[SPEAKER_00]: So every great story has a great beginning and a great end.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's drummed into us when we do English writing classes as kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gotta work on the beginning and you gotta work on the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the middle is important too, but the beginning in the end is so important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the stories that you love.
[SPEAKER_00]: The best ones have a beginning that when you look back on them from the end, you realize it's set everything up that came afterwards, and the ending usually feels both surprising and inevitable, like of course it couldn't have ended any other way.
[SPEAKER_00]: This morning I want to look at a story a moment in the life of Jesus that is both of these things, both of the beginning,
[SPEAKER_00]: and an end.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the end of one story and it's the beginning of another.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's one of the more overlooked moments in Jesus' life and in the Christian calendar.
[SPEAKER_00]: A look thought that this particular moment was so important that he wrote about it twice.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote about it in Luke, the gospel, but also in Acts, which is the second book that he wrote.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ended it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But ended Luke with his story and he began acts with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first time we read this story, actually flows beautifully out of what Karen talked to us about last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Karen took us into that locked room where the disciples were hidden away after Jesus death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he miraculously appeared in their midst and he spoke peace into their fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he explained to them what had happened, and he commissioned them as his witnesses, and then he leads them out of the city to a hillside near Bethany, and this is where we pick up this story in Luke 24, verse 50.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he had led them out of the out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and he blessed them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while he was blessing them, he left them, and was taken up into heaven,
[SPEAKER_00]: and then they worship Him and return to Jerusalem with great joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they stayed in the continually at that at the temple praising God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is where we see this story for the first time, the ascension of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it functions as a beautiful ending to the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like a benediction, a doxology.
[SPEAKER_00]: The disciples worship in God, what better ends to a story.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we see this same story again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke tells it slightly differently the second time, because it's doing something slightly differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to read that for you as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're reading from the very first words of his next book, The Book of Acts.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my form of book, for your fullest, for your fullest, I presume.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until the day he was taken up to heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles, he had chosen.
[SPEAKER_00]: After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the gift of my father's promised, which you have heard me speak about.
[SPEAKER_00]: For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with a Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they gathered around him and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said to them, it's not for you to know the times or dates the Father has said by His own authority, but you will receive power.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witness in Jerusalem and Algeria and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes and a cloud hid him from their sight.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were looking intently into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky?
[SPEAKER_00]: This same Jesus who had been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the same event, the same disciples, the same hillside, but Luke tells it a little differently here because it's doing a different work.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the gospel, the ascension closes the story and in acts it launches the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tim Keller describes the ascension as the detonator for everything else Jesus Christ did.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing that takes what he was and did on earth and releases it into the universe and into your lives with all its healing power.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a great description, the ascension is a detonator.
[SPEAKER_00]: It literally explodes what Jesus was and did into the universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to unpack that a little this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been walking this road of Easter over the last few weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this story fits beautifully into that and it starts our next series, which we're looking at the book of Acts so wonderfully as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been walking this road over the last few weeks, beginning a few weeks ago, Palm Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Palm Sunday where Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem as a king, just not the kind of king that crowds were expecting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then good Friday we see a glimpse of the kind of king that he was going to be a king who was crucified.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Tim show us how the cross wasn't a defeat, but a victory over evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then on Easter Sunday we celebrated his resurrection which was a vindication of everything that happened on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then last week, Karen took us into that room with the frightened disciples and the risen Jesus speaking peace into their fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where the ascension fits into the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's such an important part of this story and one that sometimes we skip over.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ascension gives us three things that I want to talk about this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gives us a king enthroned.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gives us a kingdom advancing.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it gives us a kindled people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to take each in turn this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: A king enthroned.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the description that C.S.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lewis gives us in his book The Miracles, where he describes the whole movement of the Christian story in two sentences.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a big ask, but he does it so well.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what he writes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, in the Christian story, God descends,
[SPEAKER_00]: to re-assend.
[SPEAKER_00]: He comes down into humanity and he goes up, down to come up again, and bring the whole ruined world with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ascension is where this moment happens, where he brings the whole ruin world back up with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We tend to read the ascension as an ending point, Jesus leaving the disciples staring at the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a tinge of sadness there, but that's not how Luke tells this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you notice how the disciples walk back into Jerusalem in the Gospel telling of the ascension?
[SPEAKER_00]: They walked back into Jerusalem with great joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't a sad ending.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a joyful beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: This ascension is a joyful arrival.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus has been heading to this place the whole time.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a Psalm that gets quoted in the New Testament more than any of the other Psalms.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Psalm 110 and it begins this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies of footstool for your feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Jewish people have been hanging onto this Psalm for centuries as a promise of the Messiah who would come.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one that God would send one day and be given a throne.
[SPEAKER_00]: They expected a Messiah that would be seated at the right hand of God, ruling over all things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ascension is that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus isn't going away.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is arriving.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the destination, his home ministry had always been headed towards.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cross wasn't a detour.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't a tragedy that somehow got redeemed by the resurrection.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cross was the path to this destination.
[SPEAKER_00]: The resurrection was part of that path as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ascension is where the path leads, and the destination is a throne.
[SPEAKER_00]: And T-Rite puts it this way, quite simply, he says, the ascension doesn't mean absence, it means sovereignty, exercised through the spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: To put it another way, this is Jesus' coronation moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hasn't left the room, he's taken the throne, and the spirit is how that rain reaches us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus is an absent, he is ruling.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the ascension the world has a new king, whether the world knows it or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: whether it looks like it or not, he's now in thrones.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was a radical claim.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was actually a dangerous claim, because this happened in a time that Rome ruled, its empire ruled, and its empire had a king already.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he wasn't just a political leader, he was one who was worshiped.
[SPEAKER_00]: People said Caesar is Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: The coins that you carried around in your purse bore his face.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had words on the coins, and the words declared him to be a son of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the other side, they declared that he was a high priest of the empire.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you looked at those up from those coins as you walked around the city, you would see monuments and inscriptions with words on them that declared that he was Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Caesar is Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had words like, Pax Ramana, the peace of Rome.
[SPEAKER_00]: The empires gift to the world was peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Roman Empire had its own gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had its own good news, Caesar is Lord, and so into this world, we see the ascension comes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Christians started to say something incredibly dangerous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is Lord, because of His enthronement, because of this particular moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Hebrews 4, we see Jesus described in a similar way to the Roman Emperor.
[SPEAKER_00]: as the great high priest, who sat beside God, that enabled us to approach the throne with great confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is Lord, is what the ascension says.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this, of course, got the Christians into all kinds of trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see it in Acts 17, then brought before the city rulers, because they were declaring that there was another king.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Caesar was not Lord Jesus was.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the ascension declares that there is an enthroned king, but it also speaks of his kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: A king is not a king unless he has a kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, the disciples don't quite get what this kingdom looks like, and they've never got it all through the ministry of Jesus, they don't quite get what Jesus is on about, and it's interesting in the beginning of this story that I read to you before, Jesus has been teaching them about the kingdom again, even in the 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they stood on get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually see that they ask him a question that indicates that they don't get it in verse 6.
[SPEAKER_00]: They say, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not a stupid question that they're asking.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the exact question that a well-taught scripture knowing first century Jewish person should ask, particularly after they've just watched their rabbi rise from the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely the kingdom is now going to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jewish prophets have been repeatedly promising that God would restore Israel, that he would send his spirit, that he would establish his king on a throne, that he would deal with Israel's enemies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, Rome was occupying the land that God had promised his people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So surely the next agenda item was to deal with Rome.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this is what they seem to be asking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're not wrong
[SPEAKER_00]: how is the kingdom going to come, but they just have the shape of their expectation of what that will look like a little wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want liberation for Israel, but Jesus has a much bigger plan in place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice what He does.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't dismiss the idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say it's a terrible question.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't say forget about kingdom restoration, he reframes things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Firstly, by taking the timing off the table, he says it's not for you to know the times, all the dates that the father has set by his own authority, is basically saying to them, some things are just not for you to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to worry about these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not responsible for making the kingdom come.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not responsible for the timing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not responsible for making it happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not the sovereign one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in some ways, that's a really liberating thing that he says to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just let us worry about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then it gives them something to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he refrains how the kingdom will come.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is thinking bigger.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are thinking about Rome being defeated.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is thinking about how his kingdom is going to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: to the ends of the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not going to come through a Jewish king on a Jewish throne, driving out a Roman army.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to come through a crucified and risen and enthroned king, present through his spirit, bearing witness through his people to every corner of the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how is it going to come?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to come through military conquest.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to come through political revolution.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to come through witness.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kingdom of this crucified and risen King spreads not through force but through testimony.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the way that Jesus keeps choosing, not accommodation to power,
[SPEAKER_00]: but through a community of people living and speaking in the name of a different kind of king.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea that the kingdom comes through power, through politics, through force, through control,
[SPEAKER_00]: was a radical thing in this time 2000, years ago, and it speaks to where we are today as well, because the church has always been tempted to spread the kingdom through force and control and through violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says, not that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: comes in the same way that it always has come through witness.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how God's kingdom comes through a community of people whose lives and words point to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the ascension speaks of an enthroned king.
[SPEAKER_00]: It speaks of an advancing kingdom and it speaks of a people who are kindled.
[SPEAKER_00]: At this moment, after Jesus has just given this incredible mission to His disciples, He goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the disciples watch Jesus ascends.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you just imagine that moment from a moment?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you imagine what they were feeling as they watch them ascends into the clouds?
[SPEAKER_00]: Their jaws must have been so far off their face.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's no wonder that we see in the acts telling of the ascension that they described as staring intently at the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's an understatement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we get this almost gently comic-all moment where these two men in white have to grab their attention back from the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they say, why are you looking at the sky?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, come on, he's just ascended.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think what these angels, these men are really saying is, you've seen what you need to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what you need to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Luke tells us that they walked back into Jerusalem with great joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see him tell us that he was a Sabbath-stay walk back into Jerusalem.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're on the Mount of Olives.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a 900-meter walk back into Jerusalem, back into the same city.
[SPEAKER_00]: The city hasn't changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The streets are the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Romans soldiers still at their post.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything looks exactly the same as when they'd walked out of Jerusalem that morning, but they weren't the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were different.
[SPEAKER_00]: They walked out of Jerusalem with the risen Jesus beside them, but they walked back in knowing that he was ascended and he was on his throne.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that they carried a mission now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It struck me this week that the disciples had actually seen resurrection before.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd seen Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd seen Jyrus's daughter come back to life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Resurrection, as amazing as it was still to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't new, but this, what they just experienced was categorically different.
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't just someone called back from death, as amazing as that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was Jesus going forward to his throne to the right hand of the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the ascension said that he now was in control.
[SPEAKER_00]: He now ruled everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something had shifted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you get the sense that something had really shifted inside of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they walked back into Jerusalem with joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: They stayed at the temple continually praising God.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a very different group of people to the group we saw last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hidden away, scared, frightened for their future, locked in a room.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a group of people who are now sent to have a spring in their step.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have energy, they have purpose, they have expectation.
[SPEAKER_00]: This, I think, is the detonation that Tim Keller is talking about in his quote.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, he says that the ascension is the detonator for everything Jesus did and who he was.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the thing that takes all of that and propelled it into the universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: The detonation, it didn't destroy anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It ignited something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what gets ignited, what gets kindled?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the disciples themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's us who gets ignited, who gets kindled by this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the moment that changes everything and his disciples are propelled back into the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about it for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus spent three years of his life making disciples, he poured himself into that task.
[SPEAKER_00]: into the 12, in then into 72, and we think around this time there are probably about 120 disciples, 120 people who fully got what he was on about.
[SPEAKER_00]: That set after three years, 120, and then this detonation happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a few days later at Pentecost.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see 3,000 people added to their number, and then 5,000, and they're more daily.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not despite the fact that Jesus ascended, but because of it, I think this is what Cala really means.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ascension is what releases everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: We often celebrate Pentecost as the birth of the church, you know, the Holy Spirit comes and 3,000 are added community forms.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's real truth in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to discount the role of the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a number of theologians ask the question whether we've got our sequence slightly wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, Douglas Farrow and his book about the ascension argues that the ascension is foundational to the church's identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: NT Wright puts it a little differently and argues something similar in his book surprised by hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says that it's the ascension that establishes the church
[SPEAKER_00]: who the church is and what it's for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pentecost gives the church its power, but the ascension gives its mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus in John 16 and verse 7 says that the Spirit only comes because He goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, unless I go away, the advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the ascension isn't just the prelude to Pentecost, it's what makes Pentecost possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the commission, you will be my witnesses, is given here on a hillside before the spirit arrives.
[SPEAKER_00]: The church's identity and calling are established at this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hendy Cust is the fuel, but this is where the engine was built.
[SPEAKER_00]: And acts is where we see how the church leaves out its mission to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's fascinating to look at how the church actually was a witness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what will unpack over the following weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's interesting just to see how much they preached, they were witnessing through preaching, but also how they lived.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we read through Acts and you'll see a lot of preaching and we're going to talk about the preaching in Acts in a few weeks time.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of spoken witnessing.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of proclamation, but it's not the whole picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: This community is described in Acts as really beautifully.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gives us a picture of what the church looked like in the day today.
[SPEAKER_00]: they ate together, they gathered together to worship and to pray and to listen to the Apostle's teaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: They shared what they had with one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were known for their generosity, for their love, for their care, for crossing social boundaries, for caring, for the marginalised.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke tells us that they were such a beautiful community.
[SPEAKER_00]: that they enjoyed the favor of all the people and the Lord added to their number daily.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their life together was a form of witness.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shape of how they lived pointed to the king that were following.
[SPEAKER_00]: a love how Theresa of Evila describes our role.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says, Christ has no body but yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are his body, Christ has nobody but yours now.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are the body of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way we live is a witness to him, but it's also his work in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And people notice when we live in this way, they notice when we respond to difficult situations with grace, they notice when we're generous.
[SPEAKER_00]: ways that don't quite make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: They notice when we forgive, when forgiveness isn't deserve, they notice when we're kind to those who aren't normally treated that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: This kind of life raises questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where we have opportunity to speak the spoken witness comes in, not as a cold picture of an idea, but as an invitation that flows out of someone noticing a life lived differently to the patterns of our world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the pattern we see in Acts, a community whose generosity and love make people
[SPEAKER_00]: There are times where we're called to speak, to share the good news, to explain who Jesus is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is why we run an alpha, to help in that process, and I encourage you to bring people to alpha.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not the full picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are called to be a witness in the way we live.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is a big task, and thankfully, we're not called to just do it in our own strength.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're given the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit's coming, and we're not quite up that point yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tins are going to talk to us about that last week, but I want to encourage you this week to grasp hold of this mission that we've been given.
[SPEAKER_00]: want to ask the band to come up now and as they come up I want to take you back to that 900 meter walk back into Jerusalem for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ten minutes it takes to walk 900 meters depending how fast you walk.
[SPEAKER_00]: The disciples are on the Mount of Olives and they walk down this hillside and the city comes back into view.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to feel that moment for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: because you're about to walk that same walk.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a few minutes, we will say amen, amen, and you'll walk out of this building back into your Jerusalem.
[SPEAKER_00]: into your weak, into the relationships, into the commute, into the inbox, into the conversations you've been putting off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the world out there looks exactly the same as when you left out of an hour ago, but you're not the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've been reminded this morning of Jesus in throned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is not absent, he's in throne, he's ruling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Spirit is not something you have to go into Jerusalem to wait for, he's been given already.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the way that God wants to reach our world this week, working through you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this morning, I encourage you to walk back into the world with confidence, and with joy, because we have a great high priest who sits beside the Father, interceding for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We walk back into the world with the same commission that the disciples carried down that hillside to be His witnesses.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may feel a little overwhelmed by that task.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may not feel a quit.
[SPEAKER_00]: May not feel particularly gifted to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the disciples weren't either.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were a group of very ordinary people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They changed the world because they had the spirit of the enthrone king moving in their lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: and you do too.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of your stand with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to pray for us as we move into the world this week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord Jesus, thank you for this story, for this reminder that you are not absent, you are enthroned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, you are Lord, you are King, we want to acknowledge that and declare it a fresh this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for the path you took to get to that enthronement through the cross, through the empty tomb.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are enthroned, you are ruling.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love we find ourselves living in a world that at times feels so unchanged by this reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in the tension between the knowledge of your enthronement, but in a world that puts forward other things to worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: We help us to live in this tension.
[SPEAKER_00]: We help us to live in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: To resist the patterns of our world that are not aligned with your kingdom purposes.
[SPEAKER_00]: and to live out the commission that you've given us to be your witnesses in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we walk back into the world this morning, would you or spirit kindle something within us?
[SPEAKER_00]: We so desperately need you to fill us and lead us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We feel us with the same joy that your disciples walked into Jerusalem with.
[SPEAKER_00]: that point to you is our King.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us to live lives of the witness to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That spark curiosity in and questions in those we meet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And help us when the words that opportunities come to speak words of witness to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Spirit, we come.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, you're spurred on us this morning, we pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus' name, nameth.