I Believe: Our Ascended Saviour (Ephesians 1:15-23)

Hello, listeners.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsongportperry.ca.

Today we continue our sermon series, I believe, the Apostles' Creed in the Christian Life, with our ascended Savior.

Let me offer a prayer.

This is a the traditional collect for Ascension Day from the prayer book.

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to have ascended into the heavens, so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.

Amen.

Please be seated.

I love that collect.

I love that collet because I don't get to say thither every day.

But I love that collect because it situates our hearts in the hope of the ascension.

See, in the last number of weeks, together as a parish, we've been exploring this great map of our biblical faith called the Apostles' Creed.

We get to say the Apostles' Creed is an act of worship and confession as a church.

Today we'll say the Nicene Creed, which is an expansion, as it were, of the Apostles' Creed that's associated with the Eucharist liturgy.

But we confess our faith in the words of the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed as we proclaim the hope of the gospel.

We proclaim what we know to be true in Scripture.

In the last number of weeks together, we've been exploring those articles related in particular to our Lord Jesus.

We looked together at his incarnation, his virgin birth.

For us and for our salvation, he took on flesh and dwelt among us.

We looked also at his crucifixion, his substitutionary death.

He took on our sin and our iniquity, so that by his wounds we might be healed.

And last Sunday together we beheld his resurrection.

That we who share in a death like his will most certainly share in a resurrection like his.

We saw that gospel proclamation is resurrection proclamation.

And now we arrive at that article in the Creed that has to do with the ascension.

And if you're anything like me, you're sort of, you feel like you've been scaling the Himalayan heights of biblical truth, the incarnation and the crucifixion and the resurrection.

And then you arrive at the ascension and you kind of go, oh yeah, that too.

Sure.

I mean, it makes sense.

Jesus isn't physically present among us.

We believe he's risen, but he's not physically present here.

I guess he has to be somewhere.

So, yeah, the the article on the ascension, that that tells us that 40 days after Easter, just like we read on Luke chapter 24, and it's parallel in Acts 1, that tells us that Jesus has been carried up into heaven.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

That makes sense, maybe.

It kind of seems like a, well, maybe it seems kind of like a grand finale, kind of like a final flourish, right?

Kind of like a like an up up and away after quite a gospel story here.

Sometimes we're not quite sure where to situate the ascension in the story of the gospel.

One theologian named uh Michael Horton, he puts it this way, he's considering what it is, well, some of the confusion that surrounds Christ's ascension.

He has this to say.

Christ's ascension is not merely an exclamation point to his resurrection.

He goes on to say that the ascension of Christ actually created a new state of affairs in the world.

It not only happens within history, it is a historical event, but it transforms history in the process.

The kingdom of heaven descends to earth in the person of its king and now returns through the triumphal ark of heaven with our flesh and our history raised to his eschatological glory.

Here's what Michael Horton is saying.

He's saying that the ascension is not just a final flourish, it's not just an up, up and away.

But rather, in the ascension and through the ascension, a new state of affairs has been called into being.

Christ the Savior reigns and rules.

That's why J.I.

Packer says that the message of the ascension is Christ the Savior reigns.

Christ's ascension is his enthronement.

To celebrate the ascension is to celebrate the fact that Christ reigns and rules over all things.

Christ has ascended, he's been taken up into heaven, where God dwells in everlasting glory, and he's seated at the Father's right hand, the place of highest authority, where Scripture tells us He intercedes for us.

He bears us up before the Father.

Christ the Savior reigns.

This is the wonderful truth we see in Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter 1, the beginning of Paul's letter to this church in Ephesus.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

It's probably written about 25 or 30 years after Christ's crucifixion, resurrection.

It gives us a window into Paul's prayer life, but it tells us that Paul has a wonderful and powerful understanding of Christ's ascension.

Maybe something that'll surprise us.

He's telling the Ephesians that I'm thankful for you and I remember you in my prayers.

If we were among the Ephesian church, we might say, Well, what are you praying for us, Paul?

He'd say this I'm praying that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ may, and these are my words, may illumine your hearts by the Holy Spirit such that you may personally know, that you may apprehend for yourself, among other things, the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who trust in the Lord Jesus.

Specifically, the kind of power he's talking about is number one, a resurrection power.

He says that this is the power worked in Christ when God raised him from the dead.

This is a life defeats death kind of power that Paul is talking about.

But surprisingly enough, right next to that, Paul says, this is the kind of power I'm praying for you, the kind of power that we see in Christ when God seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.

This immeasurable greatness of God's power is seen in the resurrection, but it's seen in the ascension as well, where Christ now sits at the Father's right hand.

This is a sovereign power.

This is a reigning and ruling over all things kind of power.

This is a good conquers evil kind of power.

So Paul is praying that God shows the Ephesian Church the sovereign power of our ascended Savior.

I can think of no greater prayer for us here at New Song.

That today God would show us something of the immeasurable greatness of his power worked in Christ at his ascension, a reigning and ruling power.

See, the ascension tells us that Christ reigns far above all things.

It tells us that Christ reigns forever, and it tells us that Christ's reign fills the church.

And this is important for us to consider, friends, as we gather here in person or we gather online.

Because Paul goes on to say in chapter 2 that God has seated us in Christ with him in the heavenly places.

We share in Christ's reign and in his rule and in his kingdom.

Considering Christ's ascension is considering our hope, his reign.

It's not just a bonus to the gospel, the ascension.

It is good news.

That's why Jesus says it is good that I go to my Father.

For us, this is good news.

Our ascended Savior reigns.

He reigns far above.

This is what Paul says.

Let's zoom in on verse 21.

Paul says that Christ reigns far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named.

This is language of highest exaltation.

This is the language of preeminence, of being in first place, being the king of the mountain of everything.

One friend of mine would probably say this in response to this verse.

He'd say, This verse means Jesus is large and in charge.

I think that's fair to say.

Jesus exercised an authority over everything.

He doesn't compete.

This is Paul's biblical imagination, it runs deep.

And I suspect running in Paul's imagination right now is our chapter, our Old Testament reading, Daniel chapter 7.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

Surprisingly enough, this is a very key chapter in the history of Scripture, in the story of our redemption.

Daniel is in exile in this very brutal power, this brutal place called Babylon.

And here Daniel has a vision, a vision of things to come.

He says, I saw in the night visions, behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, someone who belongs to humanity, is what he's saying.

He came to the ancient of days.

He was presented before him, and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, and all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

So the question that looms over this passage for centuries is who is this Son of Man?

And how is it that someone who can belong to humanity can be exalted to the highest conceivable place of authority there is, at the right hand of God Almighty?

What comes along Jesus, whose favorite title for himself is Son of Man.

God, the word, become flesh.

This Jesus is exalted to the clouds of heaven in his ascension, and is presented before the Father of glory and given everlasting dominion and glory and kingdom to the defeat of chaotic and evil beasts.

The Son of Man is exalted far above everything else, and we meet this Son of Man in Jesus.

In Paul's own Ephesian context, he's writing to a first century church in Ephesus.

He's saying that Jesus is above every name that should be named.

There's a lot of names named in Ephesus.

There's probably a lot of names named in our own culture today as well.

One of those names was Artemis.

We can read a little bit about that in Acts chapter 19.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

Paul's proclamation of the gospel in Acts chapter 19, one, liberates a young woman from demonic oppression, but two causes a riot in Ephesus.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

And this frenzied mob spends hours chanting, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.

That's not, it doesn't really roll off the tongue, but here they are.

They're proclaiming that for hours on end.

In other words, this crowd is saying, There's no greater name in Ephesus than Artemis.

I mean, Ephesus was known for the temple of Artemis.

That's this was the kind of center of pagan culture here.

Paul is saying to this church, gathered in Ephesus, there is no greater name than the name proclaimed in Jesus.

Jesus sits on the throne, and he is exalted far above all others.

There is no competition.

Our exalted Savior is exalted far above every power, every dominion.

There is no competition for his sovereignty.

So the Ephesians chanted Artemis, great as Artemis of the Ephesians.

I suspect no one here is inclined to start chanting Artemis, you know, when things go sour for us.

But I suspect we do have names that we name, don't we?

We have idols in our hearts.

The Ephesians trusted for Artemis for their security and their identity and their purpose.

But I suspect we've got those names that tend to roll off our tongue when things are going sour for ourselves.

Are we willing to submit our highest allegiance to our ascended and risen Lord?

Are we willing to submit ourselves completely to him who sits on the throne of everything?

That's the call of Jesus sovereignty.

He reigns far above all else.

He reigns forever.

This is a quick phrase, it's easy to glaze over it, but it's so important.

Paul says that Jesus reigns far above all else, not only in this age, he says, but also in the one to come.

Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities, but the Bible, we could say, is a book, is a tale of two ages.

There's this present age that we live in now, and there's an age to come.

This present age is spans from creation all the way to Christ's second coming.

And since the fall of our first parents into sin, it's characterized by evil.

Paul writes in his greetings to the church in Galatia that the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this evil age, this present evil age.

It's an age where we encounter evil.

I suspect we know that personally for ourselves.

We know what it is to encounter the way things aren't supposed to be.

The other thing that characterizes this present age is suffering.

Jesus says in Mark chapter 10, he's speaking to his disciples, Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, all the things that are precious to us, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children in lands with persecutions in the age and in the age to come eternal life.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

See, Jesus promises us that though following him is worth it, it will come with suffering.

It'll come with persecution.

This present age is characterized by a combination of evil and suffering.

In this age, Jesus' reign is real.

His kingdom is present tense.

It's not future tense.

Jesus sits on the throne presently, but his kingdom in this present age is an already not yet kind of kingdom.

It's a kingdom that's been secured, but it's a kingdom that is breaking into creation through grace.

And so we anticipate an age to come, an age where this kingdom is going to be fully realized.

An age that'll be inaugurated, realized, consummated at his second coming, and will go into all eternity.

That's where you get this fancy word eschatological, which is a$5 word you can drop at a party to impress people, I suppose.

But it means of the last things.

His kingdom is going to be the final age, fully realized.

That's why Paul writes in Romans chapter 8, that right now creation creation itself will be set free from its current bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

This is going to be a glorious age, the age to come.

In Mark chapter 10, verse 30, we just read it, Jesus says, the age to come will bring eternal life.

Mark 10:30

In this age, Jesus, or pardon me, in this future age, Jesus' reign is just as real as it is now, though in this age to come, faith will be made sight.

Evil will finally and completely be conquered, and Jesus will reign not just in grace, but in glory.

One player has been outmatched.

The outcome of this game is certain.

One player is going to take victory.

But it's not checkmate yet.

The last move hasn't been played.

In fact, there might be a few more aggressive and offensive moves that the opponent can make, but the outcome is secure.

The pieces are positioned such that victory is a certainty.

And such is the case with our Lord Jesus' ascension.

In his resurrection and ascension, he's secured victory.

Period.

He reigns even while the enemy rages, even while we experience present evil and suffering, Christ sits on the throne.

He rules over all.

But unlike in chess, when the game is resolved, it doesn't conclude.

It goes on forever.

In glorious hope.

In the words of C.S.

Lewis, it we go further up and further in for all eternity with our risen and conquered Lord, conquering Lord Jesus.

Our ascended Lord Jesus, our Savior, reigns forever in this age and in the age to come.

And Christ's ascended range is the hinge between these two ages, this present age and this age to come.

Again, Michael Horton writes, Because of the ascension, there is now present, even in this passing evil age, a new order at work, an underground resistance to the principalities and powers of sin and death.

It is the ascension that grounds the struggle of the church militant and guarantees that one day it will share fully in the triumph of its king.

Friends, we are pilgrims from this age to the age to come.

We journey as those not without hope.

We journey along with creation which groans for a day when it will be fully liberated, and so too we as the church gather as those anticipating this age to come, when our ascended, forever reigning Savior secures his glorious kingdom.

So in this present age, it belongs to us to put off sin which hinders us, to put behind us the things that are passing away with this present evil age, and fix our eyes on Jesus, who has inaugurated this kingdom, and to see this kingdom realized more and more in this our parish and in our community.

We are a pilgrim community journeying from this age and into the next.

And I suspect this is partly why Paul wants us to know that Christ's reign is far above everything else.

It lasts forever, but his reign fills the church.

See, we'll talk more about what it means to be the Holy Catholic Church when we arrive at that article, but for now Paul wants us to see the very vital connection between our identity as the church and our ascended Savior.

Paul writes, verse 22, and he, that is the Father of glory, put all things under Christ's 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.

Paul calls the church Christ's body.

Christ's reign is not a distant thing.

It is not a far off over the mountains kind of thing.

Rather, it's a reign realized in his body, the church.

What greater identification could there be?

That's why I think when Jesus first appears to Paul, when he's persecuting the church under the name Saul, Jesus, the risen Jesus, appears to Saul and he says, Why are you persecuting me?

Not why are you persecuting those Christians, not why are you persecuting this, you know, kind of strange volunteer society?

No, why are you persecuting me?

The church is his body.

He's intimately mysteriously.

Identified with it, spiritually so.

That's why Paul will go on to say in Ephesians chapter 4, he calls Christians to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

A Christian's job is to grow up into its head, to understand its place in the body and its interdependence within the body.

We cannot live the Christian life alone, saints.

That's a contradiction in terms to say, I, you know, I'm a Christian, but I kind of just do it on my own.

There's no such thing.

We belong to Christ's body.

We are called to be Christ's body right here at 14460 Simco.

We are called to be the body of Christ.

We belong to him.

We're mysteriously united to him, and we are his presence on earth precisely because we are the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Paul wants it to be known that the church is completed with Christ.

It's this word fullness that is so important here.

It's the same word that appears in John chapter 1, verse 16, when John writes that from Christ's fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

John 1:16

It's as though Christ is poured into the world.

His presence is poured into the world through the church by the working and power of the Holy Spirit.

We are united with Him who is the fullness of all things, and we are filled with Him.

That's why we come to church.

You know, we we might like the songs that we sing and we love to catch up with one another, but we come as those to be filled by Christ, and in being filled with Christ, to go out into the world and to be Christ, as it were, to our neighbor.

We come to lift Jesus high as we worship, serve, and grow.

And this fullness will be brought to its fullest fullness in the age to come.

That's why Paul can write that God's purpose in Christ is a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

See, it's this eschatological age, this age to come, this union we share with Christ that is breaking into the present through the mediation of the Holy Spirit in word and in sacrament.

Such is the church's spiritual state of affairs.

We are made to reign spiritually with Christ, even as we await his glorious return when his reign is fully realized on earth as it is in heaven.

Our ascended Savior reigns in and through the church.

We are gathered together as a parish community, as pilgrims in Port Perry, journeying under our ascended Savior's banner from this age into the age to come.

When we gather around the Lord's table, we gather as guests invited to a feast that belongs to an age to come.

And by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, it's as though the age to come is breaking into the present, that we are given a foretaste of what is to come, this everlasting communion and joy with Christ forever.

That's why at the communion table, we as the church declare, Christ will come again.

We're being caught up into the age to come, even as it breaks into the present by grace.

We're those with hope that Christ will reign in glory, even as now he reigns in grace.

So maybe we can see the ascension is a lot more than up, up and away.

Maybe we can see that the message of the ascension, this is our hope as Christians.

He reigns far above all else.

He reigns forever in this age and in the age to come, and his reign fills the earth through the church.

So grant, Lord, that our hearts may ascend and continually dwell with you in the heavenly places.

Amen.