please stand for the reading of God's word. Today's scripture reading is from the book of Acts, the first chapter, verses 3 through 11. To them, that is, to the apostles, he presented himself alive after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to part from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father is fixed by his own authority, 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. 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 roads and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who has taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. The Word of the Lord, thanks be to God. Let's pray together, Father, thank you so much for this important part of your word from Acts, chapter 1. Thank you for the way in which it lays out a key hinge of history, all of human history and the history of your church. I pray we would understand this hinge, and we would see the significance of it. I pray that it would prepare us well for the conference that begins in just a few days. And I pray that you would use this morning to tune our hearts to your purposes in this world. We pray for Christ's glorious sake, amen. Well, in this passage in Acts, chapter 1, we see something very significant going up. Jesus went up into heaven. He did not fade away. He did not somehow undergo some kind of space travel. He didn't vaporize into a spiritual or ghost-like existence. His body, his physical body with hand marks wounds in his side, the same body that he suffered with, the same body that upon his resurrection was a glorified body. Now appearing and disappearing, the same body that the disciples and others saw is now lifted up from one realm, from one sphere, from one dimension. What English word you might use to try and understand it, we could try several, but from one state to another. His body went somewhere. It still exists. You will see his body one day. You will see it with its hand marks, with the wounds from the nails and the sphere. Jesus had told his friends previously, I am the bread that comes down from heaven. And Paul called Jesus the man from heaven in 1 Corinthians 15. So Jesus had come from heaven, but now he is going back to heaven. He has already told his disciples that he would do this. He said, you will see the son of man ascend to where he was before. And he said to them, I go and prepare a place for you. And then he also said, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again for you. And the two men in white robes undoubtedly angels here in Acts chapter 1 verses 10 and 11 speak to the disciples.
Why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who is taken from you into heaven will come in the same way you saw him go into heaven. Now the reason that this is a very significant turning point, this departure as it were for Jesus, from this realm to a heavenly realm, is that it marks a hinge in the history of the kingdom of God. Before this, in the gospels, in Jesus' earthly ministry, his ministry was personal. It was in one place at one time and it was individual to individual or individual to whatever size group could be imagined. But now there has been a significant change. The ministry is no longer personal face to face. It is rather Jesus' continuing ministry from heaven. Some people have suggested that the title of the book of Acts ought to be something like that, the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ in heaven. And the contrast here is not between BC and AD, but between two stages of the same extending ministry of the same Jesus Christ, his earthly ministry extended personally, and now his ministry extended by his Holy Spirit from heaven through his followers, the church, us. You must see that there is a very important departure point that this chapter gives us. Jesus no longer ministers solely individually and in person. He rather ministers by the power of the Holy Spirit through what is called his body, which is now equipped for that powerful witness to serve the Lord.
World religions exist to promote the teaching of their founders, who are in most cases no longer living. They may live on metaphorically in their teachings, of course. But the point here is that Jesus Christ is not dead, just because He is not visible to you in me, does not mean that He is dead. He is, as I speak, this very moment in a place called heaven, which may not be as far away as we think. Jesus said, the kingdom of God is at your fingertips. It's another realm and meshed with this realm from heaven. Jesus actively directs his followers individually, but especially He directs us as a community. Jesus came not just to save individuals, but He came for a community of people, a common unity of those who name Christ's name. It is a supernatural community because it takes the supernatural work of Christ's death and resurrection and ascension to actually create this community. And we actively depend upon our head, our Lord, our King. The church is the body, He is the head, is the famous metaphor. He now rules the church for the sake of the kingdom. His goal is the extension of the kingdom. It is a secret kingdom now. It is not fully seen. One day, it will be completely visible. The church, as it were, are the advanced shock troops of that kingdom to come. And together we are to be those who live in obedience to our Lord according to the commission that He has given us. The church is not an association of like-minded folks who believe in certain principles or a certain ideal. No, the church is a group of commissioned followers of a person. The reigning, ruling, Lord Jesus, who gave us our task. And the task is to carry on the ministry of Jesus Christ who directs us at this very moment by His means of grace, by His scriptures, by our prayer, by our worship together, in and through the sacraments, He directs His church to be the people of God He intends us to be in this time and this place to serve His purposes in this season. In his world, the question is, what specifically can we say about this ministry, this job that we have been given to do? I am tempted to say that the job is to extend the transforming presence of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ in Dallas and to the world. And those are good words. They accurately reflect what is said here in Acts 1. But let's stick with the language in Acts 1 here. What it says is the church exists to witness by the power of the Holy Spirit to the kingdom that is being brought into existence even as I speak, even as this word is being shared, and most especially was brought into existence by the life, death, and resurrection of our king. The essential task of the church is to witness or more accurately to be witnesses for that is what it says here in verse 8. And notice that the charge is in the plural. You plural will receive power when His Holy Spirit comes upon you plural and you plural will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. It's not just Peter or the 11, but by extension it is all of us who are included in this task in this command that is given to us by our Lord and King. Now what I want you to see briefly this morning is that there are three aspects or three parts of this witness together. There is what you could call an element of authority about this kingdom. There is an element of geography about it and there is an element of timing. And these three things are like a three-legged stool that understand, help us understand the work of the kingdom that has been entrusted to us and yet we cannot do without the power and authority of the king acting operatively in our lives individually and together. As we seek to do as well. First in the churches witness is about the authority of the kingdom of God. Corporately we are called to call attention, the attention of the world to a higher allegiance to a higher authority. This is the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is easy to confuse his kingdoms with kingdoms that we establish. We work for by means of our political or social or cultural endeavors, but such a kingdom that we work for by our own means becomes our kingdom and not his something we control. But the Lord's kingdom is the Lord's because he is the one who is an absolute charge of it. The Lord's kingdom is the kingdom of God that he established in order for his rule to be operative in the lives of his people by word and spirit. The rule of Christ is established in my life when I first become convinced of the meaning of the life, death and resurrection of Christ. And that the life, death and resurrection of Christ meant that he who had all authority, he who had all power, gave up all authority and power in order to become as nothing, as no one. In order that I might be able to be a part of his kingdom. First Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 gives us one of the most ancient creeds in all of the church. He appeared in body, was vindicated by the spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations and was taken up into glory. The fact that Jesus was taken up into glory is very important. Heaven is not necessarily defined by its visibility. But it is defined by glory, by his being a glorious ruler to whom all authority and power are granted by God the Father. And whom we are to acknowledge as the one who bears that authority in your life right now. Vine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, the glory, the power and the kingdom we say. Is that true in your life? Do we understand that the glory of this risen king means that he has absolute power and authority over me? Do you know that that is the meaning of the business here about clouds? He is taken up on a cloud. This cloud is the same word, the same term, the same idea that is used for the Shaqina glory cloud that picked up Elijah and took into heaven, appearing in the form of chariots and horses. It is the Shaqina glory that led the people of Israel through the desert. This cloud cover is the transportation of the Lord to heaven and it will be his transportation back. But it is a transportation marked by glory. That is the point of the cloud. And one of the things that all of us must realize if we are to understand the meaning of the implications, the kingdom of God in our own lives, is that it comes with the glory of the authority of Jesus to you. I will never forget the first mission conference I ever went to. 30 years ago, at the end of the conference, there was a committal time of service when people were going to indicate their intentions to follow up in one way or another from what they had heard at this mission conference as we asked you to do as well. And one woman came in, a dear friend named Cindy and Cindy was crying. I said, Cindy, what does the matter? And she said, I have just realized for the first time in my life this weekend what the glory and power of Jesus means. It means that he has the right to do whatever he wants to do with and what did I think she was going to say my life. But do you know what she said? He has the right and authority to do whatever he wants to do with my children's life. And she was weeping because for the first time she saw that a great and glorious and authoritative savior was calling upon her to give up that which was more precious to her than her own life, the lives of her children. And to be prepared for those children to follow the Lord as he would direct. The church's witness is about the authority of the kingdom which is manifested in glory now. And if you think it's manifested in glory now, just wait. And one day we will see the full manifestation of the glory of the Lord's authority. And secondly, the church's witness is about geography, the geography of the kingdom. It's not only about the authority of the kingdom, it's about the geography of the kingdom. The disciples ask, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? The question shows that the disciples did not understand the geography of the kingdom. John Calvin said there are as many errors in this question as there are words. The word restore shows that he's expecting a political kingdom like the one that they knew before the Romans took over. The word Israel shows they are expecting a national kingdom. And the phrase at this time shows they are expecting this kingdom to come immediately. Well, in the Old Testament, the promise was that Israel would bless the nations. But now in the New Testament we see that that blessing comes as the church takes it up and sees it as a mission to the nations. In the Old Testament, the people of the world stream into Jerusalem at Pentecost and at other times. But now after Pentecost, after the Lord's ascension, the people of God stream from the centers of the world out to the remotest parts of the world. And verse 8 gives us a kind of table of contents of the book of Acts, where he says, we are to preach the gospel in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the end of the year. Some Christians take that a little bit too personally. In other words, they think of my neighborhood as my Jerusalem and my community as my Judea and my area region as my Samaria. And then out from there it's kind of directed toward you. It's not. Sorry. This is describing an historical process that began in Jerusalem with these words of our Lord. It began in Jerusalem and then it went to Judea. It went to Samaria and is still going to the end of the earth. But that does not mean you are unimportant. It means you are very important because you and I are a part of this last part of the work. It being extended to the ends of the earth. Chapter 1 through 7 describes the events in Jerusalem. Chapter 8 describes the disciples going through Judea and Samaria. Chapter 9 describes the conversion of Paul and the rest as they say is history. Paul took the gospel to the known world of that time, ending his life. It says at the end of the book of Acts, speaking about what? The kingdom of God to those who would listen to him in Rome. Christ's kingdom is not confined to any nation. America is not a new Israel in some way, where somehow we are the ones who now receive the blessings of Israel. No, those blessings belong to the church and the church is not to hoard those blessings but is to give them away to the nations. And when you see nations read people group, language group, cultural group, not a geopolitical entity so much, we are to give away the blessings that have been given to us. Christ's kingdom is an international community in which race and nation and rank and sex have no barriers. Mark alluded in his prayer and all of us have experienced or many of us have experienced the thrill of worshipping in a church somewhere in the world where everyone wasn't like you. That's one of the benefits of the work we've done in our Katrina work. It's one of the benefits of being involved in West Dallas. It's the opportunity to worship with people who are different, who like different kinds of music, who dress differently, whose cultural expressions of worship and disciple making are different than the ones I'm familiar with. The body of Christ is rich and in fact, if we do not understand and appreciate that the kingdom of God is made up of many people that did not look like you and me, then we may not understand the gospel of the kingdom much at all for the individual is not the end of the kingdom. The kingdom, the community is the community of the people of God from every tribe, from every tongue, from every nation, from every culture group, who will be together and praise God in heaven. That's sometimes why our choir sings a beautiful piece of music in another language. It is to remind us not that they're so sophisticated that they know French or Latin. It is rather to remind us that this is an international new song we sing to Jesus our King. There is an impulse to the gospel of the kingdom. It is always to go out to the ends of the earth. The church is a pilgrim, people of God, Leslie Nubigan says. It is on the moon, moved, hastening to the ends of the earth to beseech all men to be reconciled to God. Now, what has happened? What have we done with this charge? You know, it's arguable that the church absolutely ignored her Lord for the first seven chapters of the book of Acts. It's faith stayed in Jerusalem until persecution forced them away. It is possible since the ascension of Jesus to see five epics of church extension history. Jerusalem to Rome, Rome to Northern Europe to the barbarians, and Northern Europe to the New World. Those are the first three. What has happened in each case? Those entrusted with the gospel were also given a significant measure of prosperity in order that they would use their means to extend to the New World. They would extend the Lord's kingdom, but inevitably these cultures started to use their means for their own selfish ends. And when that happens, the Lord moves the candlestick onto another culture, an impoverished culture usually, a culture that is needy, and therefore knows its need of the Lord. So, where are we in this transition? We're about ready to see. We are seeing the fourth great movement of the epic of the church's extension. If I could put it to you this way, the church is somewhere out over Hawaii right now. It's going to Asia, friends. Asia is where it is happening. 10,000 people a day becoming believers in China. The candlestick is being taken from us. You know why? We spend 10 times more on cosmetics in this country than we do on world missions. And that is precisely, though I don't mean it to be a low blow, it is precisely the sort of issue that causes Jesus, the Christ, the living king and head of the church to say, okay, you've done what you can do. I'm taking the candlestick onto the next group of people. And by the way, do you know where the fifth epic is going to be? It's going to be in the Middle East as the Chinese take the gospel to the Arabs. The Arabs hate our guts. We can't take it to them. But the Chinese they like. They're good business partners with the Chinese Chinese are all over the Middle East right now. And there's actually movements called back to Jerusalem movement in the Chinese churches now, where they are planning for the gospel to be extended across the Middle East to where to Jerusalem so that it will circumnavigate the globe and then the end will come when every nation has heard. When every people group has been exposed to the gospel, that is when the Lord promises us that he will bring history to a close and he will return in the fullness of the glory and power, which he will always have. The churches witness is about the authority of the kingdom. The churches witness is about the geography of the kingdom. And finally and just briefly the churches witness is about the timing of the kingdom. Not only is the church hastening to the ends of the earth, but as I just suggested to you, it is hastening to the end of time. Jesus corrects the misinterpretation of the disciples that the kingdom will be restored at this time. He tells them it is not to know time and dates. That does not belong to them set by the father's authority and known to him. It is not known to him, even Jesus, the moment of his return. And what they failed to see was that the timing of the kingdom is it comes into installments. It came with Jesus, own ministry. He announced it. I have come to proclaim the kingdom of God among you, he said. But as I alluded to a moment ago, it is a hidden kingdom. It is not fully seen. But one day it will be consummated when the Lord returns and it will be completely known every knee will bow. Every knee, some will bow with great joy. Others will bow with grudging, gritting, angry, snarling mouths. But they will bow in Jesus' coming, the kingdom began. And it grows to fulfillment in his second coming. The timeline of the kingdom and its complete arrival is unknown to us. But what the apostles could know and should know is what we are told here. Where Jesus says that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole world as a testimony to the nations and then the end will come. All witness, all kingdom witness is to be understood as that kind of witness which is done with an eye toward the Lord's return. And from our human perspective, though we do not know the timing, we hasten that day as we complete our commission to witness to the ends of the earth. We cannot stop the witnessing task until the Lord stops it by His return. And this is why it is so curious that the apostles stand speechless, gazing up into heaven. They were gazing into heaven as He went. The whole two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who has taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way you saw Him go into heaven. In other words, why are the apostles atmonished for star gazing? These figures in white dazzling robes undoubtedly angels because angels were there at all the significant events of Jesus' life, his birth, the Gardening of Semini, the proclaiming of his resurrection. So now they are there to help the disciples understand the meaning of the ascension. Why are they gazing up into the sky when they have just been told to go to the ends of the earth? I would suggest to you that gazing up into the sky is actually irresponsible. And there is really a strong admonition for us here. The angels are saying that preoccupation with the heavenly vision of Jesus is no good unless we get on with the task that He has given to us until He returns. John Stott, famous preacher, evangelist, Bible scholar puts it this way, the vision they were to cultivate was not upwards in the stowage of to the heaven, which had received Jesus but outward in compassion to a lost world which needed Him. It is the same for us. Curiosity about heaven and its occupants, speculation about prophecy and its fulfillment, an obsession with times and seasons, these are aberrations which distract us from God. God given mission Christ will come personally, visibly and gloriously Stott says of that we may be assured other details can wait. He says meanwhile we have worked to do in the power of the spirit. What should frame the disciples thinking in action is that Jesus will come again and that they are to be about the business of that kingdom's expansion. The angels message to them and to us is that we are to play our parts in time, in geography, under the Lord's authority right now. And we are not to be so preoccupied with heaven that we are diverted from that task until the Lord returns. So the church's witness is a witness about the authority, the geography and the timing of the kingdom. And the question is whether you and I are playing our parts. During World War II the bombing of Britain, the battle of Britain, every night the bombers came over every night the people who were able were assigned positions, posts where they were to be prepared to care for their fellow citizenry. So they would go to schools to find the children and make sure they would say they would go to hospitals and old people's homes to make sure that the people were protected from the bombs. Every able-bodied citizen of Britain had a place, a station they were to go to when the sirens went off and see us Lewis who gave a series of talks in the middle of the battle of Britain that absolutely inspired the people. The people reminded them of this and said, you know my dear fellow citizens every day our king, the king of England, goes out and speaks to the people, to the citizenry who are faithful to be where they need to be in order to help our nation and our country. And then Lewis paused and he said this, will the king find you at your post? Will the king find you at your post when he comes? Do you see that you are under his authority, that we are? Do you see that the geography of all of this is a part of what we are about even now as we take the gospel to Asia and other places? And do you see that the timing is his business but the time usage is ours? Do you see this? Will the king find you at your post? I pray to God he will and I pray to God he will use our mission's conference to help each of us know what that post is and how we can best serve him. God bless you.