CBFC Worship Service 5/17/2026

Amen.

Good morning.

Welcome again to Community Bible Fellowship Church.

My name is Daniel.

If we haven't met yet, it's lovely to be with you here today on this Ascension Sunday, as Andrew mentioned.

We're doing something a little bit different this Sunday.

If you don't know, this past Thursday was Ascension Day.

It's the kind of Christian holiday that just tiptoes by because it's on a Thursday.

And because, well, I would say because it has sort of taken a backseat in Christian worship and in theology.

Not just the holiday itself, but the ascension of Jesus has oftentimes taken a backseat.

And it is treated more like a little footnote in the story of Jesus or at the end of his story rather than the earth-shaking, climactic, history-shaping event that it is.

I remember um being a junior in high school, and my friends who were graduating seniors going off to college off to do better things and leaving us stuck behind to keep doing more work.

They had finished their work and they were moving on to something better.

And I feel like we treat Jesus' ascension like he has just finished his work.

He's graduated from Earth and he's off to do better things, and we're just kind of stuck here, wishing that he hadn't got his calculus grade up and would stick around a little bit while longer.

It's sort of a bittersweet thing for us for whatever reason.

It's it's a goodbye scene for us since we tend to feel almost saddened by it.

It's like at the end of every Nornius story, Aslan just kind of wanders off into the distance, and they're like, Where he's where is he going?

And it's like kind of like sad.

He's like, Oh, he leaves sometimes.

I don't know, what are you gonna do?

It's Aslan.

Or um, if I could reference another of the great Christian allegories, it's like in Harry Potter, where at the end of every movie there's like this great victory, and it's exciting, but then Harry and Sam, the friends, have to part ways and they gotta be apart from one another, and it's all kind of dampened by this sadness of being apart that puts a damper on the whole victory.

We tend to approach the ascension of Jesus as a bittersweet goodbye scene that puts a damper on his victory.

But as we look at Acts 1 this morning and the rest of Scripture, my prayer is that we will come to see the ascension of Christ as the thrilling, history-shaping, life-changing, glorious, and deeply, deeply comforting reality that it is.

Some sermons we really need to walk away from feeling kind of conflicted in our hearts and convicted and ready to change and do something.

Today, my goal is simply that we would leave confident and comforted and encouraged by our ascended Lord.

So I'm not going to give you anything to do today.

I'm just going to give you stuff to believe in and to hope in.

Is that okay?

Alright, so let's turn our eyes then to God's word in Acts 1 and be encouraged by our Ascended King.

I invite you to stand with me if you are able to honor the reading of God's word from Acts chapter 1, verse 6.

Acts 1:6

God's word reads.

So when they, the disciples, had come together, they asked Jesus, 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.

This is God's word.

Please be seated.

Pray with me now.

Father, as we come together now to your word, would you lift our eyes above the noise and distractions and burdens of this world to behold our ascended King.

Father, by your Holy Spirit, would you strengthen weak hearts this morning and comfort weary souls and fill us with a fresh confidence in your Son, who reigns for us and intercedes for us, and is with us by his Holy Spirit even now.

Let us not merely hear these truths with our ears, but may we receive them by faith with joy and hope.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our risen and reigning Lord.

Amen.

The ascension of Jesus is far more rich than we have even close to the time to cover this morning.

But I want to look at four big ideas of what the ascension means.

Sorry to say, there's no alliteration this morning.

They all start with different letters.

But I have something even better.

Get ready for this: an acronym.

And it spells the word rise, R-I-S-E, for Jesus rising into heaven.

I was going to do ascension, but I didn't think I could get away with a nine-point sermon.

But that's our line for it today.

R-I-S-E.

Christ ascended to reign, to intercede, to send his spirit, and to establish his kingdom.

Christ ascended to reign, intercede, send, and establish.

So first, Christ ascended to reign.

I think one of the biggest mistakes that we often make with the resurrection of Jesus is thinking that he was just resurrected to be alive again.

That's just a happy ending to the story.

Failing to see that Jesus was resurrected so that he might ascend to the heights of heaven and take his seat on the throne of the universe and rule the world as the king of kings.

The ascension is not mainly about departure, it's about enthronement.

Jesus isn't just going away from his people, he's going up to the throne as king.

In the ancient world, when a king was returning from some great victory, there would be often a public procession, this grand royal entrance as he returns into his kingdom.

Or when a new king came into power, there'd be a similar procession into the throne room and a coronation.

The moment that he is crowned as the king, takes his seat on the throne to rule.

That's the imagery that the Bible uses for this moment, the ascension of Jesus.

He's not just going home after a long day's work to chill in his recliner, although he is kind of reclined in a sense, as we'll say in just a moment.

He is triumphantly marching through the gates of heaven, crowned as king, and crowned to reign over the nations at the right hand of God.

This is uh reflected in Daniel 7, this great prophecy from the Old Testament, where Daniel sees one like a son of man, Jesus' preferred title for himself, one like a son of man comes up to the ancient of days, the Father, on the clouds of heaven, and he receives their dominion, glory, a kingdom that will never end.

The ascension is that moment, prophesied of old and fulfilled in Christ.

And you may notice the overlap.

The Son of Man rises on what?

The clouds.

The cloud in Daniel 7 and in Acts 1 and throughout the Bible is a manifestation of God's glory.

Think of the pillar of cloud leading God's people through the wilderness, or the cloud descending on Mount Sinai, the cloud of glory filling the temple with the presence of God.

It's not meant as like a dreary rain cloud that's kind of depressing, but as a brilliant, radiant cloud of light that visibly manifests the invisible glory of Yahweh.

And so the reference to Jesus being taken up in a cloud in Acts 1 and in Daniel 7 is more than just some weird intrusive weather report.

It's telling us that the Lord, Jesus, is being raised into the throne room of heaven, wrapped in divine splendor, riding on a triumphal chariot cloud of radiance and majesty, being received into the very glory of the Father.

He's wrapped in the Father's glory and welcomed into the Father's heavenly throne room.

He's received by the Father, and then he in turn receives the nations as his inheritance and an eternal throne from which to rule the universe.

Hebrews 1 tells us that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

And after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

Andrew just prayed a beautiful prayer and noted that that phrase, he sat down, is important here and elsewhere in Scripture for a number of reasons.

For one, it tells us he's not serving there, he's ruling there.

Servants and slaves in the presence of a king are always standing.

Priests in the temple are always standing.

Angels in heaven are always described as standing.

But Jesus is sitting down.

He's not there to serve, he's there to rule.

And not only is he not serving, he's also not scrambling.

He's not moving around trying to keep everything under control desperately.

He's not busily rushing to keep up with prayer requests or like anxiously running around trying to fix all these unforeseen issues.

He's not going back and forth with the devil in a nail-biting chess match between good and evil.

He is sitting down on the throne, absolutely in control.

And he's not just sitting down.

In some sense, he's he's like leaning back.

Psalm 110, one of the great Old Testament ascension Psalms that prophesied these words about Jesus.

Yahweh says to my Lord, to Jesus, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

The King of the universe has a footstool made out of his enemies.

Ephesians 1 tells us that this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus when God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand, the place of honor and power, in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come, and he put all things under his feet.

The ascension means that Jesus is not fighting desperately for control against his enemies.

He is sitting down, settled back into his throne, ruling with absolute power, feet propped up with empires as his ottomans, so to speak, in absolute sovereign, powerful control of the entire universe.

Jesus is not helpless, Jesus is not distant, Jesus is not oblivious, Jesus is reigning supreme, almighty King over all existence, which means that as chaotic and confusing and out of control as the world seems to us, and as out of control as it may be to us, none of it is out of the control of the risen ascended King Jesus.

Jesus governs with absolute power and precision.

Not only the stars and galaxies of the universe, and not only the political affairs of governments and armies and nations, and not only the forces of nature at work in the world, and the forces of evil spirits and demons at work in our world, but Jesus governs with absolute power and precision every minute aspect of your day-to-day life.

There is no part of your life that is outside of the sight and power and interest and control of King Jesus.

He cares deeply about all of it and reigns supreme over all of it.

That diagnosis did not slip past his throne unnoticed.

That betrayal didn't catch him off guard.

The parenting struggles you're going through aren't making him nervous.

Like what's gonna happen to my kids?

This the season of waiting isn't because he's scrambling dealing with other things.

Church, your grief, your anxiety, your sleeplessness, your marriage, your singleness, your children, your career, your ever-approaching death, none of it exists outside of the reign and supremacy of King Jesus.

The ascension means for you that in all of the unknown, in all of the confusion and chaos and changes and uncertainty of the future, you have a mighty king overseeing every aspect of your life and promising to work in all of it for your good.

Who not only has the power to do all that he wishes, but has your good as his goal.

Jesus ascending to the throne of heaven means that Jesus right now is reigning.

Christ ascended to reign.

That's our first point.

Second aspect of the ascension of the I is that Christ ascended to intercede.

The end of Luke's gospel, who also wrote Acts, he tells of the ascension there, too.

It's sort of the hinge between Luke and Acts, between that age and this age.

And there Luke says this he says, Lifting up his hands, Jesus blessed them.

While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.

And what we see here is that Jesus' final act on earth is to lift his hands, his scarred hands with the marks of his crucifixion and his sacrifice for his people.

He lifts his hands in a priestly benediction to bless his people.

This is the act of a priest.

And it tells us something of what Jesus is ascending to do.

He's ascending to be our great high priest.

Not by sacrificing for us, that's been done, but by interceding for us always.

The high priest in the Old Testament would enter into the tabernacle, into the most holy place, the Holy of Holies, once a year.

This one man was allowed to enter once a year into the presence of the holy God, but he would do it wearing this special breastplate that had twelve jewels in it, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.

So he would come as an individual, but he would come representing all of God's people that he was bringing with him on his chest into the throne room of God.

And what with the what we see in the New Testament is that Jesus' ascension, as he ascends into the true most holy place, not an earthly tabernacle, but heaven itself, the very presence of God, and he doesn't go there alone, just as the high priest carried the names of Israel on his breastplate into God's presence, Jesus carries his people with him into the presence of the Father.

But unlike the old high priest, the true high priest doesn't merely represent the twelve tribes symbolically through jewels on a garment.

He carries his people in reality.

We are united to him.

Reread Ephesians 2 and Colossians 1, his ascension is our own.

We are hidden with Christ right now in heaven, on his heart, not just written with our names on stones on his chest, but upon his very heart.

He ascends with us and as our covenant representative, our mediator, and our advocate.

Sorry, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

So Jesus stands before the Father continually for us, not continually sacrificing.

The sacrifice is finished once for all, but continually interceding, continually representing us, continually advocating for our good in all things, crying out to the Father on our behalf.

And not to a reluctant father, but to a father who is eager to bless his children and to honor his son.

When I was in high school, I went through a season of intense loneliness.

I'm not sure I can really explain it.

I was just like deeply lonely and sad and anxious.

Like all the time, I couldn't sleep, and I would lay up at night in what felt like just a long, unending, hopeless darkness, just feeling empty and isolated.

And that despair was so overwhelming at times.

I I didn't want to go on.

Or knew that I was struggling, or cared that I was struggling.

I just felt alone.

And it wasn't until last year that I was telling my mom this, and she told me something I I didn't know all those years.

She told me that she saw me hurting and was hurting with me.

And that she would stay up every night and sit outside my bedroom door praying for me for months, late into the night.

In a season that I had never felt more alone and unseen and uncared for and unprayed for.

I had someone right on the other side of the door that I couldn't see, who was aware of my hurt, who was right there with me, who was staying up to cry out to God on my behalf.

There was someone closer to me than I knew interceding for me.

And church, that is only a faint shadow of the far greater reality of what Jesus Christ is doing for his people right now.

He doesn't sleep, he is constantly interceding for you.

The ascension means that Jesus didn't rise from the dead and then disappear into the distance somewhere, detached from your life and struggles.

He ascended into the presence of your Father for you.

And so right now, at this very moment, the Son of God stands in heaven as your advocate.

He knows your weakness, he sees your sorrow, he's not indifferent to your suffering, or frustrated by your failures, or angered by your sin struggles.

Hebrews says that he is a sympathetic high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses because he himself has suffered as one of us.

Which means there is never a moment when you suffer alone.

There's never a moment when your prayers rise to heaven unsupported.

There is never a moment when you fall into sin and into greed and pride into lust again and again that you are not defended by the ascended Lord.

The great high priest whose name is love, whoever lives and pleads for us.

When you are too weak to pray, Christ prays for you.

When you feel crushed by guilt, Christ stands before the Father with wounds that plead your forgiveness.

When Satan accuses you and tempts you to despair, Jesus intercedes for you.

When you feel abandoned or forgotten or spiritually numb, you have an advocate in heaven whose heart is continually turned toward you.

The ascension means that there is a man in heaven right now who bears your name upon his heart before the throne of God, so that nothing can ever separate you from.

God's love.

Romans 8, who is to condemn?

Christ Jesus is the one who died.

More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us, who shall separate us from the love of Christ.

First John 2, my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Hebrews 7, Jesus holds his high priesthood permanently because he continues forever, therefore he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

The scriptures are filled with these reminders so that we do not forget them.

And how desperately do we need them.

Your security before God does not rest on the strength of your faith or the extent of your righteousness or the progress of your sanctification, but on Jesus Christ alone, who always lives to make intercession for you.

Your salvation is not hanging by a thread of your performance.

It is upheld by the mighty ascended King, your advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous.

We'll do the next two a little bit quicker.

Our third point is the S that Christ ascended to send his spirit.

He says in John 16, it is to your advantage that I go away.

Which had to sound absolutely crazy to the disciples.

Like who could possibly want Jesus to leave?

How could that be a good thing?

But Jesus says, if I do not go away, the helper, the spirit, will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you.

In other words, Jesus ascended not to withdraw his presence from his people, but to multiply it and deepen it through his Holy Spirit, through the Spirit of Jesus.

While Jesus walked on the earth, his physical presence was localized.

He could be with Peter in Galilee or Mary in Bethany or the crowds in Jerusalem, one at a time, but not all at once.

With his ascension, the Spirit is Christ's spirit and dwells in all of his people, everywhere, all of the time.

The ascension is not Jesus abandoning his church, it's Jesus filling his church with more of his presence.

The Spirit of Jesus Christ is with us right now.

Acts 2 says that after Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God, he received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, and then poured out the Spirit upon his people at Pentecost.

Jesus ascends into the heavens as the victorious divine king in order to receive the Holy Spirit in a new and fuller way, so that he can then pour out his spirit upon the church, that his presence and power and comfort and holiness and life might dwell within us always.

Jesus had the Spirit in a sense in his birth, in his life, in his anointing, but he gains the Spirit in a newer and fuller way and pours it out on his people.

There's a movie that I used to think was the greatest movie ever.

It's called Now You See Me.

Has anyone seen it?

Old, 2013.

That's old to me.

Um movie about these magicians that that uh they rob banks.

But the point is they they they do this thing where these magicians magically teleport into a bank vault, they seize the cash, and then they send it raining down on crowds of people.

They just give it away, just millions and millions of dollars raining out of the skies on the multitudes who are just grasping and taking all that they can get.

And apart from all of the illegality and the trespassing and the deceit and the theft and all of that, this is in a way a picture of what Jesus does with his spirit.

He enters the chambers of the Holy of Holies, the place that no one else can go by his mysterious power.

He enters what no one else can enter, he receives the treasure there, and then he distributes it lavishly on all of his people, just sends it raining down on the multitudes in a way that was never seen before.

Ephesians 4 and Psalm 68 and elsewhere describes this like a king conquering his enemies, seizing the spoils of war, and then distributing extravagant riches and abundant treasures throughout the entire kingdom, so the whole nation can share in the riches of the spoil of the victory.

And the treasure is Jesus himself by his Holy Spirit, who is now present with us today and always in every passing moment, closer to us now than he ever had been to anyone while he was on earth.

You have the presence of Jesus Christ in a way that Mary would have longed for.

Which means you and I are not left alone to survive the Christian life on our own strength.

Jesus tells his disciples in Acts 1.8, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

The ascension means that Jesus has not merely given you instructions to follow from a distance, he has given you himself and his own power by his spirit.

So when you feel too weak to keep fighting sin, or too exhausted to keep loving difficult people, too anxious to keep trusting God, too ashamed to draw near to him, too spiritually dry to even know what to pray, you are not abandoned, you are not left alone to your own devices.

The very power and presence of the ascended Lord dwells within you permanently by his Holy Spirit.

And he promises to bring all of his work in you and in the world to completion on the last day.

And that leads us to our final point that Christ ascended not only to reign and intercede and send his spirit, but to establish his kingdom throughout the earth.

Christ ascended to establish his eternal kingdom.

From the very beginning, humanity was created to rule and reign in God's kingdom, his eternal kingdom, but but brought the to earth for his creatures, humanity, to rule it.

And in Genesis, Adam was given dominion over the earth as God's image, meant to reign under God's authority with true holiness and life and joy.

But humanity failed in Adam, and sin entered the world, and dominion was lost and taken by Satan, and death spread to all mankind, and instead of reigning over creation, humanity has become enslaved to sin and suffering and enslaved to death and the devil.

But the ascension tells us that the story of humanity is not over.

Because now a man once again sits on the throne.

Jesus Christ, the true and better Adam, the second and last Adam, has entered the presence of God as a representative of a new humanity, and now humanity in Christ has ascended into heaven and sits enthroned at the right hand of God, reigning with him and spreading his kingdom, riches, his blessings, as Jesus says in Acts 1.8, beginning in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

And that changes everything.

The ascension of Jesus and his enthronement is the beginning of the consummation, the final glory.

The future world has already begun to break into the present world.

Heaven and earth have begun to collide through Jesus Christ.

The age to come, the age of resurrection and glory and righteousness and eternal life has already dawned in Christ.

That's why the New Testament speaks as though believers already belong to the new creation.

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.

We're already resurrected, we're already enjoying the blessings of eternal life.

We're already ascended with Christ in the heavenly places.

In Christ's ascension, the future invades the present.

The old age of sin and death is passing away, and the new creation has begun.

And because Christ has already entered heaven in glory, his return in glory is now certain.

Which is why the angels say in verse 11, this Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go.

The ascension is not Jesus just disappearing from the world, it's Jesus taking his throne as he begins to establish his kingdom on earth until the day that he returns to renew the world completely.

So this is where the church now lives, between ascension and return, between the inauguration and the consummation, the already and the not yet, the establishment of Christ's kingdom and its final, everlasting glory when he returns to reign for a thousand years and then forevermore.

We still live in a world marked by suffering and brokenness and death.

But the risen and ascended King has secured the future by his enthronement.

Just as he left, descending on the clouds of glory, and he will bring his established kingdom to its full and final glory as we reign with him in never-ceasing, ever-increasing joy.

If I could, I'd love to just take a minute now and close with the words of an old ascension hymn.

As we prepare to sing our Lord's praises once more.

Listen to these words as we prepare for worship.

See the conqueror mounts in triumph.

See the king in royal state, riding on the clouds his chariot to his heavenly palace gate.

Hark the choirs of angel voices, joyful hallelujah, sing, and the portals high are lifted to receive their heavenly king.

Who is this that comes in glory?

With the trump of Jubilee, Lord of battles, God of armies, he has gained the victory.

He who on the cross did suffer, he who from the grave arose, he has vanquished sin and Satan.

He by death has spoiled his foes.

He has raised our human nature on the clouds to God's right hand.

There we sit in heavenly places, there with him in glory stand.

Jesus reigns, adored by angels, man with God is on the throne.

Mighty Lord, in your ascension, we by faith behold our own.

See him who has gone before us, heavenly mansions to prepare, see him who is ever pleading for us with prevailing prayer.

See at last when he appeareth, we from out our graves shall spring, with our youth renewed like eagles, flocking round our heavenly King.

Glory be to God the Father, glory be to God the Son, dying, risen, ascending for us, who the heavenly realm has won.

Glory to the Holy Spirit, to one God in persons three.

Glory, both in earth and heaven, glory, endless glory be.

Amen.

Let's pray, and then we'll praise our Lord once more in song.

Lord Jesus, you are the King enthroned above the heavens, and we praise you.

Would you comfort us now?

Remind us of these truths and give us strength to press on until the day that we see you riding on the clouds, returning in glory.

We love you, Lord.

We pray these things in your name.

Amen.