Sermon Cloud

TEXT

Act 1:9-26: “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’ 12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. 13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. 14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. 15 In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, 16 ‘Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. 17 For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.’ 18 (Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. 19 And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) 20 ‘For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it”; and “Let another take his office.” 21 So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us--one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.’ 23 And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. 24 And they prayed and said, ‘You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen 25 to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.’ 26 And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.”

INTRODUCTION

What is a transformissionary?

In order to see the vision of Luke 24 and of Acts 1:6-8, we need four things:

1-Authority
2-Power
3-Confidence
4-Leadership

I.  Where do we get our authority to witness? From Christ’s ascension

Ascension = Authority = Mission

Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

Verses 9-11: “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’”

What causes us to stare of the work of Christ, like the Apostles and freeze?

The ascension must be more than just objectively agreed, it has to be subjectively believed.  We must personally believe that Christ sits upon a throne at the right hand of God, ruling and reigning.  Consider Stephen in Acts 7:55. 

It is from Jesus’ throne that He pours out His Spirit (Acts 2:33).

When you think of ascension, think if His ruling Lordship.  The resurrection shows us power: power over sin, Satan and death; the ascension shows us authority: authority over all creation, authority over our lives.  He rules and reigns from this throne of royal power. 

The ascension also shows us His spiritual omnipresence.  Jesus is accessible to every man, woman, or child that calls upon His name. 

The ascension also shows us His presence before the Father, the One who intercedes on our behalf.  This intercession is not so much His constantly asking God for things for us—as if He doesn’t have the authority to answer these requests—instead it is from His throne that He sends us the Holy Spirit to empower, enrich, and to equip us to perform what our Father asks. 

We typically find ourselves beset by cowardice or arrogance.  Both are brought about by looking at our own authority rather than Christ’s.

Since we are saved by grace, and not works, we do not stand upon our position of authority to be a witness, but upon Christ’s authority alone. 

Imagine if a police officer stood in the middle of the street in his plain-clothes and attempted to stop traffic by flashing his license.  Without appealing to the authority above him, outside of him, he would be quite powerless.  His uniform and his badge give him a certain authority that is not dependent upon his own personal strength or background. 

We need a more robust view of Christ in our day.  In our culture, incarnation and crucifixion are championed as most important while leaving out resurrection and ascension.  The reason for this is quite simple, if Jesus lived only as an example and died only as an example, then we can save our saves by following His example of a good life.  When we begin to speak of resurrection power and ascension rule, we’re now speaking of His authority and also His demonstration that He had to die, rise again, and be exalted at the right hand of God for us to be saved by His grace. 

This is the point of Luke 24, where Christ says that all of history is about His suffering and His glory, or in other words; His incarnation and exaltation, or in other words again; His life, death, resurrection and ascension.

As Christians, we are called to contend and contextualize.  When we consider Christ’s incarnation, we get our cues for contextualization.  Christ came into this world on mission, into a particular people group and culture, speaking their language, eating their food, wearing their clothing, and using examples and stories which they would understand.  This is how we can become “all things to all people, that by all means I might win some to Christ.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel…” (1 Cor. 9:22-23).  When we consider His exaltation, we get our authority and power “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). 

This world is very curious about Jesus.  In a number of shows, He is the subject of tremendous controversy.  James Cameron, the director of the Terminator movies and Titanic, just came out to say he’s filmed a documentary on the tomb of Jesus.  Apparently he has found the tomb and has produced a show to prove Jesus is still important, still significant, still an example, but not God to be worshipped and followed because He’s still dead.

We see Jesus appearing on Time magazine, Newsweek, and Popular Mechanic.  Jesus is a bobble-headed figure you can put on your dash, and He is also the subject of a series of t-shirts that offer some humorous statement about Him. 

Point being, the world is not sick of Jesus; they are intensely fascinated with Him but don’t know which Jesus to believe in or follow.  All the major world’s religions give deference to Jesus in some form.  Some call Him enlightened, some a prophet, some a good teacher, some a Rabbi.  They all have an opinion about Jesus. 

If the world is interested in Jesus, what should we be saying about Him as the Church?  What should we be saying about Jesus to this city in order to reach it?  What kind of Christology should we have as a Church?

In the Church today, we usually find one of two views of Jesus emphasized.

Incarnation (overemphasized contextualization)

In the liberal, mercy-oriented, social justice driven church, we find an almost exclusive focus on the incarnation of Jesus, in other words, His first coming and activity found in the gospels.   Typically Jesus is understood as fully man.  Since this is the case, His humanity is stressed.  His immanence (He’s here with us) is stressed. 

Jesus is then shown as someone who identified with us, suffered like we did, and so we get our cues for how to serve others.   Of course we must believe in the incarnation of Jesus.  It is necessary for us to see Christ in this way because it gives us an understanding of how He came, loved, and served.  We get our cues from His incarnation and desire to be conformed to His image, to be like Him.  Jesus came into culture.  Jesus entered into community with lost people.  Jesus identified with their pain and struggles.  Jesus entered their culture.  Jesus spoke to them in a way they would understand.  Jesus loved the unlovely.  Jesus reached those whom the religious world had left behind. 

The problem with seeing Christ only in His incarnation is that we are left with someone that is less than God.  If all we have is Jesus as our example who suffered and died, we will end with a picture of Jesus that is truncated.  He must be seen not only as an example of work which continues to this day (though true) but as someone who also completed work that was given to Him specifically by His Father.  He came to live FOR us and to die FOR us, in our place, and to rise again to demonstrate He was God and has won for us a victory which we could not have won for ourselves.

An incarnational Jesus is not enough.  If we view Him in His suffering alone, we are often left with a marginalized, Galilean peasant, who took some shots for the team, has feathered hair, drinks decaffeinated tea, wears a lot of pastels, is somewhat effeminate, and is weak and unable to defend himself, and therefore unable to defend you and me.

This does not inspire us to storm the gates of hell and change the world.  A Christ like this can not catalyze a movement, can not transform you, is not worthy of your worship, because that Jesus is not God and therefore not big enough to crush Satan, rise from the dead, defeat our enemies, and is not big enough to be reverently feared. 

When He is pictured in this way, He looks like He never really completed anything, never really took responsibility, and died miserable and unhappy that He was defeated.  This is the message sent out to the world, and the men of the Church are called to be like this Jesus, which explains why the church is filled with weak, effeminate, and cowardly men who couldn’t take a hill for Christ because they’re too busy cowering in the corner.  This usually leaves a church with a soft heart, but with no authority or power because they have an abbreviated Gospel.  

This is what you get when you hyphenate Jesus or reduce Him to less than the Scripture declares Him to be.

On the other hand, the Orthodox church makes a similar error of reductionism by stressing almost solely Jesus’ exaltation and deity. 

Exaltation (overemphasized contending)

In this view, Jesus’ glory and throne, power and miracles are stressed.  It is not His immanence (God with us) that is stressed, but His transcendence (God out there) which is held most tightly. 

These individuals love Isaiah 6 which shows Christ sitting upon a throne, the train of His robes filling the temple with glory as the Seraphim cry out, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God almighty.”  He is pictured as ruling and reigning (which is true) but to the exclusion of His first coming.  The gospels are parsed only to find His divine traits and His is tender and gentle love and compassion for the lost and for God’s people are all but absent.  Jesus is then stripped of His tears and love, stripped of His time with broken people, and He is almost solely thought of as God alone. 

This then creates a church that does not contextualize and attempt to reach those in the margins of society, but rather He is turned into a gun-toting, war-mongering, merciless King who is to be feared alone and not loved. 

Those who fall into this camp almost exclusively contend for His divinity and do not think it’s necessary to contextualize and speak the language of the people to reach them by grace.  The word “grace” is often used, but in reality these churches are far from gracious.  This picture of Christ often leaves a church intellectually believing in Christ’s reign, but because the Gospel is absent (His suffering and glory) they don’t see a transformation of their heart and life. 

The challenge in our particular city and context is that Jesus is almost solely thought of in His incarnation. What we need to recover is a full picture of Jesus, which is why we speak of His exaltation and power as much as we do. 

However, this can not be our only picture of Jesus. We have to hold the two together to have an appropriate Christology so that we bring the full Christ to the city.

What is lacking is a rigorous combination of both His incarnation and exaltation; His humility and exaltation; His life, death, and resurrection and ascension; His suffering and His glory.  If we do not give this full picture of Christ’s person and work, we will not have the full Gospel to change and transform us from the inside out. 

We can not fall into the theological error of reductionism.  Reductionism is not necessarily saying something that is not biblical; it’s just not saying everything the Bible says. 

We can’t overemphasize His humanity and suffering to the exclusion of His divinity and exaltation. 

How do we get out of this mess?

By understanding Luke and Acts are two volumes of the same work. 

When we look at the book of Luke, we see in his gospel that Jesus born of a virgin, grew up into manhood, was led by, empowered by, enabled by, and resurrected by what?  The power of the Holy Spirit. 

When we read the book of Acts, we read that the Lord Jesus sends this same Spirit to be poured out on the Church and we are to live the Spirit-filled life of Jesus as we are led by, empowered by, enabled by, and spiritually resurrected by what?  The power of the Holy Spirit! 

Jesus was tempted, Jesus did suffer, Jesus is one with whom we can identify as we suffer and are tempted as we live here on mission in our culture.  How do we get empowered?  Not by looking at Jesus’ incarnation and not by looking to our own resources.  We find strength by looking to Christ’s authority and retelling His Gospel which shows us that He not only lived a perfect life, He lived it for us; He not only died, he died for us; He not only rose, He rose so that we will rise; He not only ascended, he ascended to send us the same power and Spirit which led Him. 

We need both His sovereign and saving grace as well as His power and enabling grace.  We need both.  To live a life on mission in the same power as Christ we are going to need to seek God and desire this power and enabling grace. 

Which leads me to my next question:

II.  Where do we get power to witness?  From Christ’s Spirit.

Prayer = Power

Verses 12-14: “Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. 13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. 14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.”

1- Prayer with one accord
2- Devoted prayer

Usually we find ourselves in weakness or impotence because we are not seeking the power promised by Christ in devoted prayer. 

III.   Where do we get our confidence to witness? From Christ’s Word.

Word = Confidence

Verses 15-20: “In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, 16 ‘Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. 17 For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.’ 18 (Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. 19 And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) 20 ‘For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it”; and “Let another take his office.”’”

When the Holy Spirit says something, it will be fulfilled.  This is why Peter says that the “Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand.”  There is a confidence that whatever God has promised will come to pass. 

It is a comfort to us.  Most often we are without confidence because we are left trying look to our own actions or intelligence for our security and trust. 

This leaves us often very insecure and without much confidence.

IV.  Where do we get our examples?  From Christ’s Leaders.

Leadership = Examples = Direction

Verses 21-26: “‘So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us--one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.’ 23 And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. 24 And they prayed and said, ‘You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen 25 to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.’ 26 And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.”

God’s people prayed to God for another leader.  It is God who chooses these leaders.  What is significant is that they desired another leader to be an example and witness for Christ to them and to this world.