Here's one of those times I spoke of earlier
Christ is risen All right, we're gonna try this
again because the day is ascension Sunday I'm
gonna say Christ is risen and you're gonna say
he is ascended Christ is risen Excellent let
us now pray Almighty God grant us such faith
and your only son our Savior who is ascended
into heaven, that we may live each day with our
hearts and spirits fixed on Him as King and Lord
of all. We ask now that you would make the words
of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts
pleasing and acceptable to you for the sake of
Jesus Christ, our King and Lord. Amen. Again
now let us hear our gospel reading Luke 24 beginning
with verse 44. and of course this is Jesus. Then
he said to them, these are the words which I
spoke to you while I was still with you, that
all things must be fulfilled which were written
in the law of Moses and the prophets and the
Psalms concerning me. And he opened their understanding
that they might comprehend the scriptures. Then
he said to them, thus it is written, and thus
it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and
to rise from the dead the third day. and that
repentance and remission of sins should be preached
in His name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.
And you are witnesses of these things. Behold,
I send the promise of my Father upon you, but
tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you have
been endued with power from on high. And He led
them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up
His hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass
that while He blessed them, He was parted from
them and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped
Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.
And were continually in the temple, praising
and blessing God. And it finishes with the word,
Amen. This is the truth of Almighty God. Receive
it in your hearts. There's three things that
I want you to think about as we look at this
passage. And that is Christ ascended is the setting
of all things right. Christ ascended is the setting
of all things right. Secondly Christ ascended
is an assurance. Christ ascended is an assurance.
And finally Christ ascended means that we live
as His vassal. Christ ascended means we live
as His vassal. And if you don't know what a vassal
is, we're going to get to that shortly. 40 days
after Christ's resurrection, He ascended from
the earth to the right hand of the Father. 40
days after resurrection Sunday was this past
Thursday. So this Lord's Day, we commemorate
Jesus' ascension. Jesus was raised up on the
cross. He was raised up from the dead and is
raised up to the right hand of the Father. Now
we all understand that the right hand has historically
always been the place of authority and power.
It emanates from the throne, but the right hand
is from which all authority for that throne comes
from. It is fitting that our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ's mission for the redemption of
his people and for all of creation Begins and
ends in heaven it is actually anchored in heaven
and This is one of our insurances our lives are
not anchored to this world but to heaven Our
lives are anchored in this way in his ascension
Jesus is crowned as King over all things, thus
setting right order and purpose in all of creation.
From creation, man was made to rule over the
world and all that was in it. And our first covenant
head, Adam, who was given dominion over all creation
and told us to do it and be free to fill the
earth. And in this, he failed. covetously seeking
to preserve his own life and disobeyed at a tree.
Jesus the second Adam and our covenant head of
the church sought the redemption of men to his
death and obeyed even on a tree. Jesus did not
fail but was raised for the glory of God and
praise God for our benefit. Jesus loved God and
obey God, trusting the Father to raise Him up
in vindication and seat Him at His right hand
with all authority in heaven and earth. Now every
person in history is subject to Jesus whether
or not they think so. The world and everything
in it is His. All that we have been given to
us As vassal lords, we will give an account for
what we have done with what God has bestowed
upon us. Now, kids, you say, OK, I'm going to
explain vassal lord in just a second. But God
gives us things we're responsible for. And children
out there, young people, your number one thing
for you. To show your kingship under King Jesus
is to joyfully obey your parents Right away and
take care of all that he has done for you You've
already been baptized his name has been placed
upon you every week. You come in confess the
Lord and confess your sins Dearly beloved everyone
has a king they follow the only question is Which
king do they follow whom? Do they serve? Webster's
1828 dictionary, and as I've told you before,
you can consider that the dictionary of the Bible.
But it defines a vassal as a tenant who holds
land of a superior and who vows fidelity and
homage to that superior. As a Christian, we have
been delegated authority for all that God has
bestowed into our care. And we are to do this
with fidelity and homage to King Jesus. And as
you recall from last week, Jesus said to his
disciples in John 14, right? And that means not
just to his disciples, but to all of us in the
church, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
In Ephesians chapter 2 we see and hear that God
has raised us up together and made us sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the
ages to come that He might show the exceeding
riches of His grace and His kindness to us in
Christ Jesus. Because of the work of King Jesus
we are raised up with Him in heavenly places
and sit together with Him so that God may what?
Demonstrate his exceeding riches of grace and
his kindness to us in Christ Jesus We are co
-heirs with Christ Jesus Now of course the idea
of a king can be appealing a good king anyway
Right a good king will lead and restrain evil
And we enjoy that idea that our king that is
Jesus, is Lord over all things. And we look forward
to the great eschatological end of history as
described in Philippians chapter 2, where all
of mankind since creation with their knees bowed
and all their tongues confess that Jesus is Lord,
that Jesus is truly the King. We know that on
that day Jesus will be in fact vindicated over
all men. And in that day, it will be demonstrated
that Jesus is Lord, both by actions, a bended
knee, and by words, confession of their mouth.
Now when we look around us, what do we see? We
see raging neighbors and godless, raging nations
and godless neighbors who serve other kings.
Some of who are actively plotting and conspiring
against God and His anointed Son. his church.
Sometimes we even publicly hear them declaring
that they will break their bonds that constrain
them and cast away God's control over them. They
live as if Jesus is not King. They live as if
Jesus is not Lord over all men and all creation.
We as God's people must not fall into the same
snare. We must beware that Jesus is both our
Savior and King right now in our lives. The Christian
life means both confession and forsaking sin.
The Christian life means that Jesus is in charge.
We are truly vassals to King Jesus. He has called
us by His grace found in the work of Christ Jesus.
given the responsibility in these world. And
we are called to fidelity and homage to our King.
So part of this is you have to realize it's all
given to him. How does God work out his authority?
How does he work out all of his enemies being
put under his footstool, being put under his
feet? He works that out by his mighty hand through
his church. So we are called to fidelity and
homage to King Jesus. Our gospel reading today
records the account of Jesus' ascension. It tells
of Jesus' explanation of the scriptures that
they were all about them. If you want to be a
good vassal to King Jesus, you need to know His
word. You need to be continuously listening to
it, reading it, discussing it, teaching it. And
most importantly, because don't let this be an
intellectual thing, but may it be a thing of
your action, taking God's word and doing it.
Jesus tells them that in their understanding
of the scriptures, they are to take the gospel
message of which they're eyewitnesses by their
preaching to the whole world and by their way
of life. And it becomes a declaration. to all
nations. Our lesson reading from Acts chapter
1, which just as a note, is the second half of
the Gospel of Luke. Beginning in Acts chapter
1 verse 9 says, now when Jesus had spoken these
things while they watched, he was taken up. And
a cloud received him out of their sight. And
of course, then they're looking steadfastly.
This is a real important thing to make note of.
This word received. into the cloud means with
extreme to receive a person in this way is to
receive them with great hospitality. Jesus brought
into God's presence to his throne room, not just
as if, okay, he's floating on a cloud going over
here. No, no, he is brought and given and brought
in under God's great blessing and hospitality
and placed at his right hand. The second thing
that we see here is it tells us that they were
standing there gazing up at the heaven. The gospel
is not about you feeling good about what Jesus
is doing. I mean, I can only imagine what that
was like, standing there watching Jesus go up,
watching the cloud open up, which is referencing
the glory cloud of God that we see in the Old
Testament leading the people of God. Jesus goes
up there. I can imagine how great that is. People
of God, you can't go around saying, man, I feel
so good about my faith. No, we have a calling
to go and proclaim that gospel and live it as
vassal lords to King Jesus. All of this that
is happening in Acts and in Luke here fulfills
the vision of Daniel chapter 7. Here this is
Daniel speaking. He says I was watching the night
visions and behold one like the son of man Coming
with the clouds of heaven he came to the ancient
of days He came to the ancient of days and they
brought him near before him then to him he was
given dominion and glory and a kingdom People
of God why was this dominion and glory given?
It says, Daniel goes on, that all peoples, nations,
and languages should serve Him. And what level
of authority is given Jesus at His ascension?
It says this, going on in Daniel, His dominion
is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass
away, and His kingdom the one which shall not
be destroyed. Jesus' ascension is the culmination
and coronation where He He both reigns and makes
intercession for his people. Elsewhere we see
in Revelations chapter 12, we see the summary
of Jesus' life. Here now, beginning of verse
1. Now a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman
clothed with the sun and moon under her feet,
under her head a garland of twelve stars. Then
being with child, she cried out in labor and
in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared
in heaven, behold a great fiery red dragon having
seven heads and ten thorns and seven diadems
in his head. And his tail drew a third of the
stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.
And the dragon stood before the woman who was
ready to give birth to devour her child as soon
as it was born. She bore a male child who was
to rule all nations with a rod of iron. and her
child was caught up to God and is thrown. Remember
in the scriptures that the sun, the moon, and
the stars are often symbols of earthly leaders.
Who are these leaders? Well, Satan spurred Herod
to devour Jesus. Satan spurred the high priests,
Herod and Pilate, to kill Jesus. In Christ's
death and resurrection, Satan and all those who
conspired and took counsel together We're defeated
Then Jesus was caught up to the right hand of
the father to rule the nations with a rod of
iron And that of course reminds us of Psalm 2
Jesus God says I've already he laughs at everyone
conspiring Because he's already set his on the
throne. He's gonna rule with that iron rod And
that sounds harsh at first But remember, there
is grace found in Psalm chapter 2. It says this
at the end of Psalm 2. Now therefore be wise,
O kings. Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the sun, lest he be angry, and you perish
in your way, when his wrath is kindled but a
little. Blessed are all those who put their trust
in Him. There at the very place where God establishes
the authority of King Jesus, He extends grace
and mercy to the repentant. We can be subject
to King Jesus and trust in Him and we will be
blessed. The ascension is the glorious coronation
of Jesus and He ascends into that cloud. And
all of this a great joy It is a great joy. What
a great assurance and comfort it is to the church
Our King sits on the throne of heaven and all
authority in heaven and on earth has been given
to him Because Jesus is king there is an ethic
for you and I his church and This ethic is for
us to live as his vassal You see all of you were
baptized into Christ this remote reminds us of
Romans 6 We were baptized into Christ Jesus and
we were baptized into his death Therefore we
were buried with him baptism into death That
just as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the father Even so we also should walk
in the newness of life. We are called to walk
in the newness of life To walk in obedience to
the word taking responsibility for all that God
has given us to His glory. As servants of the
King, God is calling us to newness of life, and
that is an ongoing maturing in Christ. From our
baptism, we are to live knowing that we're not
just living for the King, but we are to be in
Christ, to be conformed to God's standard in
our daily lives. in every single realm that God
has given you. Again, children, look up here.
What realm has God given you? What kingdom? Joyful
obedience to your parents. Calling on the Lord
Jesus. Believing God's word. Keeping your rooms
clean. Keeping things tidy when you're told to.
I'm okay with you playing and having a good time
making a mess. Then what do you do? You clean
it up. Because God has given you that realm to
care for. That extends to you parents, too. The
condition of your house, the condition of your
yard, right? If someone were to die today and
they walked in your place, would they know you
were a Christian? Listen. We must understand.
that we are to be conformed to God's standard
in every single realm that God has bestowed to
us in the sovereign providence. And that's really
important. You see, how many of you guys are
happy with every particular area of your life?
All of them. Right? You like them all? You need
to understand something. Those hardships, that
is God's providence for you. and He's given you
a realm and a responsibility in it. We must evaluate
our heart motives, our life actions, and our
words to God's plumb line. Dearly beloved, Colossians
chapter three reminds us of this, says it in
a different way. It says, if they were raised
with Christ, seek those things which are above
where Christ is sitting at the right hand of
God. Again, you have this. understanding Christ
set the right hand of God you've been raised
with him it says set your mind on things above
not things on earth for you died and your life
is hidden with Christ Jesus now this is really
important right when he says your life is hidden
in Christ Jesus that means your salvation is
held by his authority your life and the hard
providences, and the good providences, and all
the things He has given to you, all that is secured,
hidden in Christ Jesus. And then it says, when
Christ who is our life appears, then you will
also appear with Him in glory. You'll be addressed
and held to account for this. Therefore, put
to death Your members which are on the earth,
that is, he's talking about sinfulness, fornication,
uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and covetousness,
which is idolatry. God here tells us that we
are raised with Christ. And because we are raised
with Christ, we need to seek the things that
are above where Christ is sitting at the right
hand with all authority, power, and dominion.
So we are to live each day knowing and believing
Jesus is King with actions consistent to our
petition for God's will to be done on earth as
it is in heaven. I want to say that again. Weird
to live each day knowing and believing that Jesus
is King with actions consistent with our petitions
for God's will to be done on earth as it is in
heaven. This can only be done because we died
in our life. is hidden with Christ in God. We
are told that we must put to death or mortify
our sins. And there are three ways that we mortify
our sins. Three ways. First is conversion. Galatians
chapter four tells us that our conversion, Christ
has delivered us from reigning sin and we are
no longer in bondage but delivered from our sins.
The second way that we put our sins to death
is by taking an assessment and sometimes we find
a backlog of unconfessed sins. So we must, as
Colossians 3 says, mortify our sin and walk away
from it. You know, I've used this illustration
before, but our lives are like a garden, right?
And sin are like weeds. They choke out the good
life and the fruitfulness. Ladies and gentlemen,
if you don't look at God's word and run one line
of God's expectations to you, you're going to
have weeds growing all over the place choking
out your fruitfulness, even if you want it to
be fruitful. We must confess our sins. We must
pull those weeds out and then walk away. Don't
do this. Don't pull them out. Have this big pile
sit next to the garden of your life. What happens
there? You keep all your sin on the edge. I guarantee
you a bunch of those weeds lying on the side
are going to jump back into the garden. Pick
them up and throw them away. The third way is
this, is to mortify our son as Don Daly and our
ongoing walk with God. Using the same metaphor
as the garden, we need to go out and Daly pull
those weeds out. Now, this is really done in
two ways. And this is really important. We must
do morning prayers and evening prayers. Our morning
prayers are in preparation for the day. Right?
Lord, these are all things I have to do today.
Bring your blessing. Help me to obey. Right?
And then at the end, you say your evening prayers.
Lord, thank you for your great blessings, your
providence today. Good, bad, hard. Beautiful,
joyous, all those things. Now, Lord, did I live
up to what you asked me to do? Did I act as a
vassal, Lord, in those responsibilities today?
Did I grumble and complain? Am I angry? It's
an assessment at the end. Confess your sins.
It's weeding in the morning and weeding in the
night. I don't know if you've ever had a garden,
but I can tell you, I've gone out and weeded
a garden in the morning early, and then when
I got home at night, there were more weeds there.
In this, we must consider several other things.
One, we have to be moral before God. That sounds
like going without saying. But we must avoid
moralism. Moralism is avoiding things we wish
we didn't have to avoid. wishing that we could
do what unbelievers do. We covet their ability
to sin or their ability to seemingly walk through
ignorance. They seem perfectly fine from our
distance. It's living suspecting that unbelievers
are having a good time and so moralism wants
to put a stop to sin because it is envious. I
can tell you I personally have experienced this.
Moralism is impotent and unable to produce any
good For those in the church we can fall into
sin as God describes in Deuteronomy chapter 8
It is the sin of forgetting what God has given
us salvation by means of God declaring them his
people in Deuteronomy chapter Moses is saying,
hey, God made this covenant with you, and God
gives a warning. You know what's going to happen?
You're going to go in. You're going to start
receiving all these blessings. Things are going
to be good and going your way. And then you're
going to start saying, well, I did this. You're
not going to remember what God did, how He pulled
you out of the depths of despair and slavery
and delivered you and provided everything for
you and gave you this land for what? Everything
that he gives you, is it for your glory and for
your benefit, and you think you did all this?
In verse 19 of Deuteronomy 8, God says, then
it shall be if by any means, if any of you, excuse
me, then it shall be if you by any means forget
Yahweh your God and follow other gods and serve
them and worship them, I testify against you
this day that you will surely perish. Right now,
many of you have walked with God for some time.
You've accomplished much by the grace of God.
You come to church every week, and God renews
His covenant with you corporately. And His people,
for you are His people, His corporate people,
for the sake of Christ Jesus. And then you flow
out of church to the outposts of your households.
And there you have personal devotions and prayers
and family worship and podcasts and books. There
is confession of sin in your homes. But sometimes
we fall in the trap of saying, I've done so much
in eradicating sin that we grow complacent. We
act as if we are good and satisfactory in our
fidelity and homage to our King. I want you to
think briefly of King Josiah. Second Chronicles
chapter 34 tells the story of King Josiah. Now
many of you know King Josiah was declared a good
king. He wasn't a perfect king, but he was a
good king. And part of that was because he lived
as his father David, who again was not a perfect
king. But he confessed his sins and he went continuously
trying to conform himself to God's Word. And
think about Psalm 119 written. about knowing
and loving and living and walking in God's Word.
So King Josiah, he goes down and he does great
things. He burns down the high places, people
worshiping God like they wanted. It says that
he went after the idols and the bales. Every
kind of description of the different kinds of
graven images. He took them all. He burned them
up. He threw all the ashes. from all these things
and desecrated him by throwing him into the cemeteries
of the pagans. Man, he even went the extra mile.
And right before he destroyed the altars of Baal,
it says that he killed the prophets of Baal.
They could have repented, but he killed them.
He burned them up, and then threw their ashes.
their bones through their ashes into that cemetery
of the unbelievers. He does all of this, and
then he goes and starts going out and restoring
the temple. Man, we gotta have right worship.
Gotta do this. And he does all this. Now, I would
say that if you look at all the kings throughout
the history of Israel, this guy got after it.
He's trying to do the right thing. And then one
day, as they're restoring the temple, they find
the scroll of the law, and they bring it to the
king, and he reads it. He's like, holy smokes,
it rips and tears his robe. He's rending his
heart. He's caught to the heart because he realized,
in spite of all this stuff that he had done in
honor of God and rightly, he still They still
as the people of God did not measure up and worship
God rightly they weren't walking in obedience
to him You know all of this is to say You know
on how do you guys there for Lord's Day worship?
If this is the center of where everything emanates
out of for the rest of your life. How do you
prepare? We've encouraged you To read the scriptures
ahead of time, we put those out for you. Do you
go to bed in a timely fashion so that you can
get up joyful and not be tired? I'm not talking
about providentially, Henry, your kid wakes up
in the middle of the night and throwing up or
something. No, I'm talking about that. But do
you prepare for the Lord's Day as if it is the
center from which your life comes from? This
is the place where we corporately worship together.
Are you cut to the heart, and like Josiah, make
changes in your daily life, living as a vassal
king to Jesus? Do you make King Jesus the center
of your words and actions about all people, and
to all people? Now, many of you have identified,
and in some cases, you have destroyed some of
the cultural idols of our times in your household.
What are these two ways? That we mortify sin
one we talked about It starts here before you
daily morning and evening in your own household
You must start by assembling and worship with
God's people in Confession and in covenant renewal
which assists with the second those morning and
evening prayers that preparation of the day and
that evaluation of the day I found it helpful
sometimes to keep a little paper on the side
of my bed, because sometimes I'm up late and
maybe it's not a good time. I realized, you know,
that interaction with my coworker, or that person
today, or my child who's already asleep in the
bed, that wasn't good. And you write a note,
you confess it to God, then you go deal with
it tomorrow. Clear the books. Do you ask yourself
how did I live? Did I live as a faithful vassal
or as an independent kingdom? Did I love and
lead my wife tending to her growth in Christ
with an understanding with grace unto fruitfulness
and all that she has to do? Did you obey and
respect your husband in reverence to God? So
that he might be fruitful in his calling to be
formed to be conformed to Christ Jesus? Children
look up here Children are you joyously obeying
your parents right away and becoming fruitful?
In King Jesus For everyone in the room What of
the authorities in your life your bosses? your
church, the police down the street. Those are
all God's providences in your life. Are you in
biblical submission for their fruitfulness in
King Jesus? Sometimes we wonder where sin is
coming from. We think that we have kept our households
from sinful and wicked things and somehow sin
keeps appearing. It is because they were born
of Adam and nothing earthly can put sin to death.
Not traditional values, not peer pressure, not
Christian education. Our only hope is that we
are being kept in Christ, in God. Because Jesus
is risen, ascended, our life is hidden in Christ.
In Christ is freedom, liberation. morality. We
are called to kiss the Son and be subject to
the King in all areas of our lives. In our own
strength we fail. Our sanctification is weeding
our lives according to God's standards set out
in His Word back to that beginning, right? Jesus
explained this is all about me. So here you are.
Everything we do must be anchored in Christ,
His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
Rejoice! God's grace is for you, saints of God,
because of our Lord and Savior, the ascended
Christ Jesus. Christ ascended! Let us pray. Our
Father, we pray that You would keep us from cluttering
our minds with false hopes, with trying to compel
You or to plead with You to go our own way instead
of Your ordained way, of raising up false hopes
to delude ourselves and others. Grant that our
minds be fixed where our true joys are to be
found, even in Jesus Christ. Grant that our hope
be grounded upon Him and upon Your Word so that
we may see all things clearly and work with knowledge,
and have hope in Jesus our Lord who is King of
all. Amen.