Why is Jesus' Ascension Good News? (Ephesians 1:15-23)

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This lesson is from Ephesians chapter one.

The Apostle Paul writes, For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might, that He worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand 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, and gave Him as head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Praise to God in highest heaven.

Let's pray.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be always pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

Amen.

Amen.

Boy, I'm not used to preaching with so many folks behind me.

I feel like I'm gonna get jumped at any moment here.

Why is Jesus' ascension good news?

Why is Jesus' ascension such a big deal that we ought to be celebrating it today?

Jonathan very rightly pointed out that Jesus' ascension is ranked up there with Christian feast days right up with Christmas and Easter.

What is the big deal with Jesus' ascension?

Why is it good news?

I had a uh internet poster sent to me uh earlier this week from someone who may or may not be my wife Rachel.

This poster had a uh a Renaissance painting of Jesus' ascension, you know, as as uh ornate as Renaissance paintings go.

And the caption read like this Ascension Day, celebrating the day that Jesus began to work from home.

So what's the deal with the ascension?

Are we celebrating the fact that he works from home?

We've read uh our two ascension texts, Luke and Acts, at the beginning of our service uh this morning.

Luke's pivot point between his biography of Jesus and the sequel, which tells us about the earliest church, is this moment of Jesus' ascension.

It is a very big deal.

And yet, we struggle to make sense of it, don't we?

It's strange to rank it up there with Christmas and Easter.

Baby Jesus, God with us, that's wonderful.

Jesus gets raised from the dead, that's triumphant, we'll celebrate those things, but ascension, that seems like a bit of an outlier, doesn't it?

In fact, I was reading one article uh about the ascension this week, and I like this line.

The author wrote, Ascension might be the most important doctrine that Christians don't think about.

And I gotta be honest, that might be true.

That might be true for me.

How much attention do we give to the Ascension?

Do we see its significance?

Do we see its importance?

That's why I want us to explore a little bit together this morning, even briefly.

I want us to have a look at this uh reading from Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

It is a letter.

So much of the Bible is well, the Bible's made up of all different kinds of genres, but much of the New Testament in particular, when the New Testament tries to make sense of who this Jesus is and what it is that he's done, so much of the New Testament is made up of letters, letters from pastors addressed to churches or particular persons and leaders in those churches.

This is a letter written by a fellow named Paul.

Paul, who was once a great persecutor of the church, who had an incredible encounter with the risen Lord Jesus, and it changed his life completely, a complete 180.

The great persecutor of the church, who spent his nine to five hunting Christians down and putting them to death, became the great proclaimer, the great apostle of the good news of the risen and ascended Lord Jesus.

Paul is now in prison for the sake of the gospel, writing this letter.

Imagine that.

The guy who persecuted Christians, put them to death is now in prison for that same gospel he once persecuted.

He's writing to this church that meets in this Roman city of Ephesus.

Ephesus is a pretty important city.

It's a seat of power into Asia, in the province of Asia.

And Paul is writing to this church so that they can understand two key things about who Jesus is, what he's done, and the significance of those things for you and I, for Christians, for this church, for our church, for all Christians.

Two things in particular, Paul wants us to understand that all things, everything in the universe, everything in our lives, reconciled to God through Christ, his person and his work.

And secondly, that God's people are united to himself in Christ.

Jesus is at the center of everything.

He is the bullseye of the universe, he is the glue that holds it all together.

And Paul wants this church feeling the pressure of persecution, feeling the pressure of opposition, to understand that Jesus is at the center of it all, to hold fast to him.

So our passage this morning is right at the beginning of Paul's letter, chapter one.

Paul, by the way, the Bible wasn't written with chapters and verses, those came later.

So we ought to remember this is the beginning of Paul's letter here.

And Paul is writing with thanksgiving on his heart.

He is giving thanks for this church's faith in the Lord Jesus, their trust in him, and for their love for the saints.

Saints not being, you know, folks on stained glass windows, so to speak, faints being saints being ordinary fellow Christians, those who trust in Jesus.

He's giving thanks for their faith and for the love that's demonstrated one to another.

And he tells them about his prayer life.

He's got a particular prayer for this Ephesian church on his heart, and his prayer is this that the Father of glory, God Almighty, God transcendent, may illumine your understanding with the wisdom and revelation, God's own knowledge, that comes through God the Holy Spirit, who indwells in you?

Would God Almighty shine his light into your hearts through his Holy Spirit, such that you may understand.

And then there's three doors here that Paul has to open.

These could be three sermons all on their own, and I'm gonna go through each three.

No, I'm gonna go through number three.

But here's the three doors we could take this morning.

Would God illumine your understanding so that you can understand number one, the hope to which he has called you.

The Christian life is a hopeful life.

Number two, the riches of God's glorious inheritance in the saints.

Imagine that.

God stands to have an inheritance in Christians.

He is delighted to receive his inheritance, and that is you and I, if we are in Christ.

And then number three, this is the door we're going to enter together this morning.

Would you understand through God's illumining Holy Spirit the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe?

This power is not um, well, when I think of power, forgive me, I think of like Jedi's, you know, moving things with their mind, doing crazy.

That's not the kind of power we're talking about here.

The Greek word here is dynamis.

We get the uh word dynamic, right?

The idea is it's a transforming power.

It transforms our lives from the inside out, it transforms the creation we live in towards God's renewed new creation work.

This is the power that's at work.

And Paul says it's at work in two places in particular.

It's at work throughout God's work in history, but if we look at these two places, we're gonna see this power at work in particular.

And those two places are number one, we see that power when the Father raised Christ from the dead.

We see that power at Easter.

And we celebrate that new creation power when Jesus swallows up death by his new life, and that becomes hope that we can participate in much the same if we're in Christ.

We see that power at work at Easter, but we also see that work.

Did you notice this?

When God seated Christ at his right hand, that's the ascension.

Paul says we see God's immeasurable power at work at Easter and at Ascension.

That's a big deal, isn't it?

So why is the ascension such good news for Paul?

This is what he wants to uh expand in the last half of our reading.

This is what we're gonna zoom in on briefly here.

Jesus' ascension is good news for Paul.

Why?

Because the best king who reigns on the highest throne has secured a happy outcome for all history.

Let me say that again.

Jesus' ascension is good news because the best king who reigns on the highest throne has secured a happy outcome for all history.

And if you're journeying with us at Newsong, you know that we're a gospel-centered church, and that word gospel signifies good news.

We are a good news people.

So we want to take it seriously when we see good news in God's word and scripture.

But if you're here this morning and considering who this Jesus is, figuring out what the ascension all means, if we're asking why is the ascension such good news for you and me, maybe we can glimpse this this morning.

A happy outcome for all history that the ascended Lord Jesus has secured is a happy outcome, not just for history in general, but for your story and for my story, for our stories, for our lives.

So if you have your order of service, let's look at verses 20 and 21 together in particular, and we're going to see that Jesus' ascension is good news, because the best king who reigns on the highest throne has secured a happy outcome for all history.

So remember, this is a prayer, and Paul is telling the Ephesian church about his prayer for that church.

Know for yourselves, that's Paul's prayer, that you would know for yourselves God's immeasurable power seen when Christ was seated at his Father's right hand in the heavenly places.

So right off the bat, that does not mean that God has body parts, like a right hand.

I know Michelangelo hasn't really done us any favors in that regard.

We can kind of picture God reaching out right with his finger.

That doesn't mean that God has body parts, but this is an idiom.

This is an expression.

This is the idea is that Jesus is being elevated and enthroned at a cosmic scale.

To be exalted to a king's right hand is to say you have been granted the highest authority that a king can grant you.

Jesus has been elevated to a throne of cosmic proportion.

And no doubt Paul has it in his mind as he's writing these words, Psalm 110, which we read this morning together.

Psalm 110 is a key text in the Old Testament that points forward to God's promised Savior.

And it tells us about this future Savior and what this future savior is going to do.

And it says, This Savior will sit at my, that is God's right hand.

He will sit at God's right hand until God makes your enemies your footstool.

You will reign and rule over everything, and there will be nothing that can triumph over you.

That's the idea here.

Ruler art thou of heaven and sky, the Father of all creation, hither and yon the angels fly at thy divine dictation.

Princes obedient to thy word, own thee their sovereign overlords.

Earth, air, fire, and water all bow to thy mighty will.

That's the idea here.

The ascension is Jesus' elevation and his enthronement.

He is elevated to the highest throne that there can be.

And maybe this helps us to visualize the ascension.

Because I know for many of us, the visual of the ascension, what we read in Luke and Acts, is a seriously weird visual.

And we wonder how can we take seriously the idea?

I mean, the resurrection might be a stretch in itself.

Jesus rises to life again, but now you want me to take seriously this idea that Jesus lifted off like a surface-to-air missile?

Like, what is that about?

But if we keep in mind that the ascension is really about Jesus' elevation to this highest throne, then suddenly we can start to make sense of how that gets visualized here for us space-time creatures.

C.S.

Lewis of Chronicles of Narnia fame, he's one of my favorite Christian thinkers.

He writes this about the ascension.

He says Jesus was still in some mode, though not our mode, corporeal.

He had a body.

And he withdrew at his own will from the nature presented by our three dimensions and five senses, not necessarily into the nonsensuous and undimensioned, but possibly into or through a world or worlds of supersense and superspace, that he might choose to do it, and he might choose to do it gradually.

Who on earth knows what the spectators might see if the if they say they saw a momentary movement along a vertical plane, then an indistinct mass, then nothing, who is to pronounce this improbable?

Isn't it appropriate that Jesus' exaltation to the highest throne there is would be visualized by the spectators as him ascending into heaven?

Isn't that appropriate?

That's the idea here.

Jesus has been elevated to the highest throne there is, far above all rule, authority, power, dominion, every name that there is.

That's verse 21.

There is nothing outside of this king's power and authority.

And that means all things are secured under his lordship, even the outcome of history.

Now, thank you.

I was about to say that presents us with a couple of problems.

At least two problems.

The first is maybe more of a philosophical problem for those who are so inclined.

The philosophical problem would be something like this.

I thought power was the problem.

I thought having power, the execution of power, is the problem, so we need to de-scale power if we're going to have any sense of peace or equity.

I heard someone say recently to me that power is the problem with our moment.

And I get what this person's trying to say, but I think more specifically, our problem is not with power in itself as such.

Our problem is with those who execute power, right?

Because the thing the political left and the political right both agree on is that the wrong people have the power, and the right people should have the power, so to speak, right?

Power isn't so much the problem, it's who has the power, and the pro and the promise here is that the one with the highest power, the power over everything that is, who creation was made through, who reigns and rules over creation, this is the best king we could ask for.

The best king has all the power.

This merciful king, Jesus, ever filled with mercy, is the prayer.

Look thou kindly on me.

And the Bible says he does.

The best king, the merciful king, has all the power.

The king who came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom.

That's the king with all the power.

And that's good news if the right person has the greatest power, isn't it?

That's problem number two is maybe more of a practical problem.

The practical problem would be something like this.

Creighton, have you seen the news lately?

Tell me Jesus reigns and rules over everything.

We've seen images coming out of Rafah, right?

We've seen images in Ukraine.

We don't even need to turn on the news, do we?

I know for a fact in this room there are folks facing cancer diagnoses, there are folks whose marriages are in trouble, there are folks who are going through any who've been in the hospital recently.

There are any number of reasons for us to say this does not feel like Jesus reigns and rules over everything, or if he does, it's a pretty impotent reign.

That's a problem, isn't it?

How can there be suffering if Jesus reigns?

Now, God's word in Scripture has an answer for suffering, but it's not necessarily the answer we would expect from it or request from it.

The answer we find in God's word in Scripture to suffering is not a Rubik's Cube solution that unlocks the intellectual problem of evil.

Instead, it's a promise.

It's a promise that the outcome of all history has been secured by the best king who reigns on the highest throne.

The last chapters of this of Scripture point us forward to a day when Christ reigns on earth as he currently reigns from heaven, and when heaven and earth come together climactically at the end of history as we understand it, we see a we hear a loud voice from the throne of God saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be more no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

See, here's the promise, the answer that God's word in Scripture gives to suffering, that the ascended Lord Jesus will not leave suffering unanswered.

But because the best king reigns from the highest throne, the outcome of history is under his authority, and he will see that every piece of suffering that we experience presently will be answered, and will give way to a greater weight of glory than we could otherwise expect.

We get a story.

We get a story that gives us hope to work through and persevere through our present sufferings in this age of ours.

It doesn't solve the problem intellectually, but who are we to treat suffering and pain like it's an intellectual problem to solve?

We have a promise to cling to.

One person who clinged to that promise in the darkest of days was named Cori Tenboom.

Cori Tenboom lived in the Netherlands under Nazi occupation in the Second World War.

She lost many members of her family to the Nazi occupation, including her very, very dear sister.

She writes her book The Hiding Place, describing her experience sheltering Jews and making sure they escaped Europe safely.

There's one scene in the hiding place in particular where Tenboom describes a time where she spoke to a group of children.

She unfolded a purple cloth with a mess of hundreds of colorful strings tied in knots and pulled through the cloth.

The cloth displayed confusion, and there seemed to be no clear purpose for the strings.

They all seemed to be tangled together.

Then Tenboom turned over the messy cloth and revealed a magnificent tapestry of a gold crown and multicolored jewel.

Jewels and gems.

And then Cory Tenboom said to the children, This is what God sees from his perspective a masterpiece.

This is what inspired the famous poem My life is but a weaving between my God and me.

I do not choose the colours, he worketh steadily.

Oft times he weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride, forgets he sees the upper, and I the underside.

Not till the loom is silent, the shuttles cease to fly, will God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why?

The dark threads are as needful in the skillful weaver's hand as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern he has planned.

Do you see the hope that Cory Tenboom held on to in the darkest of days, the darkest days of our last century?

It was the hope that the ascended Lord Jesus sees the pattern of all history, that he has secured the outcome of all history, because the best king reigns on the highest throne that there is, and it is this hope that gave Cory Tenboom the hope to persevere through the suffering that she experienced, and that can be our hope as well.

Jesus' ascension is good news, because the best king who reigns on the highest throne has secured a happy outcome for all history.

So if you're a believer today, if you have placed your trust in Christ, the news gets even better because Christ, who reigns and rules over everything, is not a distant monarch, disinterested and only interested in the cosmic scale things.

Paul actually says that he has united himself with us, that he was given as a gift to the church, which is his body.

We are spiritually and vitally united with Christ.

Our lives are so intertwined with Christ that you cannot contemplate Christ without contemplating his people, the church.

Such is how he's given himself to us.

And because he has united the church to himself, he draws the church together in love.

That's what we read in verse 15.

If you're figuring out who this Jesus guy is, if the ascension just seems like this is just too good to be true, maybe I would encourage you to do this.

Consider what made Bach take the time to write this oratorio.

He was not bored and looking for something to do, was he?

This was purposeful.

What difference did the hope of the ascension make to Bach's life?

What difference could it make to yours and to mine?

So much more than celebrating Jesus working from home.

The ascension is good news because the best king who reigns on the highest throne has secured a happy outcome for all history, and that includes our stories as well.

This is God's freely given promise, which you can receive today by putting your faith in Jesus.

And when this hope is yours, no matter how dark the days may seem, we can say together, When will the day be dawning?

When will the hour be?

Thou day when wilt thou be, thou day when I shall meet him, and as my Savior greet him.

Come happy day, come soon.

Praise to God in highest heaven.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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