I want to take you to the Mount of Olives. It's right outside Jerusalem, just a Sabbath day journey away, which means a very short distance. And the Mount of Olives is a great place to look out over the temple, over the city of Jerusalem. If you were to look up at the Mount of Olives, it is a massive cemetery, the biggest cemetery I've ever seen, I think, in my life. And you can just see all the different tombs they have there, going back hundreds and 1000s of years. And the first time I ever went to the Mount of Olives was my first time in Israel. I'd never really traveled to other countries. I've been on an airplane for that long. I couldn't understand the language. I wasn't sure about the food. And we're just getting started, and we go to this Mount of Olives, and I remember the pastor, he was saying, it's right here that Jesus went up into heaven. And I'm like, what? That happened right here? He said, it's right here. He said, look up. Look at that cloud. Can you imagine Jesus going up on a cloud until you couldn't see him anymore? He's going to come back the same way. And I want everybody here to say with me, I remember the pastor. He was fired up. I want everybody to say this with me, “Jesus Christ is God,” he said. And I was like, There are Jews around here, there are Muslims around here. Are you allowed to say stuff like that? And he said, I want you to shout it. And so, we all shouted at the top of our lungs. Say it with me, everybody, “Jesus Christ is God.” I will never forget going to the Mount of Olives. And I don't want you to forget it either. Go with me to Acts, chapter 1, and we will go to the Mount of Olives together in Scripture. Ascension Day is what happened forty days after Easter, and so that's why we're all here on a Thursday evening. Thank you so much for joining us.
Who normally has a fellowship group or United or anchored on Thursday night? All right, who you normally meet on another night of the week, but you came out for Ascension Day. Let's give them a round of applause. It's awesome to see you all here. Let me tell you what's about to happen. We're going to study the event of the Ascension from Acts, chapter 1. Ryan Pierce is going to come out here and sing an Ascension Day song that he wrote for this occasion. And then we're going to go out in the courtyard and we've got cream puffs for everybody to celebrate. Jesus went up on a cloud. You're going home with a cream puff later on. That's what I call a good deal. All right, so we are about to have a wonderful evening, but I need you to lock in with me right now on Acts, chapter one, verses 6 to 11. And out of respect for God's Word, I am going to invite everybody to stand up once again. This is what we're here to remember has already happened, the Ascension of the Lord Jesus. Please follow along with me as I read Acts 1, starting in verse 6.
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead, have your seat. I don't know if you got one of these handouts from one of our friendly ushers coming in, but I would love for you to take some notes as we think through Acts chapter 1 together. And this is such a great time for our church to be studying this because starting at the top of your notes, the question about the future that people always want to ask is, “When?” So, I think we've got that jumping up here on the screen. “The question about the future is WHEN.” And that's what the disciples who are about to be the apostles here, the sent ones of Jesus. That's the question that they have on their mind in the study of eschatology, the study of the end things, or the last times. In that kind of a study, people always want to jump straight to this. When is it going to happen? Is it going to happen now? Could it happen at any moment? Is it going to happen after I die? People have a lot of thoughts about the “when.” And you see that here in verse 6, “when they had come together,” and they're all there on the Mount of Olives, shortly outside of Jerusalem. Look down at verse 12. That's where I'm getting this idea that we're at the Mount of Olives, because after this is over, it says in verse 12, “Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away,” which means a short distance, a distance you're allowed to walk without considering that you're working. That's what a Sabbath day journey is. It means it's close.
And so, they're on the Mount of Olives, right outside of Jerusalem, that's where all of this happens. And they're there with Jesus, and they're like, Jesus, now's the time you're going to bring the kingdom. Right? Now's the time you'll restore the kingdom to Israel. When is it going to happen? Now go with me real quick to Mark 13. Jump on over to the Gospel of Mark because we're going to finish Mark 12 this weekend. And then we're going to do a series called “When,” and you're going to see that they already had a previous conversation with Jesus before he died and rose again. Look at Mark 13, verse 3, “As he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple.” So, here we are also on the Mount of Olives. Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” So, before Jesus dies on the cross, before Jesus rises on the third day, they're out on the Mount of Olives, and four of the closest disciples to Jesus ask him, “When you say the temple is going to be destroyed, when is it going to happen?” When? When will the sign take place that these things are going to happen?” That's their question.
And so, we're going to be studying through Mark 13, and we're going to get more teaching from Jesus about “when” than maybe you've ever really studied before. If you're interested in how all the things are going to take place in the end of the world as we know it, you're going to love going through Mark, chapter 13, okay? But that's not what we're here to talk about tonight. Tonight, we're not here to get into all the details in trying to figure out the biblical way to think of eschatology. And I'm so excited about this When” series we're going to do, because I do think that the Bible is clear in what it teaches about how Jesus is going to come back. And I had a dream last night where I told some bros, you're going to learn a biblical eschatology. And they laughed in my face, because so many people think you can even figure out what's going to happen in the end. No, the Bible is not confusing. The Bible is clear. Can I get an amen for a minute on that? He didn't tell us when, but he told us a lot of things that we can study about how the order of events are going to take place. That's what we're going to get into in Mark 13.
But tonight, we're not here to talk about when and answer the question of when. Tonight, we're here to talk about the certainty of who. Let's get that down for our second fill in the blank there, “The certainty about the future is WHO? If we could get Christians today more focused on who is coming than when he's coming, we would see a revival in our time, because the Bible is very clear. Back to Revelation, chapter 1, and you're going to hear people tell you, Revelation is a hard book to understand. It's all symbolism. It's all apocalyptic literature, who can possibly understand? But look at how it is introduced. This is so important in Revelation, chapter 1, verse 1, it gives us the title, and it says the revelation of what everyone? The revelation of when it's going to happen or how the world will be destroyed? No, the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's what it is. It's the revelation, or the unveiling of Jesus. Jesus is being made clear. Jesus is being made known. That's what this book is about. We have brothers and sisters debating, arguing or even acting like who can possibly understand Revelation when the purpose of the book of Revelation is that you would know Jesus as he is today, and like John, you would worship Jesus. That is the point of the book of Revelation. Jesus. You want to know who he is, and you want to know him before you see him, before he comes. And I guarantee you, I promise every single person here in this room, believe me now or believe me later, every single one of you will see Jesus. You will see him alive, and you will realize when you see Jesus, that all the thoughts that you thought about him, even when you tried to think of him to the best of your ability, they were not worthy for who he actually is and how awesome he actually is.
So, we need to make sure that while it's good to study all the things about the “when,” the exclamation point in our study is the “who.” And so, this is the ascension of Jesus. Go back to Acts, chapter 1 now, kind of giving you that preview of what we're going to be studying a lot about in the weeks to come. But we want to make sure tonight we get our focus on Jesus. And notice how he takes the question from when, and then he says what he wants these men to be thinking about, the men of Galilee, his disciples that he's sending out here in Acts as apostles.
So, we want to make three observations, if you can get this down, three observations about the ascension. I just want to draw to your attention three things that we can clearly see in this text, in Acts, chapter 1, their question is, is it time for the Kingdom? Is it time for Israel? When Jesus says, it's not for you to know the times that the Father is fixed by his own authority, Jesus makes it clear the Father has the time figured out. But notice what he redirects their attention to you will receive power. He focuses them in on what they are about to do. And really, he gives the outline here for the entire book of Acts, and then as he explains what they're going to go do, look at verse 9. It says, “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven.” So, first of all, let's just think about verse 9 for a second. Let's observe verse 9. I'm sure we've all seen this in some kind of movie where somebody's going up in the air, or somebody's flying. When I was a kid growing up, the version of Superman that they had back in the day, it's a bird, it's a plane. No, it's Superman. Let me just make it very clear, no man was actually doing any flying at all. Okay? There's a thing called special effects. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Green Screen, right? Nobody's flying. And especially if you go back to Acts 1, they didn't see any DC or Marvel superhero movies before this. Can you imagine you're just talking to someone, or more appropriately, someone is talking to you, telling you profound things. And as they finish talking to you, they begin to ascend into the sky, and they keep going up in the sky, so high that they're way past a safe fall distance at this point, and they just keep going. And you're just in awe, watching them ascend into the air, and they get so high that, well, and look, they kind of get caught up in the cloud. And I keep looking, and I keep looking, and I can't even see him anymore.
We talk a lot about miracles of Jesus. We talk about water into wine. We talk about feeding five thousand. We talk about walking on water. How come we don't talk more about the fact that Jesus just went up, up, and away and he didn't need any balloons, like he just went up into the heavens. What an amazing thing. Let's get that down for the first thing that we observe: “See the PERSON of Jesus on the cloud.” See the person of Jesus on the cloud. This is the first thing we want to notice here. And look at how it's described by these angels who are there in their white robes, as everybody's gazing into heaven. They say in verse 11, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was,” can everybody underline this or circle this? “Taken up from you.” So, this idea that Jesus was taken up, I think that's very significant, the way that these angels say it. I think that's a good way for us to think about it. Remember, angels are messengers from God. So, here's God's commentary on what just happened. This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. Now if you're in Acts, chapter 1, go back to verse 2, because it talks about in verse 2 of Acts 1, “until the day he was taken up.” So, you can see, in your notes, put down verse 2, it talked about him being taken up.
So, this is a way that Luke is writing about this. We're all supposed to know about the day that Jesus was taken up into heaven. It's called Ascension Day. In fact, this is a big deal for Luke. Luke is the only one that actually describes the event of the ascension in his Scripture. In fact, put up here, Luke 24, at the very end of the Gospel of Luke, in verses 51 and 52 it says, “While he blessed them,” while he's talking to the gathering of his disciples, “he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” It was awesome to see Jesus ascend into heaven. They were in worship of him, and their hearts were full of great joy, celebrating the ascension of Jesus. So, Luke ends his gospel with the ascension. Now the sequel to the gospel is the book of Acts, and now he's giving it to us again. Go down to chapter 1, verse 22 and you'll see when they're looking for someone to replace Judas as one of the twelve, they say, we need to find someone who went out, went in and out among us, “beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us. We see this phrase, “taken up” used three times here in Acts 1. Luke clearly thinks this is a key part of what happened with Jesus. So, I don't know how much you've ever thought about the ascension before tonight, but who already thinks we should do this again next year, 40 days after Easter? Okay, so we're going to make sure that we always remember, with awe and worship in our hearts, how Jesus just went up into the clouds. That's who Jesus is.
Okay, Jesus is the Son of God, and he is up there. And what is Jesus doing up there in heaven? It's not like he's doing nothing, and it's not like he's nowhere. Every single prayer that you pray, Jesus is interceding for you. He's standing before the Father. You could write down 1 John, chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, you have an advocate. You have a defender. And when you sin, or when the accuser comes to accuse you of your sin, you have someone who stands in your defense in the heavenly courtroom, the throne room of God. There is someone who knows he knows you. He knows what it's like to be you. He can sympathize with all of your weaknesses, and yet he is without sin. He is your heavenly representative, like you would want a lawyer to represent you in a courtroom of law. Jesus represents you in the throne room of heaven, and he pleads for you. He makes intercession for you. He claims that he purchased you and he redeemed you with his blood. Jesus is representing you and thinking about you in Heaven constantly every single day of your life. Every single time you pray, the only reason God's hearing your prayers is because you're praying in the name of Jesus. He's your high priest. He's the one bringing you to God.
That's where Jesus is right now. And we need to all be mindful of that. We need to think we talk about abiding in Christ. We talk about remaining or staying in Jesus every day. Unfortunately, we might focus too much on where we are on earth and not enough about where he is in heaven. Jesus is in the position of all power. And how did he get there? He just went up into the cloud, and he went beyond sight. That's a marvelous thing to think about. You need to see who Jesus is. I'll put this verse up here on the screen 1 Timothy 3:16. This is like maybe a song they would sing, or like a creed they would recite. It seems like in the early church where it says, “great indeed, we confess is the mystery of godliness that he” Jesus, here's things they wanted to remember about Jesus, “He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”
One of the thoughts that you want to have about Jesus in your mind is he was taken up in the cloud. Have you ever told anyone else about Jesus being taken up in the cloud? I guarantee it, if you ever saw anybody else go up, up, and away into the clouds, you'd be telling everybody. Why aren't we more focused on who Jesus is and talking about him? That's the first thing we want to observe. Who is Jesus, that he just goes into the cloud? That's awesome. Now go back to Acts, chapter 1, or maybe you're already there. And let's zero in on verse 8, on how he redirected his disciples. He said to them, but hey, you guys are worried about the times. Well, it's not for you to know the times. It's not for you to know the wind. Here's what you're going to do. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my” what, everybody? “You will be my witnesses.” And here's the threefold plan of how it's going to happen. This is really the outline of the book of Acts that some of us got to go through together before here at the church. “You will be my witnesses.” Where's the first stop? Jerusalem, right there in the capital city of Israel. Where's the second stop? Judea and Samaria, the rest of the nation of Israel. And then where's the third place you're going to be my witnesses? To where? “To the end of the earth, to all the Gentiles, to all the nations.” And we see that if you go through the book of Acts, as some of us were blessed to do, we saw them fill the streets of Jerusalem with the name of Jesus. We saw thousands of people repent and believe in the gospel.
In Acts, chapter 6, verse 7, it talks about the Word increasing and being on the move. And then the persecution began when they killed Stephen. And Acts 7, so then they started getting spread out to other cities. And then it started going out to the Gentiles in Acts, chapter 10. And so, pretty soon it was all the country, Judea and Samaria. All the way through Acts 12, it talked about the whole nation. And then what happens in Acts 13? Well, we’ve got these guys now, Barnabas and how about this guy, Paul, who was Saul, the enemy of the church. And then he becomes Paul the missionary, the evangelist, the church planter. And what do we do? We send them out. We send them out to the nations. They go from city to city on missionary journeys, all the way to two years in Ephesus in Acts 19. And so, Jesus isn't saying, I think so much, here's what you should do in Acts 1:8. He's just saying, here's what you will do, and you will do it by the power of the Spirit that will come upon you. And you will witness about me in Jerusalem, you will witness about me in Judea and Samaria, and you will witness about me all the way to the nations. You don't even know how far you're going to go. That's what he says to them. Before the time comes for Jesus to return, the message of Jesus needs to go worldwide. Jesus left us on a mission, and that's what he makes clear here to his disciples.
Let's get that down for the second thing that we can observe here, primarily from verse 8: “See the POWER of the Spirit on a mission.” See the power of the Spirit on a mission. Already, multiple people today have talked to me about John, chapter 16, where Jesus said to his disciples, “It's to your advantage that I go,” and to the disciples, you could see how that would be a confusing concept to understand. We've got Jesus who can walk on water. We've got Jesus who can multiply bread. We’ve got Jesus who can raise the dead. I'm pretty sure we want Jesus in our squad. You know what I'm saying? Like, what could be better than having Jesus besides you? Well, how about having the Holy Spirit inside you? And so, Jesus says, “It's to your advantage that I go away for if I go I will send you the helper, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit.”
And I'll tell you, when these guys get this Holy Spirit, they accelerate on a level that's hard to even conceive. I mean, we're talking about Peter denying Jesus three times. We're talking about all the disciples scattering away when they came to get Jesus. We're talking about guys who were, “O ye, of little faith” and often questioning Jesus, often frustrating him by not really believing what he said. And these guys go, and they start talking about Jesus now with the power of the Spirit, and they're not the same guys. That's the whole point. You get to know them. You relate to them in the gospels, then you read the sequel in the book of Acts. Is that the same Peter? I mean Peter, when Jesus was on trial before the Sanhedrin, Peter was out with the servants, and when some of the servants were like, hey, I'm pretty sure you're one of the disciples, he's like, I don't know what you're talking about. Now, in the book of Acts, once he gets the power, once he gets the Spirit, where is Peter? Now he's the one on trial in front of the Sanhedrin. And what is he saying to them? He said, I'll tell you how we did this miracle. I'll tell you whose name we did this in. I'll give you the power that we have because we did this in the name of the Lord Jesus, and there is no other name given among men under heaven by which anyone can be saved.
How do you go from lying to the servants to speaking boldly to the judges, that's the power of the Spirit, and you need to see it. You need to see that ordinary men did extraordinary things, not because of who they were, not because they were gifted in some special way, but because the Holy Spirit empowered them. Now, let me ask you a very important question, do you have the same Holy Spirit empowering you? Because we don't often act like it. A lot of people today, when it comes to being on the mission of Jesus, they will act like that's somebody else's job. I'm not gifted like that. That's not the way God made me, they will say. But these men are here to be his witnesses. And let's even talk about what that means, because we talk about witnessing, and we make it about going and making our pitch to other people. That's not what witnesses meant here. Okay, go over to chapter 2 and look here with me. Let me show you some of the verses in Acts that use this same word, witnesses. Look at Acts 2:32, where Peter is going to preach the very first sermon of the church on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes upon him with power. Peter preaches this amazing message. In fact, they're preaching in different languages, so many people can hear the Gospel of Jesus. Look at what he says in the middle of the sermon. Acts 2:32, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are what, everybody? Witnesses.
Now, I want you to see what witnesses means for Peter and the disciples. Witnesses means that after Jesus rose from the dead, we saw him. We're eyewitnesses. We saw him die. We saw where he was buried. We went there on the third day, he wasn't there. Then later on, we saw him, even one of us didn't believe. He doubted. And then later on, he saw the scars in his hand and his side, and he believed. See what witnesses means here is not what we've made it to mean today. What witnesses means here is they are eyewitnesses that Jesus actually rose from the dead. The point of witnessing is not your pitch. The point of witnessing is, look at Jesus. That's the point. It doesn't matter for your delivery, your way of talking about Jesus. The point is, is Jesus worth pointing people to? And they're just saying, we saw it, that, hey, he rose from the dead.
Go over to chapter 3. Look at how he talks about it again in the very next chapter. Acts 3:15. Now he gets a little more intense. In this verse, he says, “You,” referring to the people there in Jerusalem, “You killed the author of life,” which is, by the way, a bad move. “You killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. And to this, we are” what? So, he's just saying we are the guys who witnessed. Because we know he appeared to up to five hundred people in those forty days between when he rose from the dead and when he ascended into heaven. He didn't go show who he was to everybody. There were over five hundred witnesses, and that's what they're claiming to be. They're saying we saw Jesus alive after you killed him.
Go over to chapter 5 and look at how he says it here in Acts, chapter 5. After he's on trial, and they threaten him, guess what? They keep filling Jerusalem with the name of Jesus. This is not the same Peter, who was a denier. This is an empowered Peter. This is Peter with the Holy Spirit filling him. And here in Acts, chapter 5, verse 30, he says, “The God of our fathers,” as in YHWH, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” And how did the people react when they heard this? Acts 5:33, “When they heard this, they were encouraged.” Is that what it says there, everybody? “When they heard this,” they were what and wanted to what? So, wait a minute. Why was Peter so afraid before? And why is Peter so bold now? The difference is not Peter learning a new technique. The difference is not Peter having a certain skill set or giftedness. The difference is the power of the Holy Spirit.
And some of us are greatly underestimating the power of the Holy Spirit to bear witness to Jesus. This is the purpose of why we are alive, right here, right now, is we are living this the day the Lord has made. We are living in an age of salvation, the age of the Church of Jesus Christ, where every man, every woman and every child needs to hear the good news that God loved them so much he sent his one and only Son to die for their sin, and he rose on the third day and he can offer them a new eternal life. He's paid for their sin, they can be forgiven, and they can learn to live a new way by the power of his death and resurrection. Everyone needs to hear that, and all you need to do to be able to bear witness of that is you need to have the power of the Holy Spirit yourself. You need to just say what you've seen about Jesus, what you've learned about him from the Scripture, what he's done in your own life. That's all you need to do. You need to testify. I'm also a witness, because here's who Jesus is, and here's what he did, and I want to tell you that it's true.
Are you really a witness for Jesus? Are you one of the witnesses who are telling the world who Jesus is and what he did for us? To claim to be a Christian and to not be a witness is to miss the purpose of why we are here. We are here right now so that more people can hear the good news of Jesus and be saved. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? So, before we get to the “when” of Jesus coming back, the now is we are on a mission, and I very much want to be on a mission here in Huntington Beach, at the ends of the earth from Jerusalem, in the year of our Lord 2026. I want to be on a mission with you. I feel like I have barely begun to fight the good fight of faith here in Huntington Beach. And I wonder, are you on the mission with me? Are you on the mission for Jesus? Because in our day and age, you can be a Christian without being a witness, but he sent them to be witnesses. And so, we need to hear that the power to witness from Jesus comes from not us, but the Holy Spirit. And if you have the Holy Spirit, you can bear witness, just like Peter, just like James, just like John, just like the twelve who were sent out. They did. They spread his name all over the world, not by their power, but the Spirit's power.
Go back to Acts, chapter 1 and let's get back to what are the witnesses here, these men in white robes. And this is not the kind of white like when you get fresh kicks, and your kicks are really white, which only lasts for a limited time, right? This is not that kind of white. This is not the kind of white you can find at Home Depot, my friends. This is the kind of white that's dazzling, the kind of white that's like lightning, the white robes these men are wearing here, yeah, that helps us realize they're not from around here. And when they say, look at their line again, because this is the promise. “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way.” Notice how many of these men are there in white robes. How many? Two because everything is established on the evidence of what? Two or three witnesses. Do you see how this whole idea of witnessing here in the Scripture is a little more legal than the way we talk about it today, like even for people to get married in the state of California, you need the signature of two or three witnesses. That's what helps it become a legal marriage. And so, the reason there are two men in white robes is they are bearing witness. They are heaven-sent messengers, giving a message to these disciples, and through this text of Scripture, giving the message to all of us. How many ascension days later, hey, the way he went up into the cloud in the same way, that's what they say. Notice that under “he will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven,” you could write down Zechariah chapter 14, where it refers to Jesus coming back. And guess what the location is where he's coming back to, everybody? The Mount of Olives. And Zechariah was writing that hundreds of years before Jesus went up on the cloud into heaven.
And so, there's a promise. Let's get this down for the third thing we want to observe: “Hear the PROMISE of the cloud rider’s return.” Hear the promise of the cloud rider’s return. Not only do we want to see how he did go up and being on worship, not only do we want to see the mission that we should be on in between, but we want to hear these witnesses tell us, from heaven, he's coming back. He's coming back in the same way he went up, at the same place where he went up. Just as you saw him go, so he will return on the cloud, the one who's coming on the clouds. It's a guarantee. It's a promise. It's going to happen. It is certain. That's the idea. And this is something that Christian people are supposed to be putting their hope in. This is something that Christian people are supposed to be greatly encouraged by.
I'm excited to celebrate Ascension Day with all of you. I'm excited to remember what Jesus did. But what I really want to put on the hearts and minds of every single person here, or every single person who's watching this online, is that Jesus didn't just ascend into heaven to impress you. Jesus ascended into heaven to invite you. He wants you to come on the clouds with him. Have you ever been invited to go on the clouds before? I'm not talking about an airplane flight.
Go with me to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4. Unfortunately, this beautiful Scripture in 1 Thessalonians 4 is one of the most maligned Scriptures among Christianity today, where people will openly make fun of this idea of the rapture, as it is usually called. But 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4 is very clear in what Paul is teaching this church. Someone has died in their church, and they're concerned that the one who has died has missed the return of the Lord. That's how ready this church was for Jesus to come in the same way that he went up, that when somebody died, they were like, oh no, he missed Jesus coming back. How different is that than how we think today? And so, in 1 Thessalonians 4, he explains, you don't need to be worried about it, because the dead in Christ are actually going to rise first and they're going to be there. And then look at how he says it in the last two verses here, 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18. “Then we, who are alive, who are left, will be caught up.” See, just like Jesus was taken up. Now it uses a different phrase here, we will be caught up together with them in the what, everybody? The clouds, to meet the Lord, where, everybody? In the air.
Do you ever look at the sky and think you're going to fly? Do you ever look at the clouds and think someday I'm going to meet the Lord up there? Because that's what the Scripture says, and it says in verse 18, “Therefore encourage one another with these words.” This is something I'm supposed to be reminding my brothers in my fellowship group about. This is something I'm supposed to be sharing with my friend. Hey, look to the air. Someday we're going to be there. And look at how Paul puts it. Paul puts it in such a beautiful way. If you read verse 17 again, “Then we, who are alive, who are left, we will be caught up together with them. The dead in Christ, who rise first, will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will always be with the Lord.
See. Sometimes I think that, because we've never seen Jesus, we don't think that Jesus is there to see, but Jesus is there, and you are going to see him. And I promise that the moment that you're caught up, what is that going to be like? And you find yourself in the clouds and you see Jesus in the air, the reason it's called “The Rapture” isn't to describe this event. It's to describe how you're going to feel when this event happens, you're going to feel ecstatic joy. You're going to be delighted when your eyes get to see Jesus for the first time, and what a sight he is when you get to see him. All the questions, all the things about life, why is life like this? Why is life like that? I guarantee you, when you see Jesus, things will make a lot more sense. And I'm supposed to encourage you with this. I don't know how many years it's been exactly since he ascended. I don't know how many more it will be till we ascend, but I'm here to tell you that someday you will join Jesus on the cloud. You will meet the Lord in the air, and from the moment you meet Jesus, so you will always be with him. Can I get an amen? When was the last time you thought about that and it brought joy to your heart? Was the last time you thought, man, a bucket list, I'm still looking forward to seeing Jesus. When was the last time you checked the weather in Jerusalem and thought to yourself, is it cloudy over the Mount of Olives today? What's going on over there? See, this is the kind of thing you're supposed to be thinking about. And the truth is, if you don't think about Jesus coming to get you as he promised, he said, “If I go away, I will come again. In my Father's house, are many rooms, and I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I will come again to get you, to take you to this place that I have prepared for you.” There's a lady in my fellowship group, Jesus did a great work in her life. He saved her. He made her new. And she would tell me and my wife how sometimes when she would wake up in the morning, and it felt like I can't get up today. It's just too hard. What she used to tell herself when she was in those situations is no one's coming, like the reinforcements aren't coming. No one's got your back. No one's coming to help you if you got it, if you're going to do it, no one's coming. You’ve got to get up. You’ve got to do it. We heard that. We thought that was awesome. We say that all the time now, oh, you’ve got to do your homework. Well, no one's coming. You know what I mean? Oh, you’ve got to do this. That sounds hard. No one's coming. It's up to you, right? I'm here to tell everybody tonight, he's coming. The reinforcements are coming. And the king, he's coming, and when he comes, you will experience glory like you've never known before. You will have your very own Ascension Day, and you will meet him in the clouds and be with him in the air in the same way that he went up. That's the way he's going to come.
Now flip your handout over, because on the back, here's my concern that I want to address with our church tonight. We'll put this up on the screen. We have his “Mission” on one side, that's verse 8, to be his witnesses. Then we have his “Coming” on the other side. That's verse 12. He's going to come in the same way that he went up. Here's a regular thing I hear said at our church, and I want to bring this up, and I want us all to think about it together. I hear people say whenever we bring up the subject of Jesus coming back, which is supposed to be encouraging, inspiring, something to put our hope in, to look forward to. This is what people are actually saying at our church. And they're not just kind of saying this privately. They're saying this openly. They're saying this in their fellowship group, they're saying this like this is just the right way to think about it. And what people are saying is, well, Jesus can't come back now. And then, here's the reason, because this person I know and love still needs to get saved. And so, you start to hear this idea, and it's become very common, not just in our church, but I hear it expressed throughout American Christianity, where people are openly saying, I hope Jesus doesn't come back right now, because there are more people who need to get saved. And then when I hear people say that, which I'm hearing more and more, he can't come back. Now my spouse isn't saved, he can't come back. Now my kids aren't saved, he can't come back. Now my parents aren't saved, or somebody I know is not saved, or these people over here that we're going to try to reach aren't saved. I always ask myself when people are saying that, so do you really think more time is going to save those people? Has anyone gotten saved because they had more time? Like, yes, I understand the idea of God's patience, and I understand that he hasn't judged the world yet because he wants to save rather than to judge, but let's say your family member we give another year before Jesus comes back, let's say we give five years. Let's say we give ten years. What's going to make a difference in anyone getting saved?
See, the fact that Jesus is going to come back, and the fact that the Bible uses words like “soon” to describe him coming, the fact that Jesus warns everybody who's not ready, everybody who's not awake, everybody who needs to repent and believe in the gospel because the Kingdom is drawing near. He says, I'm going to come like a thief in the night. It's supposed to give this sense of urgency, like, wow, you mean Jesus is going to come back and my spouse isn't going to be ready? You mean Jesus is going to come back and my kids still aren't saved? You mean Jesus is going to come back and that person that I know and I love, they're not going to be with us in the clouds, they're going to be here for the judgment that is supposed to create within you, like, well, how could they get saved? Like a desperate prayer, God, you've got to save them. They're supposed to create. Not this passivity, not this. We need more time, not this. I don't want to think about Jesus coming back, because I know people aren't ready. It's supposed to create within you this idea, like, I've got to do something today, because I don't know how many days we have, and so I'm going to hug that loved one a little bit tighter, and I'm going to pray for them a little bit harder. And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to do the one thing I'm here to do. I'm going to actually witness to them, and I'm going to open up my mouth and start talking more about Jesus, because time has saved no one, and Jesus has saved everyone. They're not going to get saved because they last longer. They're going to get saved when you speak his name, when you bring them to where they can hear his name preached, when you open up the book that tells about a man who was so much more than a man who flew up into the cloud. Bow and worship him before it's too late, because someday everyone will bow and worship him. We need a sense, not this. What I'm seeing is, let's get this down here: I'm seeing a “false dichotomy.” I'm seeing like I can't be for his coming because I'm too busy on his mission. But then some of the people who are saying that, I'm not sure what they're actually doing on the mission.
So, I'm seeing that people are creating this tension that exists between people need to get saved, and Jesus is coming back, and they should get saved before he comes back, because otherwise it's judgment. When the Son comes from heaven, he will deliver us from the wrath to come. That's 1 Thessalonians 1:10. And so, if you're not ready to be delivered from the wrath, if you haven't put your faith in Jesus, then you're going to be here for the wrath. You don't want to be here for the wrath. But see, people are acting like, well, these two things can't really go long. No.
Let's get this down for the next line there. We need “A sense of urgency” is what we need. That's what's supposed to create. Man, this person needs to get saved. Jesus is coming back. I don't know when, could be soon. Lord, please save them. Please give me an open door to share with them. Please bring other people, other witnesses, who will come and tell them. Please draw them to your Son. Draw them to church. Draw them to read the Scripture. Draw them into conversation. Lord, we need you to do something now. Not just give us more time, but Lord, act today. Let’s experience today the purpose that it exists for, which is that we could be his witnesses by the power of the Spirit. We should be thinking, I don't know how much time we have, so I'm going to give it everything I've got. Can I get an amen from anybody on that?
So, these two thoughts are meant to create a tension that drives us to act in the name of Jesus, to make disciples in the name of Jesus. That's what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to compel you to do things that you would never do, but for the power of the Spirit to be his witness and but for the urgency that you know he's coming soon. And may you be like Peter, may you be like James and John, may you be like somebody who he makes you to become way more than you ever were going to be. That's what it means to be one of his disciples. You find yourself doing things that you know are beyond your capability to do, but that's why he has you here to do them. And so, I’ve got to ask you, how much are you on the mission, and how ready are you for his coming? Because if there's anything Ascension Day in the past has taught us, is that another Ascension Day is coming soon. And so, I want to pray for us, and I want to take you back to the Mount of Olives, okay? And I want you to think about the fact that someday Jesus is going to come out of the clouds, and every eye is going to see him. And if you are dead, you will rise and be there with Jesus. If you're one of his people, if you are alive, if you're left, you will be caught up to be there with Jesus. And I want you to think about your Ascension Day. Let's pray.
Father in heaven, thank you that we could have this special evening set aside forty days after Easter to study the historical event of the Ascension. And thank you for Luke writing it down for us at the end of Luke and in the beginning of Acts. I want to thank you for everybody who's here that we could sing songs of Jesus, that we could talk of Jesus. And I pray that everybody here would be able to see Jesus. What is that in the sky? What is that that's coming that's brighter than the sun? Who is that riding on those clouds? What an amazing thought to think that someday we will meet him on those clouds in the air, and we will be with the Lord. And Father, I pray that between today and that day, you will keep us on mission, that we will be your witnesses, that we will not waste these days. Whatever time there is, let us make the most of it. And I pray that for all my brothers and sisters, you will encourage us with this idea that we're going to see Jesus and that he is going to come and get us. And I pray that that would be a powerful motivation in all of our lives, that we will keep going for Jesus until we see him. And I pray this in his name. Amen.