Acts chapter one, we are going
to start at verse five, working our way through verse nine. According to where we left off
last week, we are intrigued by the question that is raised by
the the disciples over in verse six. Rather, this is where we'll
continue. When they therefore were come
together, they asked him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time?
Could you cut it down a little bit, David? Too much feedback.
to bring it down just a tad. Wilt thou at this time restore
again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, it is
not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father
hath put in his own power. But you shall receive power after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. And you shall be witnesses
unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, in Samaria, and
unto the uttermost parts of the earth. I want to start right
there reminding you that what Luke had emphasized as a characteristic
of Christ's 40-day affirmation of his resurrection was that
he spent frequent time fellowshipping with the disciples. That is the
underlying implication of what's stated in verse 4, and being
assembled together with them. Uh, it's in a present indicative
verb form, which means it was a constant practice on the part
of the Lord Jesus to gather together with the disciples. And as you
and I saw last week, there were in our outline a number of, uh,
what we would call evidences back at point number one, he
presented himself. Uh, he brought his physical body
in its resurrected state. into the presence of the apostles
and 500 brethren over a 40 day period. It's recorded 10 times
in the gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as well as the
book of Acts, that Jesus did this and he was with them constantly
eating, drinking and fellowshipping, eating, drinking and fellowshipping.
I call that to your attention because One of the things I want
to keep in our memory is that what Jesus is doing as he transitions
from earth to heaven, which is what we're going to deal with
tonight, as he leaves the earth, as he departs from his disciples,
As he transitions from his earthly estate of an incarnate God to
his position at the right hand of his father, he will be leaving
patterns. Patterns. And these patterns
you will see followed through the book of Acts. So we read
in Acts chapter 2, verse 41 and 42, these words. And you can
follow me there. Acts chapter 2, verse 41. And 42, then they that gladly
received his word were baptized. That's a pattern, right? And
the same day there were added unto them about 3000 souls, verse
42. And they continued steadfastly
in the apostles doctrine and what? And in breaking of bread
and in prayer. And so what I'm getting at is
as we are launching into the book of Acts, what you and I
are gonna see is a practice that's transferred from the person of
Christ to the church of Christ as a pattern of life until he
comes. This is what we have been learning,
that the book of Acts is called the practice of the church. The
Latin word for Acts is the word praxis, from which we get the
term what? To practice. So what you and
I are gonna be drilled on in the book of Acts is the practice
of the Christian life according to the pattern of Christ transferred
from him to us by means of the third person. This will give
you and I a real insight as to whether or not we have been properly
taught what it means to be a Christian individually and more so collectively. I say that because there is a
lot of Christianity today that operates out of what I would
call a flawed autonomy, a flawed autonomy. And autonomy simply
means self-governing, self-governing. And we are very individualistic
in America. America kind of touts itself
where any individual can rise up and put in enough hard work,
can become wealthy and rich and prominent and have his name or
her name in light. And as a consequence, it is very
appealing to us as individual Christians to rush out and try
to carve out a new path to make a name for ourselves. And this
is endemic in the Christian church as well. This is one of the reasons
in my own thoughts and perusal even recently over what's going
on in our world. How come our world is really
being frazzled, dismantled, deconstructed, and basically atomized. Atomized is when you take a solid
substance and you break it down into its component parts. That's
what's happening in our culture. It's called a deconstruction
process. And that deconstruction process has been going on in
the church as well for several hundred years, but it's accelerated
over the last 50 to 100 years. For many of us, we call it the
dialectical process. You will hear more of that over
time. A system of practice on the part
of a diabolical institution and agenda to enter into a particular
body politic, whether it's religious, whether it's political, whether
it's domestic, whether it's educational, enter into that body politic
and change it from its original design into something else through
a preconceived systematic approach. So you start off one way and
then you end up a whole nother way. and you end up something
else because you forgot your identity. And as a consequence
of losing your identity, something else was able to take control
of you and transform you into its own image. Am I making some
sense? And so like America is going
through that process right now and people are really struggling
with where are we going? Well, I can tell you where we
are going We are going to a European style of socialism that is rooted
in an agenda to destroy the vision that was established in America
before America got taken over by an agenda that decided we
want to make sure that Christianity is not a basic thesis that actually
has influence in American culture. So the goal was to get everybody
thinking autonomously, that is on an individual level, uh, separate
from a biblical worldview. And this is really the critical
point, separate from a biblical worldview. And you are told that
you can be anything you want to at any time in any way. And
no one has a right to tell you who you are or what you can be
only you. That ideology smacks dab against
biblical truth because biblical truth tells you and I that you
and I are called to be only what God has called us to be. So you
have two authorities going on in this world system of which
you and I have to struggle with all the time, the authority of
self and the authority of God. Then there's a diabolical system
that is telling you that self is the highest authority. And
that diabolical system, which has inculcated that ideology
in your mind, allows you to come into the church and you get to
come into that church with that same notion. And once you do,
you fail to realize that as long as you hold a view of self autonomy,
self autonomy, I can be whatever I want to be and no one can challenge
it or no one can tell me that I'm right or wrong. As soon as
you take on that worldview, you are in opposition to a biblical
worldview. because a biblical worldview
is where men and women have submitted to the model of government and
influence and transformation that comes from God. I'll make
it very practical and then we'll go back to our point. It is a
top-down model where the authority comes from from heaven. It influences
all of us down at the bottom, and we are dictated by the authority
which comes from heaven. It is a top-down model. Now,
in our present day ideology, in our present day culture, a
top-down model is the reason why you are having all of the
wars, all of the demonstrations, all of the debates, and all of
the hostile confrontations, the boycotts all over America and
all over the world. It's people who feel as if it's
their duty to topple government. Y'all got that? Topple government.
Now toppling government is a socialistic agenda that will basically destroy
any real cogency or unity or harmony. And when the culture
is destroyed from the standpoint of a loss of harmony and unity,
somebody stronger than it can come in and take over. and that's
where we're headed in our nation, and that's where we're headed
in the church, by the way. The church is going to fall apart
as it's already dismantling in many ways in terms of denominationalism,
a departure from absolute truth, that is the word of God, a departure
from a sound biblical worldview, a departure from sound philosophy,
which allows us to think accurately and therefore adduce true from
the depository of truth, which is the scripture, And I say all
this to say that when you and I are reading the book of Acts,
as we're going through the book of Acts, what you are observing
is from the top down and influence upon designated persons to be
created in the image of the person at the top and thus to be governed
in a pattern that reflects the person at the top. This agenda
as an aggregate whole will oppose every institution in the world. A biblical church will stand
in antithesis and opposition to every institution in the world. Are you guys hearing me? A biblical
church will stand when it is operating out of a top-down model
against every institution, every ideology, every construct in
the world. And what that means is when people
from the world come into the church, they will notice that
we believe differently, we function differently. We have an antithetical
system to that of the world. Our convictions and our passions
and our practice will be contrary to the world system because we
will be operating from a top-down model. We believe in absolute
authority. We believe in a monarchy, a rule
from heaven. We believe in the divine depository
of biblical truth in errant verbal plenary inspiration. We believe
in the power of transformation. This is the whole purpose of
the Holy spirit. Now, the things that I've just stated are what
we call Orthodox Christianity. I'm talking about Orthodox in
the true biblical sense, Christianity, which alleges, to actually take
men and women and change their life. Biblical Christianity alleges
to take men and women and to actually change their life, not
give them a makeover. We're learning this about the
whole concept of what it means to be truly born again, aren't
we? Not a makeover, a complete, personal, radical transformation. This is what the Bible teaches.
And as a consequence, the enemy of our soul, the devil, who has
his own host and controls the world system here, is at odds
with God's system. And so the book of Acts becomes
for us a real wonderful place to exercise our senses on the
beginning of the church, which is the body of Christ, the extension
of him who is the head over all things to the church. What Christ
did was establish a pattern of fellowship that he is telling
the church not to break. And so I'll say this as we move
forward. If you are going to ever be an effective Christian,
I mean a real effective Christian on a micro effective level, on
a very personal level, you will take fellowship seriously. You
will take fellowship as serious as your own personal fellowship
with Christ because you grow in the context of fellowship.
It is very easy for us to isolate ourselves. but to the degree
that you isolate yourself, you do not grow. You do not grow. And if you isolate yourself as
a proxies, it implies that your biblical view is flawed. You have not understood that
it was Christ's objective for you to grow in the context of
fellowship. It's what church is about when
church is done right. The danger of what we would call
a 21st century large church model is that often it fails to take
into consideration the extremely beneficial utilitarian nature
of fellowship. See, in the context of fellowship,
you actually have to be more honest with yourself, more honest
with people, more honest with God, real. You got that? When you're sitting around the
table eating bread and talking about life, now you have to negotiate
with people who are looking you eye to eye and in some cases
smelling your breath. And you have to learn to be real,
real. Anybody from a distance can put
on a show. But what Christ has done in leaving
the model of fellowshipping with his disciples and the word there,
they assembled together is really a compound word, which means
they frequently broke salt. The word salt is a Middle Eastern
term for eating together. They frequently broke salt together. They came together to eat. And
we already saw that pattern with Peter in Acts chapter 10, where
Peter is affirming the resume of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
he said, and he ate with us. And we sat with him and we knew
he was the resurrected Christ intimacy. Intimacy is what's
in view in that statement. And then we move on to. What,
uh, what the disciples raised as a question that's going to
gender us into our next consideration when they therefore will come
together. They asked him St. Lord, wilt thou at this time,
restore again, the kingdom of Israel. And what you and I marked
was in point number two, that there were four phases to the
kingdom. The first phase is the patriarchal phase, right? If
we had the PowerPoint up, they could demonstrate that. The first
phase was the patriarchal phase. The second phase was the monarchial
or theocratic phase. That's national Israel, correct?
That's where God had deposited his mystery in the midst of his
people, national Israel at the time. The third phase becomes
the ecclesiastical phase, which is the same as the word for the
what? The church, that's right. And
staying there, that is the phase of the kingdom that you and I
are presently operating right now. As the church, we are the
expression of God's kingdom. We are the expression of God's
kingdom on the earth right now. So now, and I want you to leave
that up there. You will hear people talk about the kingdom
of God as if it is essentially and radically different than
the church. Have, have you, have any of you
ever heard that concept that the kingdom of God and the church
are not synonyms? They're not the same thing, but
don't buy that. Don't buy that. The idea that
the kingdom of God and the church are not the same thing would
be like saying that your body and your spirit are not the same
thing. And what we're saying is that
they are an integrated whole of which the one cannot function
without the other. Did y'all get that? They are
an integrated whole, which says the one can't function without
the other. Now, if you were to take the church out of the world,
with all of the gifts deposited to the church in terms of the
word of God, in terms of the spirit of God, in terms of the
history of the church, the legacy of the church. If you took the
church out of the world, the world would have no manifestation
of the kingdom. Got that? So the notion that
the kingdom is somehow grander and larger and bigger and different
than the church is a fallacy of which I want us to make sure
that we don't fall prey to because it would imply that we can minimize
the church and somehow operate outside of the church or apart
from the church if we could just get a hold to the kingdom. And
with that notion, lots of men and lots of persons have, as
it were, sought to carve out a whole new agenda in the name
of we've got the kingdom over here. And I'll get into that
more when we deal with the fallacy around the ministry of the Holy
Ghost. OK, when we deal with the fallacy
of the ministry of the Holy Ghost, the fallacies of the ministry
of the Holy Ghost. But the fourth kingdom, as you
and I noted, is the glorified state. And the glorified state
really is depicted by that last stage of redemptive work that
Christ promises to accomplish because of what he has earned
for us at Calvary. And that is to receive us to
himself when he returns again, the dead shall be raised, those
that are living shall be caught up together in the air. And we
will be glorified instantaneously at that time so that we will
be compatible to be with our Lord, our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, and to operate with him as a glorified kingdom for all
eternity. The vision is in Revelation chapter
21. You can read it for yourself.
And John says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and there was
no more sea. And I saw the holy Jerusalem
coming down from God, having the glory of God descending to
the earth. And then we have what is called
that grand vision of the Neo Edenic state, where things are
brought back to a state of Edenic perfection, typified by the garden
of Eden and moves on into eternity. That's what you and I are looking
forward to as we wait for our Lord's return. But the apostles
are asking another question here. They're asking the question,
when is the authority going to be returned again to the nation
of Israel so that they can be a theocratic power in the world
again? That's what they're asking. They
were always enamored with the notion that there was an unconditionality
to the covenant by which they were to be the head and all the
other nations were to be the tail. And I would say to you,
in my own eschatological convictions, which I don't want to enter into
now, the covenant under which Israel was with God did not have
as its primary objective Israel being a theocratic monarchy over
the world. Let me help you understand what
I mean by that. That that they became a monarchy was a secondary
and relational objective on God's choice addressing what was on
the part of Israel, an act of rebellion. Israel rebelled against
God when God brought them out of Egypt, gave them his law,
told them he was their king, said that he would lead them
into the promised land, that he would subdue their foes and
make them a great nation, and they would be a kingdom of priests. Pause. Salah. Think about it. Their job was not to exercise
a sword, an iron rod, to have dominion in a legislative, judicial,
civil fashion over all the earth. That was the era of Israel. Their
job was to be a priesthood. a kingdom of priests by which
as a nation, they would model to the world that the whole world
was outside of God and they needed to come to God and that in order
to come to the true and the living God, they would have to have
the revelation that existed with national Israel only. You guys
follow what I'm saying? What Israel failed to understand
is that God had already seen the error in their heart when
they sought to be like all the other nations of the world, we
want a king like everybody else. And God had already warned Moses
in Deuteronomy 17, Moses, they are going to beg for a king.
They are going to clamor for a man to rule over them because
they're going to be taken in by what they see. The problem
with national Israel is very much the same problem with the
church today. And the problem with the church today, as it
was for Israel, is that we walk by sight and not by faith. And
as a consequence, when we walk by sight and not by faith, we
lose a vision. We lose a vision of the reality
of the Theomonarch of the universe. And that is God himself. When
you walk by sight, you can't see God. When you walk by sight, you can't
see God. And when you walk by sight, you can't see the providence
of God. And as a consequence, over time,
Israel demonstrated the kind of nearsightedness that clamored
for man to lead them out and lead them in and win their battles
and fight their battles. And God said to Samuel, listen,
they haven't rejected you. They've rejected me. Give them
what they want. I'll still accomplish my purposes
through them. That was a prophetic accommodating
response on God's part. We've learned this in what we
call biblical theology. Whenever man sins in terms of God's covenant
people, God responds, he doesn't react, does he? If God reacted,
it would mean that God didn't know it before it happened, and
that's not true with God, right? So because God only responds,
he's going to respond in accordance with their sin and in accordance
with his own eternal purpose. So what he did was allow them
to develop a theocracy and a monarchy. And God says, I'll set my king
on my holy hill of Zion. Right. And so throughout the
whole history of Israel's monarchy, we had 20 kings from the two
southern tribes, Judah and Benjamin, 20 kings from the 10 northern
tribes, Israel. And out of those 40 kings, there
were 40 kings, out of those 40 kings, only about six to eight
of them were actually obedient servants of God. But it was just
enough for God to continue doing what God had always intended
to do from Genesis chapter one, all the way to the time when
that woman was conceived of the Holy Ghost, he protected his
seed. Didn't he protect his seed? And hence, when we go through
the book of Kings and the book of Chronicles, we see these great
battles, don't we? These conflicts going on with
enemies trying to kill the king's seed, the seed royal. Because
the goal of the devil was to always stop the seed that was
coming through the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But God would
always hide the seed and protect the seed and watch over the seed
and raise up the seed. Isn't that right? And thus advance
the seed. Advance the seed. So as the proverb
says, man prepares his plans, but God directs his steps. And
God thwarts the purposes of men in order to accomplish his own
objectives. And so when Mary was conceived of the Holy Ghost,
it was an expression that God was sovereign over the failure
of national Israel. But they being blind still held
to the ethnocentric ideology that the Old Testament was about
them. Are y'all with me so far? And
what they failed to understand, which is an error that I believe
is critical to a proper understanding of eschatology, which today is
blinding the church, in my own opinion, they failed to understand
that every father-son type in the Old Testament was pointing
to one son by one father, and that is God and his son, Jesus
Christ. So that Jesus Christ is the quintessential
Israel of God. Jesus Christ is the true Jew. Jesus Christ is the son of Abraham. And when Christ came, the job
of Israel was ultimately accomplished in terms of what God had purposed
for them. So the kingdom of God would transfer from that political
theocratic nation to the church. which church would be made up
of are constituted of two people groups, Jews and Gentiles, which
means for those people who love to clamor about Jews, listen,
the Jews are free to come into the kingdom just like Gentile. Come on, the doors are wide open,
but you don't get to boast as if you are better than any other
nation because God has concluded them all in unbelief that he
might have mercy upon all. and that the way to salvation
is not ethnic Judaism, but the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Y'all follow me so far? You're going to learn in the
coming years how absolutely true what I am saying is. That's why
I kind of keep repeating it without worrying about people being offended
by me just demolishing an ethnocentric hermeneutic or eschatology. because
I already see the unfolding and the coming together of the kind
of darkness and paganism that's draping our nation in the name
of nationalism, of which ethnic Israel is a part of that as well.
And so we are returning to a very dark period where the world is
thinking that safety will be found in a political power, a
political alliance rather than in the true and the living God.
And I put the fault of that at the door of the church. Okay,
I put the fault of the world actually believing that it can
overcome the convulsions of its own rebellion by its political
agenda at the door of the church because the church has not actually
embraced all the fullness of its inheritance by which it could
prevail in all of the disciplines that are in our world system
to show the folly trusting in man rather than trusting in God
but what we've been doing is playing church and having a party
and enjoying life and living pretty much like a secular system
and as a consequence we've lost a lot of ground as the church
so even for the secular world the church is nothing but a sideshow
a relic of Antiquated and if anything y'all can come in and
entertain us with your music for 10 minutes While we do what
we do, but we really do not have any real serious interest in
your Propositions in your thesis in your hypotheses in your worldview
because you have proven to us for many many thousands of years
now that you'll sell your worldview out for a few dollars just like
Judas Iscariot did and in order for a temporary exaltation, in
order for a temporary fulfillment of the flesh, just like many
false prophets and many false teachers did. And so there's
no reason on a legacy level for the secular world to listen to
the church. Are y'all hearing me? Which brings
me right back to where we are because where we are in the book
of Acts is kind of a crucial contextual origin that will allow
us to think through for ourselves what it would be like if America
was brand new virgin territory and never have ever heard the
gospel. And thus a nucleus of the church
would have the opportunity to spread the gospel freshly and
newly through America. Are y'all following me? That's
not the condition, but I'm just saying if it were, we would see
how if you did the gospel right, lived a comprehensive gospel
life, you would see how the gospel could permeate America and transform
it into a nation that actually truly was under God. And so I'll
bring you to the next concept that we are dealing with in our
outline, and that is heaven takes and receives her king. This is
an interesting, interesting proposition here, and I think you'll be able
to see it unfold fairly clearly in your text. Listen to what
is said after Jesus gives instructions in verse seven and eight. These
words, it's not for you to know the times of the seasons which
the father hath put in his own power. If you were able to get
behind the original language here, what you would know is
that what Christ basically said was, it's impossible. for human beings to ever acquire
a knowledge as to when and how the father will manifest that
fourth kingdom estate. The language is in a very emphatic
verb form, which says it's in the father's power alone. It's
retained within the person of the father who is the first person
of the triune God. It's within his power alone.
And Christ is saying, I don't even have the prerogative to
tell you. The father has possessed within himself the right and
the authority to designate the time when the fourth kingdom
manifestation will take place And so I don't even have the
right to tell you and the reason he's saying that is so that the
disciples Will stop jumping ahead of the game Because see they're
getting ahead of themselves like young people have a tendency
with when you go restore the kingdom back up and The reality
is, if we were to take that question, that interrogative, when will
you restore the kingdom? If he wanted to, but he couldn't,
because he getting ready to take off, he would have said the kingdom
is already in restoration process. If he wanted to, he could have
began to teach them when John the Baptist came on the scene,
of whom Isaiah the prophet has spoken of 700 years earlier,
He was my forerunner, letting you know I am coming, Isaiah
44. And John the Baptist was declared
by the prophet Malachi 500 years before Jesus came. that he would
be the beginning of the restoration of the nation of Israel. The
last few verses of the book of Malachi and Luke's gospel plainly
said, he will be the beginning, the sign, the omen, the initiatory
work of bringing back Israel to a state of understanding his
calling before God, which thing did occur. John's ministry was
powerful. Many came to hear it. They were
ready for the Messiah. When the Messiah came, they received
him. And thus the kingdom is already in the process of restoration,
truly speaking. And in fact, this is what Jesus
said, I believe is in the gospel of Luke. The disciple said, Lord,
when is Elijah coming? He says, if you can receive it,
Elijah has already come. And he was talking about John
the Baptist. You guys got that? So what you and I must understand
is, is that the failure on the part of Israel is that they were
taking certain prophecies that had inherent within them spiritual
realities, and they were taking them literally. That was the
error that they made. And that's how they missed Jesus.
And so without explaining that to them, Jesus simply tells the
disciples that is in the father's hand, but now watch this. He
is speaking in the imperative in verse eight, you, he says,
but you shall receive power after that. The Holy ghost has come
upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and
in Judea and in Samaria and unto the other most parts of the earth.
You guys see verse eight, what he was essentially saying to
the disciples was you will be that second work of restoration.
that will take place in the world by virtue of the third person
coming into your life. He was getting them ready for
what they didn't seem like they were ready for a relationship
with him through the spirit. He was getting them ready for
what they appeared not to be ready for. And because obviously
most of the Jews could not fully comprehend the idea of the spirit
of God, the third person, they weren't even really rooted and
grounded in a Trinitarian formula of understanding God. Some of
them understood it. Most of them didn't, okay? Most
Christians today don't understand the Trinity. I'm just telling
you right now. But certainly the Jews didn't. So the idea
of the spirit coming, the spirit coming was something of a mystery
for them and it evaded them. But Christ knew what would take
place. And he told them, all I want you to do is wait. All
I want you to do is wait. Now, notice what it says in verse
nine. We're gonna be looking at some verses here. And when
he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up
and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they
looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men
stood by them in white, which also said, you men of Galilee,
why stands you gazing up into heaven this same Jesus? which
is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner
as you have seen him go into heaven. Do you see that? The
angels give them a very clear perspective on what their charge
was. Don't worry about this. Do what
he told you to do. I just want you to stay right
here and just understand what made the essential benefit of
Christ going up into heaven. at that present time. I have
in our outline, heaven takes, heaven receives her king. You
guys see that? Heaven takes, heaven receives
her king. The Lord Jesus Christ was taken
and he was received. That's the language that's spoken
of in verse nine. He was taken up. Do you see that?
He was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight. And I
want you to understand that what happened at this moment is something
that took place on the part of heaven upon the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was a passive recipient of a point in time in which a radical
change took place. Our Lord Jesus Christ was taken
up into heaven. Our verb there literally implies
that Christ was a passive participant in a dynamic work that started
from heaven and took him up out of this physical earth dimension
in which you and I are in, back to heaven. He was talking to
his disciples, fully aware that he had accomplished all that
he had come to do. And in that moment that he's
talking to them, Heaven takes him takes him the verb. There's a very strong verb, which
literally means that it took him away It took Christ away
and the word heaven there becomes for us what is called a synecdotal
term for God the Father God the Father Once Christ's work was
done at the appointed time, 10 days before Pentecost, takes
Christ out of the earth into heaven. Y'all got that? He is
the passive recipient of divine authority, which says, now it's
time for you to take another position. And I want you to look
at what we have in our outline concerning the implications of
him being taken. First, our Lord Jesus Christ
being the passive participant in a powerful apprehension of
God to be taken from the earth back to heaven was taken because
he finished his father's work. You got that? He finished his
father's work. He was taken back because his
work as the mediator was done. When Christ had laid his head
down on Calvary and said, it is finished in John chapter 19,
verse 30, remember that? One of the last things of Christ
when he had laid down his head and said it is finished His work
and making atonement for sin was accomplished the work of
the Lamb of God was done No more sacrifice for sin would be needed
and you know all the time through the gospel as the Lord Jesus
is doing ministry He's talking to his disciples. He's Going
here and he's going there. He was an itinerant preacher,
right? Frequently, what would he say to his disciples? I I
must be about my what? Father's business. I must work
the works of him that sent me while it is day and to finish
his work. This was the repeated theme in
Christ's mouth. And it was the thing that drove
him every day of his life. Listen to me, ladies and gentlemen,
Christ was on a mission. He was on a mission the moment
he left heaven and entered into the womb of his mother, Mary.
He was on a mission when he came out of the womb and was sent
to Egypt because they were trying to kill him. He was on a mission
as he grew in wisdom and in stature, having favored both with God
and men, and they found him in the temple. He plainly turns
to his mother and his stepfather and says, do you not know that
I must be about my father's business? His father's business is what
compelled him to do what he did every day of his life. And he
grew in greater awareness of it and greater passion for it
and greater intensity of it until he breathed his last breath.
So he was taken not arbitrarily. He was taken not out of a whimsical
fashion on the part of God. He was taken because his work
was done. He was taken also because he
had earned the title deed to the universe. As Revelation chapter
5, several verses there in Revelation chapter 5. And I think I'll have
you to go there, look at some verses. Then we're going to look
at Matthew 28 verse 19 and see the significance. In Revelation
chapter 5 verse 1, notice what it says in Revelation chapter
5 verse 1. This is a vision of the Lord
Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God. And that's the primary mode in
which he came the first time. John says, and I saw in the right
hand of him that sat on the throne, a book written within and on
the backside sealed with seven. What we call that the title deed
to the universe is an imagery of a monarch who has in his hand,
the constitution that governs the universe. The monarch on
the throne is God, the father. You guys got that. That sealed
book, seven seals, is the title deed. In theology, we also call
that God's predestinating purpose. God's predestinating purpose,
His eternal counsel. God has a council from before
the foundation of the world, which runs through time and into
eternity. That council is wrapped up in
the person of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and it's
sealed. That means that no one has the ability to unfold human
history but God himself. The unfolding of human history
would be the product of a mediator who had the ability by virtue
of accomplishing an atonement by which God's wrath is satisfied
and the blessings of the covenant. That seven sealed scroll in his
hand can also be understood as the covenant of God, particularly
the new covenant. And the new covenant would be
Christ's rule over the universe for the next umpteen thousand
years until he comes again. He would unfold the seals. The
unfolding of the seals in the book of Revelation is a privileged
revelation or opening or disclosure for the church. The church has
the privilege of watching Christ, the covenant open, the covenant
by which we would see history unfold. Seal number one. seal
number two, seal number three, seal number four, seal number
five, seal number six, seal number seven. And in the book of Revelation,
we have sevens as a symbol for perfection. So you have seven
seals, you have seven trumpets, and you have seven vials. seven
seals, seven trumpets, and seven vials. They are all overlapping
concepts that have to do with the progression of human history
under the rule of Jesus Christ at the right hand of God as he
is bringing about his redemptive purpose in the world. And it
will culminate with him having dominion over all things forever
and ever and ever. to the glory of God the Father
and to the great joy of the church of the living God. What you see
in Revelation chapter 5 is the means by which this covenant
of redemption, this title deed to the universe, this set of
eternal decrees was accomplished. It was accomplished by a lamb. Look with me at verse 6. I'm
believing it's verse 6. Look at verse 6. And I beheld,
and lo, in the midst of the throne, and of the four beasts, and in
the midst of the elders stood a what? as it had been what? So we are talking about a lamb
who has already accomplished a work of redemption or atonement,
right? Because he has been slain. We're
not talking about the lamb before Calvary. We're talking about
the lamb after Calvary. So Calvary becomes an essential
component to the obtaining of the title deed to the universe,
of the covenant decrees, of the covenant of grace, or the new
covenant, which we are under the adumbration of, have been
ever since Jesus rose again from the dead. But it was obtained
by Jesus Christ. He possessed the crown rights
to the universe by his death Y'all got that so a couple more
verses in this chapter that will explain that in Revelation chapter
5 verse 7 And he came and he took the book out of the right
hand of him that sat upon the throne when he had taken the
book The four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down
before the lamb, having every one of them harps, golden vows,
full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints. And they
sung a new song. Now listen to what they said.
You are worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof
because you were slain. Do you see that? We're talking
Calvary, Calvary being then the means by which Jesus Christ purchased
through his death the title deed to the universe and the right
to redeem sinners. I want you to see the character
in which this redemption takes place. You were slain and you
have what? Redeemed us. You have redeemed
us to God, watch this, by your blood. There's the agency. Christ
is the means, the blood is the agency. The goal or object was
to bring us back to God, right? Christ is the means, that is
the lamb. His blood was the agency by which we were redeemed. The
objective was to bring us back to God. Now watch this, out of
every kindred. See it? Out of every kindred. You and I will be dealing with
the glorious, glorious, essential doctrine of election in about
three weeks. A doctrine which the church hates
and the world hates. It's kind of like hating yourself.
How on earth are you going to hate yourself when you despise
the doctrine of election? Do you hear what I'm saying?
But what the writer is saying is the redemptive purposes of
God is not the redemption of every human being on planet earth,
but the redemption of some out of every nation. Out of. Y'all got that? Out of. Heaven
tells us that the redemption of sinners is not an accident. Heaven also tells us that the
redemption of sinners is not God taking a shot knowing he's
going to get some but might lose others. Heaven tells us that
the redemption of sinners is a purpose of divine grace where
men and women are targeted to be redeemed out of every nation,
kindred, tribe, and tongue. And if you ever have experienced
the redemption of your soul in the salvation of Jesus Christ,
you would be singing too, just like these folks in heaven are
singing. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God whose blood takes away
the sin of the world And I thank God that he snatched me out of
hell and brought me into his kingdom. That's how they're shouting
in heaven See revelation chapter 5 is the
quintessential Expression of worship on the part of heaven
and all the saints because of him who loved us and gave himself
for me. I mean, if you were to go through the text and do an
exegesis on Revelation 5, you see that they got down. I mean, you talking about worship? The 420 elders, the four living
creatures, they got their bass guitar, their electric organs,
they got their drums, and they went to work. It was combined
with vital prayer and they were worshiping Christ and worshiping
God and exalting God and exalting him for his grace and preaching
and proclaiming the gospel. Now watch this. Here is also
what we call the carryover from the old to the new. And you have
made us unto our God, what kings and priests, and we shall reign
on the earth. What Israel had the privilege
of being according to Exodus 19, Under that first paradigm
of old covenant activity, the church now takes up today. This
is why I say that the church is a neo-Israel paradigm. We actually are a fulfillment
of that. What the children of Israel had
in them being delivered out of Egypt, you and I have by being
delivered out of sin. They had the privilege of being
a kingdom of priests. Today, the church is called to
be a kingdom of priests. And I am sad to say that we are
suffering the same ravages that national Israel has in missing
our identity, not understanding our calling, not actually operating
out of our calling and inheritance. For some reason we think that
our objective is to get involved in politics and try to change
the world from a political perspective when God has called us to be
a kingdom of priests. You know what that means? That
means our job is to be on our knees calling upon heaven to
move earth. But because we don't understand
our calling, we're not operating there. We've been seduced, and
we have been tempted, and we've been drawn away from our calling.
And as such, we are totally ineffective. I'd love to talk about at length
how that happened. But here we are today, a church
that has missed its mission, particularly in that regard.
So how come evangelism is ineffective today? How come outreach is ineffective
today? How come secularism is pervasive
everywhere? How come a secular, naturalistic,
humanistic, man-centered worldview is permeating everything? Because
the church has failed to get a hold of heaven to do what only
heaven can do. Do you know what that is? That
is, obliterate the darkness in the minds of men and women that
keep them chained under false assumptions that they are something
that they are not. Only heaven can obliterate the
darkness of the mind. Only heaven can illuminate the
understanding. Only heaven can bring a man or
a woman, a city or a state, or a nation to its knees to call
on God and say, what must we do to be saved? Only heaven can
do that. But the church doesn't even know
how to get a hold of heaven. The church doesn't even know
how to get a hold of heaven. You understand what I'm saying?
We have a huge problem going on in the church today and it's
the loss of identity. So we're playing games in the church while
the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we are becoming
by and large irrelevant. When we talk about theses, antithesis,
synthesis, we're talking about a dialectical process God's objective
is for us to be a thesis that gets poured into another system
by which when it's poured into the other system, we actually
change that other system. We are supposed to be an agency
of transformation. It enters into that other system
as an antithesis. It expects conflict. It expects
warfare. It expects hostility. It expects
them to be opposite to us. And we in that opposition are
to use all of the resources of heaven in order to penetrate
the heart and bring men and women to a need of God. But the church doesn't know how
to do that today. So we're playing church. And we're eating and
getting fat, getting old and dying. And unless God saves the
church, nothing else can be saved. I'm just telling you the truth
right now. So in our text, we see the reason for which Jesus
returns to heaven, and that is to take his seat at his father's
throne. Let me hastily work through that.
Go with me back to Acts. I want to see if I can make this
good. The reason for which he was taken up, received into heaven,
Received is the other word. So one side of a John Luke uses
the term taken the idea of taken demonstrates the active intentional
forceful application of heaven upon Christ. The other word is
received received. You'll see that back in the text.
We have revelation. We're at Acts chapter one, verse nine.
And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he
was taken up and a cloud, what? Received him out of their sight. Taken and received. These are
the two sides of the word. It was because he finished his
work. It was because he earned the title deed to the universe.
You guys believe that? Matthew 28, verse 19. Remember what our master said
to the disciples? All power and authority has been
given unto me. Verse 18, all power and authority
has been given unto me in heaven and in earth. You notice what
he says, all power, that is all authority is given unto me. Stay right there for a moment.
That was no small statement. When he rose from the dead, he
was consciously aware that he was in due with all of the full
investiture of the divine nature. What the Bible says is all of
the fullness of the Godhead was in Him. It pleased God that in
Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And what
that meant was at His availability was all the power of the Father,
all the power of the Holy Spirit, all the power of all the angels,
all authority everywhere. Christ possessed by his resurrection
what we call absolute authority. Are y'all with me? Absolute authority. You know what absolute authority
means? It means there is no other authority but that authority
which lies within the scope of the one who possesses it. Christ
possesses absolute authority. His father gave him that as a
consequence of his perfect obedience. both actively and passively in
his perfect righteousness, in his perfect suffering, in his
perfectly laying down his life and then rising again. He was
given authority over absolutely everything. Now, this is very
important for you and I to embrace because we really don't function with a recognition that our Savior
with whom we have the greatest intimacy is absolutely the monarch
of the universe. Come on now, I'm telling you.
We actually function like Jesus is kind of a demagogue, a little
God right along with all the other gods. I know this hurts,
it's true though. I want you to think about it
for a moment. I'm going to build this up short up and I'll be
done with it. If you really knew and believed that your Lord Jesus
ruled everything. And then he said to you, ask
me anything that you will. And I'll do it for you. Wouldn't
that radically change your perspective on access to heaven's power?
But see, we don't think right. Our head's all messed up. We
don't think right. We're princes walking like servants.
And so we missed the point, don't we? But but all authority was
given to him in heaven where and in what? Okay, so now watch
this. There is a fallacy in theology
today again in the church and it's fundamentally implied in
what we call the prima premillennial dispensational Construct of eschatology
won't get into it much but here's the implication. Yeah, Jesus
is kind of Lord But he really is not exercising his prerogatives
of lordship over everything yet. After all, nobody's really obeying
him. This is the mindset that has
been going on for a very long time in Christendom. Now, the
reason that that conclusion is drawn are many, but here is one
of which I would say is the major fallacy in that system. If you
believe that Christ's kingdom to come in the future and therefore
is not substantially operating now, you are susceptible to miss
his presence now like the Jews missed his presence the first
time. Are you hearing me? You are susceptible
to miss his providence now, as the Jews missed his providence
the first time. He came unto his own, and his
own received him not. He was in the world, the world
was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came, he worked,
he witnessed, he died, he rose, he left. And the very people
to whom he came, they missed him. Is it possible that we are
missing him again today? very much so based upon many
of the same diabolical presuppositions that blinded Israel to the Savior
when he came the first time. See, listen, I'm asking you,
is it possible that a set of assumptions can blind you to
the reality of the present authority and power of the king available
to us in such a way that we lose out on those benefits now. And
the answer is yes, faith is always a consequence of right doctrine
taught. Faith is always a consequence
of right doctrine, taught right doctrine, believe right doctrine
embraced. Where I am believing something that is flawed, I cannot
exercise true faith. Error does not produce true faith. Falsehood does not produce true
faith. And so it's very possible. See,
the Apostle Paul becomes a sterling example of this. He absolutely
was convinced that Jesus was not the Messiah. he persecuted
the church, he caused them the blaspheme, he hunted them down,
and he waxed more zealous in his ignorant, bigoted presuppositions
every day until he actually met the Lord of glory himself. And
when he met the Lord of glory, he had a complete paradigm shift. Am I making some sense? And I
assert to you, ladies and gentlemen, that unless we have something
of the same kind of dynamic in this country of a revelation
of the Lord of glory, I mean a powerful revelation of the
Lord of glory on a level that would affect our nation. We won't
have any significant turnaround because we are still under the
delusion that we can work it out through a political process.
Are you hearing me? This is the problem that we're
dealing with. I wish I could take the time to expand more
fully on the intricacies of this matrix of a political system
that has stripped the church of its calling and its power.
We have been distracted so much. I mean, so much. We're distracted.
We're missing the point. We're missing the point. Just
totally missing the point. It's unfortunate, but it really
is true. Even in the church, I'm listening
to what I would call premier theologians. I listen to premier,
premier theologians. And I'm listening to what they're
talking about. And I'm trying to understand where their passions
are. I'm trying to understand what
their objectives and goals are as a collective. And what I am
seeing is that they are actually missing the real battle. What's
going on in the world and why it's going on. They see symptoms,
they understand their problems in the church, but they're still
operating two out of the same paradigm. Faulty assumption now
watch this now the church. I'm talking about I'm talking
about premier scholars I'm talking about elite scholars the ones
that everybody knows and they gather together These premier
scholars are operating out of the assumption watch this now
that we are all right as the church and That we don't really
need to do any real serious re-examination of not of not only our doctrine
but our practice and that we don't, we don't need to really
reinvestigate that maybe we are so far off the course that the
first thing that we need to do for maybe the next five years
is have a collective prayer service all over the world by the church
of the living God and wait on God to reveal to us where we
messed up. But that resolve that I'm sharing
with you now, which is going to be the basis upon which Jesus
Christ initiates a powerful church. It's too humbling to consider
for all of the degrees and all the accomplishments and all of
the ministries that are taking place all over the world. We
dare not say that we're so far off the mark that we've got to
shut everything down and spend time in a moratorium of prayer. for three to five years to listen,
to see if God would show up and give us a fresh revelation from
his word as to a new projectory that might grant revival and
repentance in our world for the next two or three or four or
five generations. It would take the, it would take a divine crisis
that would penetrate our lives for us to come to that conclusion
at the upper echelons of church. See, cause we actually think
we're doing okay. But you guys are going to learn
that as we go through the book of Acts, the, the growing pains between
the old and the new. So let me see if there are a
couple more things here that I want to call our attention to. He
earned his title deed to the universe and he was ready to
return to his father. Bless the Lord Jesus. Do you
know in John chapter 17, he said, daddy, I'm ready to come home
as he did. Turn with me to John 17. I just
want you to see this. I'm just going to read the three
verses. So he was ready to go. It wasn't like he wasn't ready
to go. Certainly he was ready to go. And then we'll look at
the last one too. And then we'll, uh, we'll establish
a conclusion here as to how important this is. And then we'll take
up our subject next week. And John 17, here's what our
master says. These words speak Jesus and lifted
up his eyes to heaven and said, father, the hour is come. Do you see that glorify thy son
that he was talking about his cross word. That your son also
may glorify you you see the son loved the father so much That
he looked forward to his sufferings on calvary In order that his
father might be glorified. There's a lot in that ladies
and gentlemen As you have given him power over all flesh That
he should give eternal life to as many as you have what? And
this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true
God in Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee
on the earth. I have finished the work which
you gave me to do. Here it is. And now, O Father,
glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I
had with thee before the world was. You know what he's saying?
I want to return back to my position with you, wherein I was daily
your delight. And we had face-to-face fellowship. And I was able to bask in my
regal rights as God the son with God the father. See, he had veiled
his glory. He had emptied himself, took
on the kenosis of a humble humanity. He had set aside all of his prerogatives
of deity in terms of functioning and operating out of them. He
had lived in this world. He had suffered all of the ignominy
and the pain and the rejection and the hatred, the hatred of
his own creatures. And he had even suffered the
experience of the father's wrath on him. All this, God the son
endured and his soul was saying, I'm ready to go back home. I'm
ready to go back home. You guys got that? I'm ready
to go back home. But he's not only ready to go back home because
he's done with all this work. It's critical for us to understand
he's ready to go back home because also, if he doesn't go back home,
the next part of the work doesn't get done. Now let me just back
up to chapter 16 and read verse seven so you can see it. And
this the Lord Jesus Christ knew as well. I'll start at verse
four, but these things I have told you that when the time shall
come, you shall remember that I told you of them. And these
things I said, not unto you at the beginning, because I was
with you. Here it is. I went, I didn't say these things
at the beginning, although he knew them at the beginning, but
now I go my way to him. That what of whom is he speaking
the father? And none of you are asking me,
where are you going? But because I have said these
things unto you, sorrow hath filled your hearts. Verse seven. I just want you to hear this,
ladies and gentlemen. Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth. It
is expedient for you that I go away. Now, now follow the logic. I've got to depart from you because
it's necessary for your part of the work to be done. So Christ's
departure also is because it will advance the next stage of
ministry on the part of God with respect to the spread of what
Christ requested, and that was this. Father, glorify thou me. Even as I have glorified you,
you glorify me. So the son came to glorify the
father. Now the son is leaving and the
Holy Ghost will come to glorify the son, and he will do that
through the church. In other words, Christ has to
go, ladies and gentlemen, because if he doesn't go, the third apostle
doesn't come. You guys got that? For if I go
not away, the comforter will not come to you. But if I depart,
here it is, now watch this, I will send him unto you. So you get a vision now of Christ
actively initiating the sending of the Holy Spirit. He says it
himself, I will send them unto you. And so the disciples are
given a personal word by Christ to them, that what you are going
to experience in short order is the advancement of my father's
purpose in your life, of which if I don't go, that won't happen.
And I want that to happen, so I have to go. Y'all got that?
I want that to happen, so I have to go. And so the last thing
that I wanna say with regards to that is that in Christ's departure
and going into heaven, He had to go to heaven because heaven
had to receive its king. He had to go to heaven because
heaven had to receive its king. Go back to Acts chapter one,
we'll close it out here. There are three verses that I'm gonna
show you in that statement. He had to go back to heaven because
heaven now has to receive its king. There's a king in heaven. Y'all believe that? I mean, I
said there's a king in heaven. This is clearly what the text
is teaching. Heaven takes Christ heaven receives him as a cloud
Took him or received him up out of their sight We read over in
Acts chapter 1 verse 9 and when he has spoken these things while
they beheld he was taken up and a cloud Received him out of their
sight heaven receives its King Heaven receives his King and
this is the way the Apostle Peter puts it in Acts chapter 2 Listen
to Acts chapter two, as Peter develops this as well. He's speaking to the Jewish rulers
about this in Acts chapter two, verses 34 through 36. Listen
to this. He says, for David has not ascended
into heaven, but he said to himself, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit
down on my right hand. until I make thy foes thy footstool."
What is Peter doing by inspiration of the Spirit? He's quoting Psalm
110, right? David has a vision of the Lord
Jesus Christ talking to God the Father and God the Father positioning
Christ or seating Christ at his own right hand. This is what
Peter is explaining. Therefore, verse 36, therefore let all the
house of Israel know assuredly, now watch this, that God have
made that same Jesus whom you crucified, both what Lord and
Christ. Now this, this is what Peter
and John and James are going to be saying all the way through
the epistles, all the way through the book of Acts. And that's
this Jesus Christ is Lord. You got that? Jesus Christ is
Lord. This is going to be critical.
Heaven has received him. We saw heaven take him up. He
already told us that he's going back to be with the Father. Peter
affirms it out of Psalm 110, one of the Psalms that the New
Testament uses repetitively, Psalms 110. And the statement
that is repeated is, he has been received into heaven as the king
of the universe. He is Lord. He is Lord. And what that means, ladies and
gentlemen, is this. You and I do not make Jesus Lord. This is a huge fallacy again
in the evangelical church. You and I can't make Christ Lord. First, only God can make him
Lord. Secondly, God has already made
him Lord. Got that? So it would be much
more theologically accurate for professing christians who are
ambassadors of christ To go to men and women and not ask them.
Will you make jesus your lord? He is your lord Did y'all hear
that christ is your lord Now stay with me for a moment. I
just want you to get this This is where I am so weary with the
fallacy of logic and expression and articulation on the part
of the evangelical church today, because the text is so critically
clear. God have made him both Lord and
Christ. Peter didn't say, will you therefore
accept him as your Lord and Savior? Did he? Huge problem. Huge problem. This is part of the humanism
and man-centered ideology that is crept into the church that
puts the power back in the hands of the man We need help Because
this here is what I would call almost borderline blasphemy on
the revelation of what Christ has accomplished and the ascension
of this glorious second person into heaven by God. We're going
to unpack this more fully next week. But the testimony is that
God has made him Lord in Christ. So what the church should be
saying to the world is Christ is Lord. Bow and believe or perish
under the wrath of God. But we won't say it because we
don't believe it. I'm just telling you, the evangelical
church is blinded. But Peter, Peter under inspiration
of the Holy Ghost, he actually told some of the most cantankerous,
murderous, terroristic people that he knew, his own Jewish
brethren. He told them, God has made him Lord and Christ. And
do you know that the Spirit of God worked through that declaration
of Christ's sovereignty to make those Jews request in the next
verse, what must we do then to be saved? I believe that part
of the problem in our present day Christianity is a flawed
approach to ministry because we have a very deficient understanding
or maybe it's rooted in unbelief of what God has actually done
in Christ. But I don't believe that you represent a team by
going to the King's subjects and asking the King's subjects,
will the King's subjects pretty please make Jesus your Lord? This is kind of problematic,
don't you think? You know what it implies? It implies that we
who are as ambassadors have no power, have no authority. We
actually have no invested power by which, when we proclaim His
Lordship, that men and women would respond. We actually don't
believe that the Spirit of God will work through our proclamation
of the plain truth of God's sovereignty in order for people to break
in their hearts and realize the crisis at hand now. Is He Lord? What must I do? And that's because
we don't believe God. The other thing is, three times,
I just want you to mark this. Heaven received Him, we saw that
in Acts chapter nine, right? Acts chapter one verse nine.
Secondly, the disciples plainly said that heaven has received
him, but this is also a confession that the church makes. Look with
me in first Timothy chapter three 16. This is the last place. First
Timothy three 16. This is what became the confession
of the church. Um, 50, 60, 70 years after, uh,
after the church started in first Timothy Um, uh, second Timothy, I'm sorry.
Second Timothy three 16. You've heard this before, but
listen to it again. No, this isn't it. First Timothy.
I'm sorry. Go back. First Timothy. Yep. This is, I was in chapter
four. Listen to the language here. Now watch, this is what
we, what we would call a credo statement. This is part of a
hymn, but it's a credo statement. Paul says to Timothy, but if
I, Terry long, that you may know how you ought to behave yourself
in the house of God, which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the what? Which nobody believes in
today. Our culture does not believe
in absolute truth, but the church should. Verse 16, and without
controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. Now watch this. Now watch this confession of
the church. This is the confession of the church. We've already
seen the revelation that it happened. Peter said it in chapter three.
The heavens must receive him until the time of restitution
of all things. Listen to verse 16. God was manifest in the flesh. Is that right? Who are we talking
about here? The Lord Jesus. He was justified
in the what? He was seen of the angels. He
was preached unto the Gentiles. He was believed on in the world.
What? Received up into glory. That's the confession of the
church. It has been for 2,000 years.
Here we have the whole of the gospel right here. The whole
gospel is right here. We could take every one of these
lines and explain the person in work, the triumph of the cross,
the ascension of Christ, the proclamation of the gospel into
all the world. He has been received up into
glory. And what we are saying is heaven has its king. Heaven has his king. And child
of God, if you are a child of God, you have a king. And that
king is the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't sell yourself short on
that. Take all of the benefits of the inheritance that comes
with being a child of the king. And I mean that draw from all
of the benefits of being one who believes in the king. Seek
the implications of the inheritance of having a king on the throne
in heaven who rules over everything for his father's glory and for
your good and call on that king to help you to do everything
that you're called to do. But realize you have a king in
glory, not a little peon, despot, tyrant ruler. You have a king
in glory. Heaven has received our king.
and we should receive our King as well. Let's pray. Father,
we thank you for this time. We do thank you for the truth
that you have affirmed and clearly demonstrated in the life of your
apostles. And as we have bemoaned and talked about the struggles
of our church, we still love the church of the living God
because we are part of it. And so we are part of the weakness
and the frailty and all of the afflictions and all of the setbacks
that go on in this institution that you have purposed from beginning
from the beginning of the world. And we're asking for your grace
in our life, individually, and as a family, and as a church,
and as a nation, and as a world, the church all around the world.
Lord, help us to see what you know to be true concerning who
we are in you. Help us to understand our great
inheritance. Help us to understand our position
in you. Help us to understand our calling.
Help us to understand our purpose. Endow us with every grace