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  GLORIOUSLY ASCENDED
  by Anton Bosch
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Summary: This sermon focuses on the concluding verses of Luke chapter
24, highlighting Jesus' appearance to the disciples, his teachings on
the fulfillment of scriptures, the importance of repentance and
remission of sins to be preached to all nations, the ascension of Jesus
into heaven, and the disciples' response of worship and joy. The sermon
emphasizes the need for believers to wait for the empowering of the Holy
Spirit, to be faithful witnesses, and to be obedient to the call of
preaching the gospel.

Topics: "Witnessing", "Empowerment of the Holy Spirit"
Scripture References: Luke 24:36, Luke 24:47, Acts 1:8, Acts 1:8, Acts 1:9, Acts 1:8, Acts 1:12, Hebrews 1:3, James 1:5

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon focuses on the concluding verses of Luke chapter 24,
highlighting Jesus' appearance to the disciples, his teachings on the
fulfillment of scriptures, the importance of repentance and remission of
sins to be preached to all nations, the ascension of Jesus into heaven,
and the disciples' response of worship and joy. The sermon emphasizes
the need for believers to wait for the empowering of the Holy Spirit, to
be faithful witnesses, and to be obedient to the call of preaching the
gospel.

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CONTENT
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Luke, chapter 24, and we've come to the end of the Gospel of Luke this
morning. It's been four years, over four years, 2018, the beginning of
July 2018 we started on Luke, and I think it's about 157 studies,
obviously we've done other things in between, but 157 studies on the
book of Luke, and I'll start a brief series next week on a different
subject, we probably won't tackle another book now. So Luke chapter 24
reading from verse 36 through 53, Luke chapter 24 reading 36 through 53,
through the end of the book.

Now, as they said these things, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them
and said to them, peace to you. But they were terrified and frightened
and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said to them, why are
you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands
and my feet, that it is I myself.

Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see
I have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his
feet. But while they still did not believe for joy and marvel, he said
to them, have you any food here? So they gave him a piece of broiled
fish and some honeycomb, and he took it and ate it in their presence.

Then he said to them, these are the words which I spoke to you while I
was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written
in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me. And
he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures.
And then he said to them, thus it is written, and thus it was necessary
for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day.

And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name
to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witness of these
things. Behold I send the promise of my father to you and Batari in the
city of Jerusalem until you are endured with power from on high.

And he led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and
blessed them. Now it came to pass while he blessed them that he was
parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him and
returned to Jerusalem with great joy.

And they were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. Amen.
So we concluded last week with verse 45.

He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures.
And of course we need to pray that God would give us understanding, that
he would give us wisdom. The book of James promises us that if we ask,
he will give us wisdom.

He will give us understanding. And that's what we need above all else.
Then it says, he said to them, thus it is written, and thus it was
necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third
day.

Now what Luke is doing in these next few verses, really ten verses I
guess, no, six or so verses, is he's really summing up everything that
happened over a period of forty days. Jesus was crucified, he rose
again, and then it was a period of forty days that he was with them, and
then he ascended. And then ten days after that was the day of Pentecost.

So in those forty days he spent some time in Jerusalem, but he seems to
have spent most of the time in Galilee, up in the north. And so what
Luke is doing is he's just taking six verses or so and he is summarizing
forty days of teachings. Because Jesus is now, for the first time,
they're beginning to understand.

He taught them for three and a half years, they didn't get it. Now
they're beginning to understand, and he is now going over all of these
things again. And so what Luke is giving us is really the summary of
everything that he taught over that period of forty days.

Obviously there was a lot more, because when you read the epistles, when
you read particularly Peter and John, you get a lot of those teachings
out of what they subsequently wrote. But also remember that as we deal
with this last section, that Luke is the first volume of a two-volume
book. Luke is the first volume of a two-volume book.

The first volume is the Gospel according to Luke, the second part is the
Book of Acts. Luke begins the Book of Acts by saying the former
treaties, Oseophilus, the former writing of everything Jesus began both
to do and to teach. And then he continues.

And so these two books must be read together. This last few verses of
Luke, he gives us more information in the first chapter of Acts. So
there's an overlap, the same way as I began in the verse that we ended
up last week, and I gave you a twenty-second summary of what we said in
a long time, and then continued, he does exactly the same thing in the
Book of Acts.

Here he has six verses about Jesus' teaching and his ascension. In the
Book of Acts, in chapter one, he devotes an entire chapter to everything
that Jesus did, not everything, but some of the things that Jesus did at
that time as a recap, and then chapter two of Acts continues from there
on, from Jesus' ascension, for the ten days they wait in Jerusalem, the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and then the work of the church from
there through the end of the Book of Acts. So one of the things he was
emphasizing, and you remember that the same things appeared in those
three pictures—remember that he gives us three pictures of the
resurrection, the woman at the tomb, the Rotimaeus, and the disciples in
the upper room.

There's a pattern in each one of those. One of the things that happens
in each one of those three is here for the fourth time, and that is the
emphasis by the angel and by Jesus that Jesus fulfilled the scriptures
of the Old Testament. And so here he says the same thing again, thus it
is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ, the Messiah, the
Anointed One, to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day.

Why was it necessary? Obviously it wasn't necessary for him. He didn't
need to go through that, but it was necessary for us. It was necessary
for our salvation.

That was the only way we could be saved. As we've been going through the
Book of Hebrews, one of the things that I'm sure you should have been
picking up as we're going through Hebrews is the weakness of the Old
Testament system, its inability to save, and that only Jesus is able to
save. All the sacrifices in the Old Testament could never remove sin,
but the sin is washed away by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so it was necessary for him to suffer and to rise from the dead on
the third day, not just to fulfill scripture, but to complete the work
of salvation. Remember when Paul defines the gospel in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15, he defines it by the fact that Jesus died for our sins
according to the scriptures. Same thing that Luke is writing, as it is
written, that he was buried, that he rose again the third day according
to the scriptures.

And so the gospel is defined in the death, burial, resurrection of the
Lord Jesus. And so now he says, so verse 46 is what he did. He suffered,
died, and rose again.

Verse 47 is now their responsibility. You see, one of the problems we
have with modern Christianity is that we have this false teaching that
he did everything and that we get to do nothing, that we just get to
benefit from what he has done. And obviously there's some truth in that.

We cannot save ourselves. We cannot save ourselves by being religious or
by being good people or by giving money or by doing anything. We are
saved by what Jesus did at the cross of Calvary.

That's all that saves us. The church cannot save, nothing else saves.
It's Jesus alone who saves.

But having been saved, we have a responsibility. There are certain
things that we need to do in response to the gospel. So right through
the Old Testament, right through the New Testament, there's always this
principle, God initiates things.

God sets everything in order. But then he requires a response from us.
God makes a covenant with Abraham.

Abraham is put to sleep when God makes the covenant. So it's a
unilateral covenant. God makes the covenant.

But having made the covenant with Abraham, Abraham now has to do certain
things. And so here we find exactly the same thing. So Jesus died and
was risen in verse 47.

We must preach repentance and remission of sins. That is our part in
this process. So he's done the job.

He's made salvation available. But we now need to preach that gospel.
That is our job.

Now, notice that he puts two aspects. And obviously the gospel is like a
diamond or a precious stone. If you look at it from different angles,
you see different light.

It's the same beautiful thing. If you have a diamond that's clean, and
when you put it in the light and you turn it, you see that there's
different colors, and it sparkles, and it's different from every angle.
And the same is true of the gospel.

There's different angles to the gospel. It's the same glorious gospel.
But here is the part that he is emphasizing, that Luke is emphasizing,
repentance and remission of sins.

Again, a two-part process. We cannot wash away sins. We cannot wash away
other people's sins, and they cannot wash away their own sins.

They cannot remit or pay the price for their sins. Jesus paid the price
for our sin. And so that's, again, the part that he does.

But what is the part we must do? Repent. Those two things are the two
aspects of the gospel. What he does is he forgives us.

What we do is we must repent. Now remember, there's a tremendous attack
against this idea of repentance in modern Christianity today, because
Christians want to say, well, I believe, and so I'm saved, and that's
all that matters. I don't have to do anything.

God does everything. I can live the way I want to live. I can continue
to do whatever I want to do, because I'm saved, not by what I've done,
but what he has done.

That is a lie from the pit of hell. Because we are not—there is a
response, there is some reaction, there's something that needs to come
from us in response to what he has done. And it is not just believing,
because that's the part that's emphasized.

Yeah, just believe. Well, 70 percent, according to the statistics, 70
percent of Americans believe. What percentage of Americans are really
saved? I don't know.

Maybe less than 5 percent. Talk about China. We have a bigger problem
here, because we have the gospel, but there is no repentance.

The repentance is the evidence of faith. Remember, John begins—the book
of Luke begins with John preaching, and John says, Bring forth fruit,
meet for repentance. Don't just come and get baptized.

Produce the fruit. Show the evidence. Talk is cheap.

And, you know, we've got a Christianity today which is all about talk.
It's all about saying, Well, I believe, and I love you, and, you know, I
surrender all. And, you know, we sing those hymns, deeper, deeper, but
in fact there's no reality to it.

There's no substance. But the message we are to preach, and that is why
I preach the way I do, and that's the way I preach the message I preach,
is that we are called—we are to call men to repentance. We are to call
people to change, to repent from their sins, to repent from their evil
ways.

And unfortunately, we have an easy Christianity today where you just
sign the decision card, pray the sinner's prayer, and now you're a
Christian, but you continue to live the way you've always lived. That is
not repentance. Now I don't want to get sidetracked on repentance.

We need to—we can speak about that for a long time, but here's the
message. Repentance and remission of sins. Notice that repentance comes
first, and then remission of sins in this list.

And it should be preached in His name, and it is to be preached to all
nations, beginning in Jerusalem. In Matthew chapter 28, and in Acts
chapter 1, it becomes more specific that it's to begin in Jerusalem,
Judea—Jerusalem is the city, Judea is the region, the area
outside—Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, which is beyond that, and which
includes Gentiles, and then to the ends of the earth. That is the
commission.

When He says to all nations, there is another heresy here, which is
becoming very popular in America today, and I'm going to speak on that
in two weeks' time. The idea that nations can be saved. When He says
preach the gospel to nations, He's not saying preach the gospel to
nations so that those nations can be saved.

Salvation very clearly writes through the Scriptures, even in the Old
Testament, even when Israel was God's chosen people. Each individual Jew
had to make up his own mind as to whether he was going to put his
confidence in God. And you remember the warning that Israel came out of
Egypt, 600,000 men plus women and children, three million people, and
out of those three million people, only two entered into the land.

So they were not saved because they were Israelites. The two were saved
because they believed God. And so even in the Old Testament, there is no
such thing as a national salvation, that there's a Christian nation or
there's a saved nation.

The point He's making here is just to go and preach to all people. The
word nations there is ethnos, from which we get the word ethnic or
ethnic groups, and so He is saying to all kinds of people, go and preach
the gospel. Obviously, beginning at Jerusalem.

And just the point that was made this morning concerning Jasper is that
he has come to understand it needs to begin with me. The gospel begins
with me. There are many who want to preach the gospel and want to preach
the word of God, but it doesn't begin with them.

It's got to begin with me. If the gospel is not real to you, if it's not
affected and changed who you are, then you're wasting your time trying
to speak to everybody else. So it needs to begin at home, needs to begin
with me, needs to extend to my family, it needs to extend to my closer
circle, but ultimately it needs to reach the rest of the world.

I know there are some here who resent the fact that I preach in other
parts of the world. I do that as a direct, in direct obedience to the
word of God. I have a responsibility, and you have a responsibility.

God has blessed this church in many ways, particularly financially, and
you have a responsibility to preach the gospel. If you cannot go, then
send people who can go to preach the gospel. Because here's the problem.

This is what Jesus told them, but that's not what they did. What ended
up happening is they began in Jerusalem and they had a wonderful church.
Maybe 8,000 people, 3,000 saved one day, 5,000 saved the other day, plus
other people.

So they had this wonderful church, they had 12 apostles who had walked
with Jesus preaching, and they forgot about the fact that he said that
you need to go to the nations. And so it just became a bless me club,
and God judged them. God came down upon that church, and Luke records
this in the book of Acts, persecution came, and that whole church was
scattered.

Folks, when we do not obey God, God will deal with us. But God's will
will be done. Don't think that you can stand in the way of God's will.

If we do not do what he calls us to do, God will set us aside and find
someone else who will do what we need to do. And so that whole church
was... There are people who say God will never destroy a church. Well
there are warnings to the seven churches in the book of Revelation that
God will remove their lampstand.

And the church in Jerusalem, which began in a sense here in these 40
days as Jesus ministers to the 120 in the upper room and 500 in Galilee.
God destroyed that church. Because Luke is very clear.

He says at the end of that story, how many were left in that church?
Twelve. Of 8,000 people plus, 12 were left, the 12 apostles. The rest
were scattered.

And of course, why were they scattered? So that now they were forced to
do what he told them to do right here. They were scattered throughout
the world and wherever they went, they now preached the gospel. Folks,
don't let God judge you personally.

Don't let God's judgment come on this church in order to do what we're
supposed to be doing. Let's do what God tells us to do before he puts a
gun to our heads. The choice is ours.

And so the gospel must be preached. And I'm grateful for folks like
Jasper and the Thompsons and others who are in foreign countries. Some
of them living under very difficult circumstances.

Some of them living in jeopardy of prison, like Jasper. But they're
obeying the call of God. And folks, at the end of the day, it's not
about results.

We can look at Jasper's work and we say, well, how many people has he
got? He's got a handful. That's not the point. The point is he's
obedient.

He's doing what God's called him to do. And that's the only thing that
we need to do. God does not call us to produce results.

He doesn't call us to success. He doesn't call us to numbers. He calls
us to faithfulness, to obedience.

And that's the only thing that matters. Now verse 48. We need to rush
on.

And you are witnesses of these things. The Greek word mates, from which
we get the word mata, and so they are to be witnesses. Now remember in
Luke, writing in the book of Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, he says, and
you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends
of the earth.

Notice, he does not say you are to witness, but you are witnesses. Folk
again, there's just so much in this section, but I need to get through
Luke because there are other things on my heart. I said earlier, talk is
cheap.

People want to say, well, I witness. No, it's not whether you witness
with your mouth. It's whether you witness with your life.

I'm sick and tired of preachers who preach from the pulpit, but their
lives are a mess. Their marriages are a mess. Their families are a mess.

The way they relate to the law and to the government is a mess. The way
they deal with the word of God is a mess. We need to be witnesses.

People need to note that we have been with Jesus. Don't tell me you're a
Christian. Show me you're a Christian.

That's what I'm asking for, and that's what the world is asking for. Be
a witness because, folk, here's the reality is that if you've met with
Jesus, your life will be changed, and unfortunately, there are too many
who adopted Christian values, but their lives remain unchanged. If any
man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

The old things are passed away. All things have become new. When you
look at the book of Acts, you see people who lived the life and paid the
price, but they witnessed to Jesus.

Now, verse 49, Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but
tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on
high. Now, remember that in Acts 1, he tells us exactly what this is.
I've just quoted Acts 1, verse 8. You will receive power after the Holy
Spirit has come upon you.

Jesus over and over in John chapter 15 and elsewhere, he speaks about
the fact that he will send another comforter who will empower them. And
here's one of the other problems we have today, is that our witness is
powerless. We don't live the life we should be living, because we do not
have the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

We're filled with carnality, we're filled with the world, we're filled
with television, we're filled with all sorts of other things, but we're
not filled with the Spirit. Now, that's a whole other message. But he
says, I will send you the promise of my Father upon you, but wait, tarry
in Jerusalem, in the city of Jerusalem, until you receive power from on
high.

Now I want you to notice again, there's a two-step process. Go and
preach, but before you preach, receive the power. There are many who go
and preach, but they've not received the power.

They've not received the Holy Spirit to empower them to be those
witnesses. And why? Well, some, because they haven't waited. Folks, our
prayer life is a two-minute, bless me, help me, bless my wife, help my
children, give me money, fix this, amen.

We don't spend time at the throne of grace, and we wonder why our lives
are powerless. We don't spend time in the presence of God. They waited
for ten days.

During their ten days, they would go and preach in the temple, but they
would be in the upper room waiting for God to meet with them. And we
know the story, we know that how on the day of Pentecost, ten days after
the ascension, the Holy Spirit comes, and they are powerfully
transformed. Yes, they were preaching up to that point, but nothing was
happening.

But after the Holy Spirit, the same day, 3,000 are saved because of
Peter's testament, Peter's preaching. Folks, there are two problems
here, because there's two components to this thing. The one is that we
have to wait and receive the power, the other is we have to go.

Now if you go without having waited, you're wasting your time. And if
you're waiting without going, you're wasting your time. Because there
are some who just emphasize, well, I'm just spending time in God's
presence.

No, that's not all that we're called to do. Yes, remember when Jesus
called, and this is now the conclusion of his whole ministry. When Jesus
called his disciples, it says he called them for two purposes.

One, that they might be with him, and two, that he might send them out.
And that has never changed. He didn't call them just to send them out,
he called them that they may first spend time with him, and then he
would send them out.

Folks, we need to spend time with him, but we also need to go. Verse 50
then, now those were the things that he was teaching in this time, and
now we come to the final hours of his life on earth. And he led them out
as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them.

In Acts chapter 1, he is more specific that it was not just Bethany,
Bethany was a district, but it was the Mount of Olives, particularly in
Bethany. So he takes them to the Mount of Olives, and he lifts up his
hands to bless them, and as he blesses them, it came to pass while he
blessed them, that he was parted from them and carried up into heaven.
Now there's two things I want to just emphasize here.

The first is that the language is while he continued to bless them, so
as he is taken up into heaven, he doesn't poof, disappear. But clearly
it says the cloud took him up, so he slowly ascends, but as he ascends
he is blessing, he is blessing, he is blessing. What a wonderful
privilege, what a wonderful place to be.

I want to be in that place where he is continually blessing me. And then
the book of Acts says that he was carried in the cloud. This was not
just a cumulus cloud, or a cirrus cloud, or some one of these rain
clouds or things that we see around here.

This was the glory of God. Remember that when they came out of the land
of Egypt, God led them in the pillar of fire and in the cloud during the
day, the presence of God. When they finished building the tabernacle,
the cloud came and rested upon the tabernacle, and God's presence
descended on the tabernacle.

We spoke somewhat on that on Thursday. Then in building the temple, the
same thing happens. Then in Jesus' ministry, and there are many other
accounts, but I'm just grabbing a few.

In Jesus' ministry, you remember that he takes the disciples up into the
Mount of Transfiguration, and again there's the cloud. Moses goes into
the presence of God, just stepping back again, and he's there in the
cloud. It's the glory of God.

So this is not just Jesus, the stupid little pictures that we see of
Jesus walking on a cloud. No, this is the glory of God, grabbing Jesus
and taking him up into the presence of God. This is the final testimony
to the disciples that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

He was the Christ, that he has God's blessing upon his life, because in
a sense, the Father sends the Holy Spirit, because the cloud represents
the Holy Spirit. The Father sends the Holy Spirit to welcome Jesus home.
What a picture.

Well done, good and faithful servant. This is my son in whom I am well
pleased. Here he him.

So he's carried away up into heaven, and they worshipped him, and they
returned to Jerusalem with great joy. They worshipped him, and they
returned to Jerusalem with great joy. What a change from ten days
before, when they believed he was dead and everything was lost.

Now they understand. Now they don't only see him resurrected, but
they're seeing him glorified. The Father receiving him.

The book of Acts tells us that there was an angel. Luke doesn't deal
with it in the book of Luke, but the book of Acts says that the angel
then said, the same Jesus who's gone is going to come in the same way.
And so when we read this passage, we must always be reminded it's not
just about him going, but it's about him coming again.

And it's not just about him going, because remember he said, I have to
go. But when I go, I will send you another comforter. The comforter, he
says, cannot come while I'm here.

Not because there's any conflict, but simply because he now needs to
change the way he's dealing with them. He's no longer personally dealing
with them, but he's dealing with them through the Holy Spirit, or
dealing with us through the Holy Spirit. So we live in a different time.

We don't have Jesus with us, but we have the Holy Spirit. And we have
the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, because I've gone to the Father and I've
asked him to send you the Spirit. Verse 53, and they were continually in
the temple, praising and blessing God.

Amen. And so this verse tells us what they were doing, and we know from
other verses that they were spending time in the upper room, waiting on
the presence of God. One of the other things they were doing is that
they were searching the scriptures, and they were checking their lives
against the scriptures.

And in that process, they discovered that the scriptures speak about
Judas, who had to fall away, and that someone else had to be appointed
in his place. These are the things we ought to be doing. We ought to be
spending time in his presence.

We need to spend time worshipping and blessing him. We must be spending
time searching the scriptures and making sure that our lives are in
order, that God may send the Holy Spirit, and then that we might go and
preach the gospel as he has commanded us. Father, we thank you for your
word.

We thank you for this wonderful book, Lord, and four years that we've
been able to be in it. Lord, it's been a great blessing to me, and I
pray, Lord, that those who have heard will hear, and that we might be
doers of everything that is written, not just in the book of Luke, but
in all of the scriptures. We thank you for the Lord Jesus, who began his
life in such a wonderful way in Bethlehem, went through all of the shame
and the suffering of the cross, but rose again, and has now been
ascended on high and is glorified, as we've seen in the book of Hebrews,
seated at the right hand of the majesty on high.

Lord, I pray that we may be worthy witnesses of the Lord Jesus. Lord,
that as those around us look at us and our lives, the way we do things,
Lord, that they may see that we've been with Jesus, that we're
different, and that we are endued with power from on high. Lord, I pray
that we may be faithful as he was faithful, that we may do what you told
us to do, that we might be obedient, and Lord, that we may receive that
same glorious welcome home that Jesus received once he finished his
work.

Lord, I pray that you'd help us to understand, open our understanding,
Lord, that we may know, and Lord, give us grace that we may be obedient
and doers of your word, we pray, in Jesus' name. Part us now with your
blessing, we pray. Bring us together again safely on Thursday.

I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/ZUD6hmM1-NY.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/anton-bosch/gloriously-ascended/
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