he had chosen, 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.

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And while staying with them, he ordered them, do not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the

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Father, which he said, you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the

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Holy Spirit, not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him, and watch this question,

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Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Alright, so let me kind of explain this to you.

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It's the day of your graduation. You're about to go from being a student to being a graduate, and right before they hand you the diploma, you ask a boneheaded question that shows that maybe you shouldn't be receiving this after all.

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I mean, seriously, fellows? Jesus has been with you, how long, teaching you what, regarding what, the kingdom of God, and here you're thinking that Jesus is about to sit on the throne in Jerusalem and restore the kingdom to Israel?

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Sorry, back to Catechism 101 for you, fellows. And I love the fact that the

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Bible over and again shows us that the disciples weren't always the clearest doctrinal thinkers.

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It gives me hope, because sometimes my thinking isn't so clear on these things either.

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Now, before you think that they've totally biffed it, let's see if we can grade on the curve here and see if we can redeem this question a little bit.

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You're going to note that the question is just crackling with eschatological expectation.

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It is crackling with this idea that Jesus is about to sit on the throne, he's about to rule and reign, and you know what?

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They're right, but from where is not correct.

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So we'll give them 50%, maybe 51. They pass with a

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D minus, something like that, so that way they don't have to go back to remedial learning. So he said to them, now watch these words, this is

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Jesus' answer. It is not for you to know the times or the seasons that the

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Father has fixed by his own authority. Let those words sink in for a second.

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It is not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. I'm going to make two comments on this relating to our day.

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Currently in our day, if you were to attend a Pentecostal or a Charismatic church, their justification for having, quote unquote, modern day prophets, who really actually sound a lot more like astrologers to me, who are giving you your daily horoscope, that they justify their existence by basically saying that we need prophets in order to help us to understand the times and the seasons that we are in.

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Jesus says to his apostles, and he says to the church, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons.

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That's not your business. Don't worry. Your Father in heaven has got that all sorted out. And by way of another thing here,

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I hate to say this, but we must be warned that there is a growing movement afoot in the broader church right now, and the internet is buzzing about September 23rd, 2017.

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I don't know if you've seen the Facebook chatter, if you've seen it on Twitter or Snapchat, but there are fellows literally claiming that on September 23rd, 2017, which is coming up, that that's the day the rapture is going to happen.

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And I assure you, you want to know what's going to happen on September 23rd, 2017? Nothing.

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It'll be a normal day like any other normal day. Jesus will not be coming on that day, because Jesus says,

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I'm coming at a time when no one expects him. So as soon as somebody sets a date, you can know with 100 % certainty he ain't showing up on that day.

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So barbecue, celebrate, whatever you want, nonsense.

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Remember Harold Camping back a few years ago? All these people selling their homes and buying tracks and traveling the countries and the globe to warn everybody that Jesus was coming on a certain day, and guess what happened?

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He didn't show up. So I assure you, Jesus will not be here on the 23rd of September, at least not in that way.

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So Jesus says, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the

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Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

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Now, note here, Jesus says to the disciples, they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on them.

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Power to do what is kind of the question. Power to do what?

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Well, power to be my witnesses. You see, when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles, what did they do?

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They proclaimed Christ, and they did so boldly in the face of opposition, and each and every one of you who are baptized, a believer in Jesus Christ, repentant, forgiven, absolved, and bearing fruit in keeping with repentance, you also have the

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Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit has come upon you and has given you power to bear witness to Christ.

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And if you sit there and go, yeah, but if I do that, somebody might say something awful about me on social media.

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All I can say to that is join the club. Join the club. Who cares? We have been given power from the

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Holy Spirit to bear witness to Christ, and this is one of those passages that teach us that the Holy Spirit has not come upon us to make us bark like dogs, writhe on the floor, or fall over backwards, but has given us power to teach and proclaim

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Christ, and to let the world know that in Him there is the forgiveness of sins.

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So you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

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And if you pay attention then to what Jesus is saying here, it's very clear that from our Gospel text that this is the exact same day that Jesus is talking in the

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Gospel of Luke. And I would even argue that you'll notice that there are some parallels here between Matthew 28 and the

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Great Commission. Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age, Jesus says in the

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Great Commission. We are to go and make disciples, baptizing, teaching, all that Christ has commanded. So let's kind of fold in our

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Gospel text then here. Luke 24, starting at verse 44, our Gospel text begins.

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It says that Jesus said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the

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Psalms must be fulfilled. And I will remind you again, who is the Bible about?

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Jesus. Jesus seems to think it's about Jesus. The apostles seem to think it's about Jesus. Modern day

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Christians seem to think it's about them. One of these things is not like the other. Remember that game from Sesame Street?

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So Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and he said to them, thus it is written that the

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Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and listen, that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

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What's the message that we have been given to proclaim? Repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

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That requires us to preach God's law, to tell people that they have fallen short, that they stand condemned and guilty before God of their sins.

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You and I, the same is true of us. But this story doesn't end there, so don't try to solve this problem by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and fixing it yourself by going, well if I just try harder, then

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I can somehow meet the standard. No, you've already fallen short and you already are condemned for that.

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But the good news is that in Christ there is forgiveness of sins. So the message that we've been given to proclaim, that the

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Holy Spirit empowers us to bear witness to, even to our neighbors, is that we all need to repent and be forgiven through Jesus Christ because in him there is the forgiveness of sins.

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And this is to be proclaimed to all nations, including 21st century

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America and 21st century Minnesota, although that's technically not a nation.

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Some would argue maybe it is, but I think you get the idea. Every nation of the world, even our modern nations, need to hear this great good news that in Jesus there is forgiveness of sins and he says, you are witnesses of these things and behold

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I'm sending the promise of my father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

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And you can see that Acts 1 and Luke 24, same day, same topic, same speech, a little bit more data.

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And then we hear these words, then Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, lifting up his hands, he blessed them.

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Note those words, he lifts up his hands and he blesses them. And while he blessed them, he parted.

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So while Jesus is parting from them, what's he doing? Blessing. Watch this.

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He parted from them and he was carried up into heaven and they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing

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God. So as Jesus is ascending and departing from them, he's blessing them.

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Now let's go back to our first reading. See what he writes about this in Acts 1.

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

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

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Now this is referring clearly to his return in glory to judge the living and the dead.

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But remember what Luke said. He lifted up his hands and he was blessing them while he departed from them.

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And so for us who are in Christ, Christ when he returns, returns in blessing for us.

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Not in cursing. Not in judging. Important stuff. And so now the question is, well what does it all mean?

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Well this is where the cross references help us paint a bigger picture of what is going on.

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I want you to kind of think of it in these terms. Jesus, who is the son of God, he descended to earth, was born of the

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Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, buried, and was raised again on the third day according to the scriptures.

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This is what the creed confesses and this is what the scriptures clearly teach. So think of it from the point of view of heaven for a moment.

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While Jesus is doing this, Jesus is here. And what is he set out to do?

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To rescue us. To conquer sin, death, and the devil. Think of it as a king who decides he's going to roll up his sleeves and go to war.

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And when a king returns from being victorious in such a war, what happens when he gets back on his own turf?

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It goes crazy. It goes absolutely bonkers.

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There's a victory parade and that parade can be like ginormous and of course at the head of the parade is the conquering king.

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Now, so that you don't think I'm just making stuff up, the cross references to Jesus' ascension give us the picture of what takes place in heaven.

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When Jesus is lifted up and he's ascended and he's obscured by the cloud and they can see him no more, it's as if at that moment

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Jesus sets foot back in the heavenly kingdom and everybody's ready for the victory parade.

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That's what's going on. So here's our cross reference. Our first cross reference is our psalm from today. See if you remember these words.

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Psalm 47 verse 5, God has gone up with a shout.

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The Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Huh. God has gone up with a shout.

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So Jesus sets foot on the shores of heaven and the angels go nuts.

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He's back. He won. He's here. So God has gone up with a shout.

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The Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God. Sing praises. How much you want to bet that's exactly what they were saying?

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Sing praises to our king. Sing praises for God is the king of all the earth.

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Sing praises with the psalm. God reigns over the nation.

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God sits on his holy throne. The princes of the people gather as the people of the

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God of Abraham for the shields of the earth belong to God. He is highly exalted.

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That's a picture of what's going on in heaven when Jesus ascended.

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Now, we know Philippians 2, but read it now in light of today,

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Philippians 2, verse 9. Remember Christ. He humbled himself, found in the form of a servant born of the

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Virgin Mary, humbled himself even to death, even death on the cross. And there it says in verse 9, therefore,

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God has highly exalted him and has bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

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Notice the past tense verb. God has highly exalted past tense him.

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It doesn't say God will highly exalt him. It says he has highly exalted him and has bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord to the glory of God the Father. This happens on Ascension Day.

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God exalts him to the highest place, has given him the name that is above every name.

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Now consider what Daniel writes about the Ascension. In Daniel chapter 7, we'll look at verse 12.

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Daniel writes, 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.

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Now to help you out here, son of man, who does that sound like? Jesus.

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But who's this ancient of days fellow? It's God the Father. And so listen to this.

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This is a picture of what's going on in heaven at Jesus' Ascension. So I saw the heavens, there came like one, like a son of man, he came to the ancient of days and he was presented before him.

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And there's Jesus. He's presented before the ancient of the days. The ancient of days is the

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Father. He's presented before him, having conquered sin, death, the devil, won our salvation, risen from the grave, now ascended.

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And he stands before his father in heaven. And to him, it says, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him.

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His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away. His kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed.

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Huh. Another picture of the Ascension given to us in scripture.

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The stuff we couldn't see. Psalm 68, starting at verse 17. The chariots of God are twice 10 ,000 thousands upon thousands.

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I don't know how to do math, but that's a big number. It's a huge number.

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This is a picture of what's going on. Now you all remember back in the Old Testament, there was a fellow who didn't die, who was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire.

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This is the prophet Elijah. Now I like to think that the ride that Elijah was given was

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Jesus' own limo, if you would. The chariot of fire. So Jesus sends his own ride to pick up Elijah.

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And Elijah's Ascension into heaven is a type and shadow in the Old Testament of Jesus' Ascension, even with the falling of the mantle picture of the

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Holy Spirit that Christ sends. It's in type and shadow of Jesus' Ascension and his sending of the

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Holy Spirit. So there's Elijah taken up to heaven in Jesus' ride, and what a great ride it is.

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So Psalm 68, kind of put all the pieces together here, again, this is an Ascension portion of this psalm.

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It gives us a picture of what's going on. It helps us see what's, put it all together. So Jesus, he gets on the shores of heaven.

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He's now in the heavenly kingdom. And what is this telling us? The entire army of God is out in full uniform.

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The chariots are out. They have been spit -polished, and the angels themselves are decked out in military array, and their swords are out in salute to Christ.

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That's kind of the picture of what's going on here. And the conquered king, all eyes are fixed on him.

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Man, I hope somebody had a video camera. I really want to see this. So here's the picture.

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The chariots of God are twice, 10 ,000, thousands upon thousands. The Lord is among them.

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Sinai is now in the sanctuary. What a great way of talking it.

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It's like saying, Jesus is now in the house. He's back.

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He won, and here's what it says. You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train, and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the

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Lord may dwell there. Think of this. There's Jesus. The whole army of God is out.

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Yahweh sabaot, saba in Hebrew means army. The whole army of God is out, decked out, and here comes the conquering king, riding on his fiery chariot, and he's just at the head of the parade.

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And behind him are the host of captives that he has led out of Sheol.

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And you can almost hear the angels gasp. Oh, there's Adam. Oh, look, there's

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Abraham. There's Isaac. Look, it's Ruth. It's Moses.

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As they come out one by one as the parade continues out. But see, here's the thing.

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The captives are still being set free today. You and I were born in slavery to sin, death, and the devil, held under the captivity of the dominion of darkness.

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And so now we have been set free, and if we die before Christ returns, we're added now to that parade of captives who have been set free, being paraded for everyone to see because Christ has ascended.

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So when you die, it's as if, well, the angels, they come and they escort you into the heavenly kingdom, and there they all are.

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And you can hear them whispering, oh my goodness, there's Arlen. There's Janet.

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There's Don. Oh, look, it's David Fagerland and Rene. I don't have words for this.

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I just don't. This is joy upon joy, blessing upon blessing.

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Jesus hasn't departed from us. He has ascended. He's ascended.

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He is higher than the highest high. There is no dominion above his dominion.

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And now he says, I will never leave you or forsake you. And now he sits on the throne of David forever.

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When we confess in the creed he ascended into heaven, we just run over it as if somehow that means that Jesus got on a trampoline and went boing, boing, whoop, and disappeared.

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No, that's not what this means. It's so much greater than that.

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Hear again these words then from Psalm 68. The chariots of God are twice, 10 ,000, thousands upon thousands, and the

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Lord is among them. Sinai is now in the sanctuary. You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the

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Lord God may dwell there. Blessed be the Lord who daily bears us up.

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God is our salvation. Our God is a

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God of salvation. And to God, the Lord belongs deliverances from death.

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But God will strike the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of him who walks in his guilty ways.

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Closing thought then here, one last Psalm. Psalm 68, not 68,

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Psalm 8, Psalm 8. We know the lyrics to this. We've sung it here.

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O Lord, O Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. But have you ever stopped to consider the rest of the

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Psalm? Because the very next sentence makes it clear that this is a Psalm that has to do with the great and glorious doctrine of Christ's ascension.

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Here's what it says, verse one. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

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You have set your glory above the heavens. And there it is, the ascension theme itself.

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And because of this, out of the mouths of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger.

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When I looked at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him.

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Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

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You have given him dominion over the works of your hands and you have put all things under his feet. All sheep and oxen and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

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O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. So now when we read those words and we confess those words, he ascended into heaven.

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Let it all come flooding back to you. He has ascended and he sits on the highest throne.

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The one who bled and died for your sins is now the one who intercedes for you, hearing your prayers and interceding with the

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Father. I mean, think of it this way. I mean, I don't know Donald Trump. Have any of you met him? I don't know him.

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He wouldn't know me from Adam. But see, the thing is, you know the King of Kings. In fact, let me say that even better.

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He knows you. He's bled for you. He's died for you. And he hears your prayers.

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And so because of that, he is in charge of everything. Nothing that has come to us doesn't come through his throne.

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In fact, it all goes through him. And we receive from his hand good as well as bad.

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Great times as well as suffering, knowing that he is in charge. And it's not our task to worry about times or seasons.

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Isn't it wonderful? Now we can all retire from being little gods. So isn't this great?

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You're not the king of the universe. I'm not the king of the universe. And to which you say, praise

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God, say law. But we know the one who is. And he is merciful. He is kind.

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He is forgiving. And he loves you dearly. And he has ascended.

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And just think of the great triumph. The party that was in heaven upon his victorious return.

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And you, brothers and sisters, are also part of that great parade of the captives who have been set free by our conquering, victorious, ascended