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The official audio library of sermons preached at Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio.
These groaning, broken bodies, these virus-catching bodies, these aging bodies, these
cancer-ravaged bodies, with all that they carry, their joys, the memories of joy in these
bodies, the memories of sorrow in these bodies, all of it, they look to Jesus and they'd
see one of themselves.
They see a human like us, not an angel, not a spirit.
A human like us, raised up, ascended now, reigning from the throne of God, and he in his
humanity becomes a promise to us in our humanity.
You will be raised, you will be healed, you will be glorified.
This broken clay vessel of your body will be transfigured to a chalice in the house of
God, and its end is to be filled with the wine of his own life.
The following message was recorded at Kingstree Church.
May the Spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified
and risen Jesus Christ.
We are in our third sermon now in our series Moving Through Acts.
Our first sermon was Laying Foundations for this series, for this book.
The second sermon last week.
Was looking at Jesus' statements from Acts chapter one, verses six through eight.
And we were focusing specifically on this concept of the kingdom, the kingdom of God.
What is it?
When is it coming?
How is it coming?
The disciples were asking Jesus that question at the beginning of the narrative in Acts.
And what we said is that ultimately, though the kingdom does have a future element in the
New Testament, the kingdom is something that is coming.
To be sure, the emphasis in the New Testament falls on the fact that the kingdom is
present now.
The kingdom is where Christ is.
And so the kingdom, if we want to say what it is in its most fundamental sense now, it is
Christ's rule over those who are united to him by faith and baptism.
And it exists wherever he's obeyed as King.
His kingdom is coming wherever those who are united to him.
Are obeying him as king in our souls, in our homes, in our neighborhoods.
So may his kingdom come.
That's not just the spiritual prayer.
It it means may his kingdom come here in our midst.
May lives be bowed to this king.
Now, this week we're going to look at what happens next.
But again, we're not going to get terribly far.
We are going to begin speeding up here, I promise.
But there's a few things we just need to look at here at the beginning of this story.
So what happens next is that Jesus bodily ascends into heaven.
And it seemed to me that this requires a full sermon.
And here's why.
We're quite familiar with Jesus' birth, his life, his death, his burial, his resurrection,
rightfully so.
These things, this is the center and the ground and the fullness of our faith.
Absolutely.
But we, in our particular tradition, we have observances.
Throughout the year of Jesus' birth, his death, his burial, his resurrection, these are
things we remember.
We don't really have an observance in our tradition for his ascension.
Other Christian churches do.
Ours does not.
And one of the things that means is that it can be forgotten.
We all know Jesus isn't here on earth right now, but his ascension, his bodily ascending
to the Father is something that just kind of gets missed.
It can it can be glossed over.
And that really is to our impoverishment because the ascension of the risen Jesus is
critical to our faith.
This isn't just, you know, something tagged on at the end.
This matters.
It matters that Jesus ascends bodily to the presence of God.
It has beautiful implications for reality and it has practical implications for our own
souls and how we live.
And so it seemed to me.
Worthwhile for us to take the sermon today and ask what is the ascension?
What is this?
And why does it matter for us?
So that's what I want to look at this morning with you.
And we will begin here, moving more quickly through the story of Acts, but a number of
these things need to be laid out at the beginning.
Because honestly, the fact that Jesus is ascended to the throne and reigning, that fuels
the disciples' ministry throughout this book.
It matters that he has ascended.
So let me read for you the text, and then I'll pray and we'll look at this together.
Starting in Acts chapter one, verse nine.
And when he had said these things, the things we looked at last week, and when he 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 still gazing into heaven as he went, gazing up, behold, two men stood
by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee,
Why do you stand looking into heaven?
This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him
go into heaven.
So that's what we're going to look at this morning.
Let me pray for the Lord's help and then we'll dive into this together.
Father, we thank you for your word.
We thank you that in it, your will, your mind, your heart has been presented in our own
language, is accessible to us in our own language, but accessible to us only to the degree
that the Spirit would open this word to us and us to this word.
And so we ask now, Father, that there would be the present, gracious working of your
spirit here in this room.
the Holy Spirit of God working to allow me to faithfully unfold these concepts, to point
to Christ, to exalt and lift up our Savior, and to grant your people, Father, to
faithfully receive and discern and apply these words.
And I pray that all of this would be unto the hallowing of your name and the coming of
your kingdom and the doing of your will.
In us and through us.
We ask these things, Father, and we consecrate afresh ourselves and downstairs the
children, the nursery, and the children's class, and this whole gathering now into your
hands.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Okay, well, we will look at some of the implications of the ascension toward the end of
the sermon today.
But what I want to do for us here at the beginning is to just talk about what the
ascension is.
What is the ascension?
The ascension of Jesus.
And to do that, we need to actually start by talking about the human body, something we
all know, something we're all very familiar with, the human body.
And you might say, what?
The body?
I thought we were at church.
You know, bodies don't really matter, right?
They're just these vessels that hold our spirits.
They're just these clay prisons that keep us down.
Our spirits are what matter, right?
Our spirit is where we really are to be found.
We're gonna be freed from these bodies someday, right?
Well, no, actually.
The human body is God's good design.
Sometimes the way
People talk about the body, you could think God like accidentally messed up and made this
thing called matter, made this thing called bodies, and he wish it didn't happen.
But no, God made our bodies.
And what we are as human beings is a invisible spirit and a visible body wedded together.
That is a human.
A invisible spirit ripped from the body is not the human as it should be.
That happens at death.
That is an unideal situation at death when our spirit is taken from our body.
That is, that is, that happens and it's painful, and we all feel this isn't right,
something's wrong here.
And it's temporary.
And the spirit is with God and it's with Christ and it's it's joyful.
But it Paul says it's still longing to put the body on.
The goal, the end result for the human being is not to float around as a disembodied
spirit.
But to be a risen body, to be a spirit in a body forever, we are going to be embodied
forever.
So that is that is the situation.
Our bodies, Christian, right now, these broken bodies, these bodies that are under the
fall, in their pains and their pleasures, in their strengths and their weaknesses, in
their abilities and their inabilities, in their youth and in their old age, these bodies
are means.
Of knowing God.
They're not just a weight He tied onto our spirit to make it hard for us.
These bodies are given to us as gifts to know Him.
And the particular strengths of your body, and the particular weaknesses of your body, and
the particular broken things about your body, and the particular helpful things.
Those are means given to you, a particularly shaped key to fit into God and unlock.
your specific fellowship with him.
The body is not just this thing, it is a meaningful part of our spiritual life with God
now and for eternity, because our bodies are going to be raised.
We are going to have resurrection bodies for all of eternity.
Now they're not going to be exactly the same as these, you know, they're not going to have
the problems of these, but they are going to be bodies and you are going to be
recognizable in them.
Now,
How do I know all this?
Is this just me kind of coming up with ideas off the top of my head?
We know this because of Jesus' body, because Jesus has a body, and that matters.
This is going to loop around to the ascension.
Just stay with me.
God, think about this, could have conceivably redeemed the universe by speaking a word of
command, just speaking it invisibly.
One would assume he could have done that, but he doesn't do that.
He
Redeems the universe by making, by causing the word to become flesh.
The word became flesh and dwelt among us.
That's how God chooses to redeem this universe.
He redeems reality through the body of the crucified and risen Jesus.
He redeems this universe through the body.
One could assume if he just spoke it, he would have saved like the invisible creation, but
the whole material creation would be lost.
And he says, I'm not gonna do that.
I'm saving the whole thing.
And so he comes, the Son of God comes bodily.
Jesus was really in a body, in the womb of Mary, really born in a body, lived in a body,
suffered in a body, died in a body, just like you will, just like I will.
God did.
Truly in a body.
And here's the key: was truly raised up in a body.
If Jesus had raised as a spirit, then we would have all said, okay, the body was bad.
I see now the body needed to be gotten rid of.
But Jesus is raised in a body, which means the bodies are going to persist beyond death.
The body matters.
That's what the resurrection of Jesus means.
So God
Created our bodies, he gave us our bodies, and he does not plan to get rid of them.
He will heal them, he will redeem them, he will raise them, he will glorify them, but he
won't obliterate them, he won't erase them.
And we see that again, especially because Christ is raised from the dead in a body.
Look at the emphasis that Luke gives this.
Remember, Luke is the author of Acts, which is what we're looking at.
Look at the emphasis that Luke gives to the embodied nature of
Of the risen Christ.
Let me read it for you in Luke chapter 24, starting in verse 36.
As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them.
Now that is surprising because his body apparently just came into the room.
So his body can do different things than our body.
But look what Luke goes on to say.
And Jesus said to them, Peace to you.
But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.
So they think, okay, this is a ghost.
That's what they think.
And he said to them, Why are you troubled?
Why do doubts arise in your heart?
See my hands and my feet.
Why does he say that?
Look, my flesh is wounded.
Look at the wounds.
It is I myself.
Touch me and see.
For a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.
And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
And while they were still disbelieving for joy, what a beautiful statement.
We'll just have to move past it.
And marveling, he said to them, Have you anything here to eat?
And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it before them.
The point being, he is in a body.
The risen Jesus is no ghost, he's no idea, he's no spirit, he is a body.
He is an embodied human being.
But here's the important important distinction.
The risen Jesus is the is an embodied human, but he is in a body that exists now beyond
death.
That's critical to get here.
Because other people have been raised from the dead.
Lazarus was raised from the dead.
Jarius' daughter was raised from the dead.
The widow's son was raised from the dead.
But if you think of death as a river, all of them were raised on this side of the river.
They all had to go through death.
Jesus alone walks through the river.
And comes out on the other shore.
That's the difference in Jesus' body.
He's not just raised to die again.
He is raised beyond death.
And we've never seen that before.
No one has seen that's only Christ.
And this is an example I use a lot, but it's it's very helpful for me.
I hope for you too.
Think about a field, seeds go into the ground, right?
And you there's two ways for a seed to come out of the ground.
You can reach in and pull it out and say, look, the seed's back.
But
It's still a seed, it still has to go into the ground and die.
Or you can put a seed in the ground and it sprouts up and it rises up as corn with the
full ears of corn growing on it.
Everyone who's been raised from the dead before is a seed taken back out of the ground,
still a seed, still has to die.
Jesus' body is the corn that's grown up, actually grown up from the dead, never to die
again.
You don't take the plant, the corn and put the whole thing in the ground again.
The corn is raised from the dead.
And that is Jesus' body.
And that body, that body raised from the dead, is saying to us, You will be here too.
Let me read this passage for you to kind of put this into context.
First Corinthians 15, starting in verse 47, says this.
Let me get to verse 47 here.
Okay.
The first man was from the earth, Adam, a man of dust.
The second man is from heaven.
As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust.
That's us, dust dying.
As is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the
man from heaven.
Which means Jesus now is raised in a body beyond all death.
And Christian, that body is to us a promise of where we will be.
That's where our bodies are going.
I'm going to touch on that in a second, but let me, I'm just presenting that to you now as
the context that we're that we're talking in.
Now, with this clear before us, the body matters, and Jesus is raised in a genuine human
body beyond death, but raised in a genuine human body.
We then have to ask ourselves, where is he?
Where is Jesus right now?
Because sometimes he's not here.
We can't see him here.
He's here by his spirit, but he's not physically, visibly here.
And because of that, we can also often think, well, Jesus kind of dissolves into
nothingness.
But no, the ascension tells us he still has a body.
Where is it?
It is ascended to the presence of God.
And we can have all kinds of metaphysical and and and physics discussions about what that
would mean, but the point is his where is the body of Christ?
In the presence of God right now, as a body, raised up into the presence of God.
I read for you what it says in Acts, where they're looking and he's taken up from them.
Look what it says in Luke, or I'll read for you what it says in Luke.
He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, remember, which still have
the wounds in them, he blessed them with a sign of the curse born in his flesh.
He blesses them.
And while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.
So where is the body of Jesus right now?
In heaven.
In the presence of God, inaccessible, you can't fly there, you can't get there, but
really, truly, a place where the body of Christ is in heaven.
And that's what the ascension is teaching us: that just as the Son of God bodily descends
in the incarnation, so too he bodily ascends in the ascension.
He doesn't shed his body when he ascends, he goes up.
Visibly taking the body, taking the human body up into the presence of God, just as he
descends and takes the human body, he takes that body up into the presence of God, which
means the very same body that God made his own in the womb of Mary, and that in which he
lived and walked and wept and rejoiced and died and rose on this earth, that very same
body now sits on the throne of the universe.
Truly ruling over reality.
One of us, think of this: one who has our flesh and our bone, one who's born of woman just
like all of us are, our brother rules the universe right now, sits on the throne of the
universe right now.
That's not a fantasy story.
That's not a science fiction story.
That's the reality that we live in.
And again, I said there's all kinds of fascinating metaphysical questions to talk about
there.
But the point is, this embodied Christ rules reality.
Now, as beautiful as that is, just to consider, it also speaks a word of hope to us.
Because remember, Paul said, as he is, so we will be.
We have the image of dust now, these dying bodies.
We will have the image of the man of heaven.
We will be as he is.
Think of here's an example for you.
Think of a sculptor's workshop.
You've got all these pieces of marble all over the place, halfway made, halfway built,
rough hewn, kind of chunked up, looking like they're not quite there yet.
And you have one piece that is completely finished, polished, glass smooth, perfect in
every detail, set on the pedestal, the sunlight shining in on it.
And the
Unfinished pieces of marble can look at that piece and say, it's the same marble I am, the
same stuff, the same marble I am, shaped by the same sculptor I'm shaped by.
And so as I I look at this and I say, it's it's rough hewn, it's broken, it's not what I
would expect.
But I look at that and I say, that's where I'm going.
That's where I'm being, that's where I will be made.
So says the marble.
And so too for us, the flesh of the risen Jesus is our flesh.
Our humanity, our human nature on the throne, the very body that was hanging on the cross,
beaten, bruised, broken beyond recognition, that same body is raised from the dead and
reigning over reality now is the body that God says it's it is my own.
It is my own.
And so what that says to us, Christian, is these groaning, broken.
Bodies, these virus-catching bodies, these aging bodies, these cancer-ravaged bodies, with
all that they carry, their joys, the memories of joy in these bodies, the memories of
sorrow in these bodies, all of it, they look to Jesus and they'd see one of themselves.
We see a human like us, not an angel, not a spirit, a human like us, raised up, ascended
now.
Reigning from the throne of God, and he in his humanity becomes a promise to us in our
humanity.
You will be raised, you will be healed, you will be glorified.
This broken clay vessel of your body will be transfigured to a chalice in the house of
God, and its end is to be filled with the wine of his own life.
That's the s that's the truth for every every everybody and everybody here.
That is the promise that the ascension makes for us.
And the ascension makes another promise, too.
Look what the angels say.
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.
So this is not a sermon about the return of Christ, but the ascension, the bodily
ascension of Jesus, promises to us also a bodily return of Jesus.
Jesus is not coming back as an idea.
Or, well, isn't his return really the philosophy that we all have to be good and kind to
one another?
Isn't that really the return of Jesus?
No, that is not really the return of Jesus.
His return is an embodied return.
Just as he ascended, so he will return.
And when he does, the wounds of his crucifixion and his glorified body will be a
declaration to all creation.
This one is Lord, God, and King, returned and healing all of humanity, not just healing
the invisible spirit, healing all of humanity in the embodied return of our King and our
Savior.
Now, that's a little bit about the ascension.
The ascension is kind of this final vindication that bodies do matter, that bodies do
matter.
God took it with him all the way to the top.
Now, what are some
Implications for us about this?
Is this just an interesting theological idea?
And if you like that kind of stuff, good for you.
Now, I think there are some applications we can consider, some implications of this that
can help us.
The first one is this: look with me or listen carefully with me as I read Acts chapter 2,
verses 32 and 36.
Here's what Paul or Peter says in his sermon: Acts chapter 2, verses 32.
Through 36.
He says this, this Jesus, God raised up, and of this we are all witnesses, being therefore
exalted, there's the ascension, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and
having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this
that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.
So the Spirit is given as the as the result of Christ being raised to the throne.
Then listen, for David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, The Lord said
to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
Let all the house of Israel therefore therefore know for certain, and we could say, Let
all creation therefore know for certain God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus
whom you have crucified.
So the ascension declares that this Jesus is Lord and Christ.
Now, those two terms are loaded with all kinds of meaning, but in that particular context,
most immediately, Lord is the term that Caesar claimed for himself.
Lord, when you hear Lord in that context in the Roman Empire, it meant the king of the
world, the emperor, the ruler.
And so Peter says the ascension tells us that Jesus is.
At least the ruler of the world.
Of course, Lord also pulls in all these senses of divinity.
But Jesus is the is the Lord, not Caesar.
Jesus is the Lord.
And he is the Christ.
He's the anointed King, the divine King.
So the ascension declares that the body slain and buried is right now alive and reigning
over the cosmos as Lord.
And Christ.
And one reason that matters for us is because it means that the Jesus who is literally
ruling the universe right now is the very same Jesus we meet in this book.
The very same Jesus who walked on this earth, the very same Jesus who you can know as you
read the gospels, as you read his witness in the Old Testament, as you read his word
through his apostles, this same man.
Rules the universe right now and rules your life right now and rules the test results
right now and rules the the all the uncertainties for you right now.
This Jesus rules reality right now.
And a lot of times we want to, or people want to, kind of shape Jesus in their image.
uh Basically, Jesus can end up meaning whatever I think is kind and morally good.
We can just think that's Jesus, right?
But the ascension says no, a real person is ruling the universe.
He's not an idea that can be shaped over time and qualified over time.
The same person who walked on the earth is ruling the universe right now, listening to me
and evaluating what I'm saying about him right now.
This real person.
And so it holds us to accountability before a genuine king.
A genuine person.
Jesus isn't this philosophy that we can kind of push around and make it work.
He is a person who is who he is and is not who he is not.
And he really reigns.
He's really Lord and King.
In that sense, then the doctrine of the ascension has a political dimension because it
means we actually belong to a king, not just an affiliation, a person, a king who is
alive.
We don't just follow the memory of Jesus.
We follow Jesus because He's alive and ruling the universe right now.
We are beholden to a king.
We are a people, Christian, who are united not simply because, well, we have a particular
morality and it helps us kind of come together.
No, because we belong to a particular man.
We belong to a particular king and we obey him.
Yes, we are citizens of the United States.
But we are supremely citizens of this king's kingdom.
And our citizenship, our devotion belongs to him supremely.
That's the first implication of the ascension.
Second implication of the ascension is that we have salvation, we have eternal security
because Christ is ascended to the throne of God.
You say, how's that?
Let me read you a passage from Hebrews, Hebrews chapter seven.
Where the author of Hebrews, traditionally understood to be Paul, is laying this out for
us.
Hebrews chapter 7, verses 23 and 25.
Here's what the author writes for us.
The former priests, that is the priests of the old covenant, the former priests were many
in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in their office.
So there had to be lots of them because they kept dying, just like all of us do.
But he who holds his priesthood permanently, but he, that's Jesus, he holds his priesthood
permanently because he continues forever.
He never dies.
Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him,
since he always lives to make intercession for them.
So the death of Jesus, the sacrifice of Jesus.
Is the once for all offering that covers us from beginning to end for all time.
Absolutely.
But that once for all sacrifice needs to be presented before God.
It didn't just happen at one time and pass away.
It is continually held before God.
How is it continually held before God?
In the person of Jesus.
Jesus Himself is both the perfect sacrifice given and the perfect
priest who continually holds that sacrifice before God.
And how does he continually hold it before him?
By being himself, because he in his body is the crucified one who is raised.
He continually holds before God the wounds, the wounds in his hands, the wounds in his
side.
He presenting himself continually as the ones for all offering for our sins, covering us.
So Christian, you are covered.
Covered at every moment by the body that bore your sin and the wounds that swallowed your
hell and the heart that poured down your healing.
He is covering you continually.
God presenting himself to God through God forever, because the ascended one bears in
himself still the body that is our sacrifice.
He is
There is the body, there is the as the embodied Jesus saying continually, this sacrifice,
this is given fully for these ones who belong to me, continually before God.
So, Christian, take comfort and be exhorted.
Take comfort because when we fall, we have an intercessor.
The very body that was crucified for you is living now and standing before God, saying,
Still.
Still it's offered, still it's presented, still it covers.
So be encouraged, but also be exhorted because we dare not, I dare not, take the
intercession of the Lord lightly.
If God in Christ is continually presenting his crucified and risen body before the throne,
covering me, how dare I say, well.
I'll do it and he'll forgive me afterwards.
I'll I'll just go ahead and do it this time and I'll get forgiven later.
That is a that is damnable territory to walk in.
Doesn't mean you are damned, but it is very dangerous to walk in that territory.
And so may we be comforted.
He covers us.
May we be exhorted.
He's interceding for you right now.
So that's the second, that's the second implication.
First, it means we have a real king reigning now.
Second, it means we have an intercessor presenting himself for us now.
Third, the ascension presents Jesus as the invincible anchor of our hope.
Hope.
We're saved in hope, Paul says.
And the ascended Jesus is our hope.
Let me show you this.
Again, we're gonna stay in Hebrews just a few chapters earlier.
In Hebrews chapter one, here's what the author says.
I'm sorry, Hebrews chapter two, verse eight.
He says, now in putting everything in subjection to him, that is to ultimately to Christ,
he left nothing outside of his control.
At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him who for a
little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor
because of the suffering of death.
So what's the author saying here?
He's saying we look around and we do not see everything subjected to God.
We look around and we say, really?
This is the world subjected to you?
It looks to me like this is the world subjected to death.
It looks to me like there's chaos all around.
It looks to me like there's brokenness and violence and pain all around.
And the author says, right, when you look around, that's what you see.
But when you look to Christ, to the risen one, you take heart, you take hope.
And then I want to know, how does that work?
How does it encourage me?
How is it when looking at the broken world around me, looking at the ascended Jesus can
give me hope?
Why?
I can say, well, good for him.
He's there.
But how does that give me hope?
And it's tethered to this idea of the ascension of Christ bodily into heaven.
Let me
Try to explain that for you.
Remember, Jesus right now is in the body.
He is in a human body.
What is a human body?
Well, you know, muscles, nerves, all kinds of stuff.
But at the base, it's matter.
It's stuff.
It's the very stuff of the world around us, the same stuff that's making this and making
me, and making the trees and the stars and the corn and tears and blood, the stuff of this
broken world.
That's what his body's made of.
The body of the risen Christ is made of the stuff of this broken world.
Why does that matter?
Why does that matter?
Because look at it now.
Look at Jesus' body.
It is perfectly reconciled to God.
He it is the body of God.
Jesus' body, glorified, like we saying, wounds glorified above.
Look at the body of Christ radiant.
Crowned with glory, the worship of heaven.
But that body that God says it's mine, it's the same stuff of this broken world.
So think about when we stand before Jesus one day, when we stand before the embodied Lord
one day, will you at that moment be looking at molecules and atoms and flesh and bone?
Or will you be looking at the glory of God?
The answer is yes.
Yes.
In the body of Christ, the stuff of this world is so perfectly reconciled to God that to
see it is to say, this is the glory of God.
All I see is the beauty of God.
All I see is the face of Christ.
But the face of Christ is made of the stuff of this world.
Now, here's the point in all this.
Here's what I'm getting at.
That the ascended Jesus, what has happened to the stuff of this world in the body of the
ascended Jesus is the promise of God.
I'm going to do that with everything.
What I've done with the broken stuff of the world and the body of my son, so reconciling
it to me that it is my image and glory, I'm going to do that with all the stuff of this
world, with all the matter of this world.
It will all be so reconciled to me that you will not know.
Is it a tree or is it the beauty of God?
Is it my hand or is it the grace of God to me?
Is it a feast or is it the love of God?
The answer will be yes, yes.
That's what the body of the ascended Jesus proclaims to us.
And that is the promise that he makes to us.
Think again of the story of the sculptor's studio.
The same stuff that this broken marble is made of is what that statue is made of.
And this broken marble is able to look at that and say, that's where this is all going.
That's where this is all going.
You see the ravages in this world, the brokenness of this world, the shattering of this
world.
Compare that.
That is to be seen as the ravaging of Christ's flesh, the tearing of Christ's flesh on the
cross.
These two are parallel.
And see now the resurrection of Christ and the ascension of Christ in this same broken
body, glorified to become the beauty of God.
And that is saying, same thing here.
That's going to happen here.
That's going to happen here.
So when we look around us and we see the brokenness of the world, Hebrew says, look to the
risen, embodied, ascended Christ and know what God has done with matter in him, he's doing
with it all.
What God has done with suffering in him, he's doing with it all.
What God has done with sin and what it did to him, he's doing with it all.
So we take heart as we look to this Christ.
And then finally, briefly, one last
Implication.
The ascension of the embodied Jesus Christ means the genuine participation of our human
nature in the life of God.
In the ascended Jesus, we see where we're going.
And you know you've heard me say that before, but think about that.
We see where we are going.
Right now, as I've said many times today, I hope it's clear.
Jesus is in a human body right now.
But at the same time, Jesus is perfectly in the life of God.
Jesus' human body does not keep him in any way from entering into the fullness of the life
of God.
His human nature is fully woven into the very life of the triune God.
And what that means for us is that, wait a second, that's my nature too.
That's my nature, which means our human nature is not only capable of, but is intended to
enter fully into God's own life.
That's the that is the the the end of the incarnation.
When God becomes flesh, he's not just saying, I did this once.
He's saying, that's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to pull you into me.
Just as I made a body my own, I'm gonna pull you into my life, entering into our life.
Our human nature is intended to enter into God's own life.
These bodies are not intended for us to beautify for a short time with this workout
regiment or this cosmetic thing or these clothes.
Go ahead, it's fine.
Do that.
But no, these that's not what they're for.
That's not what they're for.
They're breaking down.
These bodies.
Are not for getting as much pleasure as they can while they're still capable of it.
These bodies are not for getting the most experiences and the most money and the best
house and the best job, so I can be happy, maximize my happiness.
That is not what these bodies are for.
That is not what your life is for.
Every voice around us will say that's what it's for.
That's what it's about.
But that is not what we're for.
The ascension of the embodied Christ says, You.
Are for being woven into the life of God.
That's what you're for.
It's like we're threads, and the world says, you know, you're made to be woven into this
foot mat here.
And God says, No, you're made to be woven into the tapestry of my portrait.
That's what you're made for.
That's what you exist for.
That's why why do you get up in the morning?
Because we are becoming those whom in Christ will be fully folded into the life of the
love of.
Of God, like it says in the Psalms, feasting with God on the abundance of his own house,
drinking with God from the river of his own joy.
This flesh, this breath, this bone, this brain, this soul, this life is made to be filled
with God.
You are made to be filled with God like a chalice is filled with wine.
You're made to shine with God's joy like a mirror lifted up into the sunlight.
Shines.
You're made to sing God's love the way a harp held in the wind will sing the love of God.
And we're made to be folded into his life the way a thread is folded into a tapestry.
Don't let the world say you're made to get to the weekend so you can just have a good
time.
You're made to get to that new game release, that new movie release, that new vacation.
You're made to just, just, just, you're made to be folded into the life of God.
So may we settle for nothing less.
And the ascension promises us this is so.
This is so.
And this is where you're going.
And as we come to this table today, Christians, this is not just a thing we do.
This is a foretaste.
It's a tasting of the first fruits of that participation.
That's why we're doing this.
You know, Jesus says, This, this is my body, this is my blood.
And there's so much mystery around that.
But at the very least, he wants us to think, I am taking into myself the very fullness of
my Savior.
I'm binding him to myself, even as he binds us to himself.
Think about what Peter says as you come to the table today, think at what Paul, what Paul
says in 1 Corinthians 10.
This is staggering, and I can't claim to completely explain it for you.
But look at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 16.
The cup of blessing that we bless, right here.
Is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
So as we come by faith to this table, Christian, through the working of the Spirit, you
are truly and mysteriously participating in that same body, the ascended body of the slain
and risen Jesus, as we come to this table in faith by the Spirit.
There is a participation happening with the living Jesus Christ.
And it's not just a metaphor, it's not just something we can explain away as spiritual,
just as Jesus' body is not a metaphor, and Jesus' body is not spiritual.
There is a genuine participation in the embodied life of the ascended Jesus that we are
about to enter into.
And that's an awesome thing.
And as we come to this table, Christian, we are pledging ourselves.
Don't do it lightly.
Don't
Feast upon God lightly.
We are pledging ourselves, body and soul, to Him as King.
And we are receiving from Him His pledge of Himself to us as our life, and as the promise,
as I am, so you will be.
So let's come to this table with trembling, with fear, with awe, with joy, knowing that
we're communing with our slain, risen, and ascended Lord.
Let me pray for us as we do that.
Father, we thank you for the glimpses you give us.
Even as the glimpses of a mountain peak far off amidst the clouds, but we still see it.
So with the ascension of Jesus, we don't see everything clearly, but we see something of
what you are doing with us, something of where you are taking us, and something of where
you are taking all things.
So we thank you, Jesus, that you did not cast off.
Your body, as you rose from the dead and as you ascended to the Father, but that you
carried your body and our nature with you up into the heart of the Father, so that we can
come there, so that we can live there, so that we can hope in that same union.
Thank you, Lord Jesus.
Thank you for this table that you've spread before us and that you continually spread
before us to bring us deeper in, further up and further into all that you are for us.
Father, may we now come to this table and receive these words that we've heard in a way
that is not unto our judgment, but unto our further life and joy in Jesus Christ.
We pray these things in his name.
Amen.
Thank you for listening to this message from Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio.
To see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship
with us on Sundays at 10 a.m.
Or visit our website at Kingstreechurch.org.