Acts 1:6-11
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Additional context: Watch Spencer Cary's short Trinity summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHOmb2RXdL0
Optional deeper dive on EFS and the Trinity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPJtJwWluy0
Transcript
There are moments in life that you remember that are seared into your mind, whether because they were wonderful or terrible, moments of triumph or heartbreak, moments of deep, deep sadness or deep, deep joy. You remember where you were. You remember what was happening. You remember what you were wearing. You remember who you were talking to. If you will, grab a Bible and go to Acts chapter 1.
We're going to see the disciples in their third of one of these moments in a very tight window of time. So the disciples had been following Jesus. He had been teaching them. So he was a rabbi. But then he starts performing miracles.
So he's more than a rabbi. He's a prophet. But then they realize he's more than a prophet because he's not just doing some of these things. He's not just saying some of these things, but he's raising the dead. He's performing these miracles and he's fulfilling these promises. And there's this hope that he's more.
He's not a prophet. He's the prophet. He's the Messiah. He's the Christ of Israel. He's the one who's going to come redeem Israel, throw off other rulers and governments. He's going to set the people free.
All the promises are going to be fulfilled in him. What an exciting time. Then he's betrayed, arrested, condemned, beaten, mocked, murdered, dead, buried. And all the hope of who he was. If you can imagine the heartbreak and the confusion. How could the Christ die?
How could the Messiah die? How could we be so wrong? How could we have been so confused about this? How could this play out the way it's playing out? And so the disciples would remember. They'd remember what they saw.
They'd remember him on the cross. They'd remember him in the garden. They'd remember him weeping and sweating drops of blood. They'd remember him arrested, beaten. They'd remember him wrapped. They'd remember him buried.
It's in their mind. And then three days later, he appears to them alive. The tomb is empty. When they first hear the news, they think this is crazy talk. But then he appears to them and they see him alive.
And it's not just like once. And it's not just like a rumor. We're told at the beginning of Acts, they see him by many proofs over the course of 40 days. It becomes a reality to them that he's alive. Some of you were shocked that you got the job. But 40 days into the job, you're not still shocked.
You're showing up. You're doing the work. It's become normal. You understand it. And that's the situation we find them here. Now it's absolutely shocked that he's risen from the grave.
But now it's become a part of life. They're seeing him. He's talking to them. He's proving it. He's teaching them he's here. But the resurrection of Jesus is seared into their minds.
And this morning, we're going to read about the ascension where Jesus is talking to them. And then he just ascends, it's very cleverly named. Into heaven. He's talking to them. And then his bodily, he just goes away. And that's the third moment that's going to be clearly seared into their minds.
So we're going to read this whole text and then we're going to work our way back through it. We're going to try to see some of the theological realities of the ascension. And we're going to see the practical nature of it for us as a church, for the church and then for us as a church. So we're going to see Jesus ascend and we're going to see him send. If we want to make this sound more like a sermon, he's going to ascend and send. Or we're going to see the exaltation of the ascension.
And the expectation of the ascension. That's a good one. All right, here we go. Let's read Acts, Chapter one, verses six through eleven. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven, as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.
Take a moment and let's pray. Lord, we ask that you would help us to understand this text. We ask that you would help us to be faithful to the reality of your reign and return. May your Spirit be at work in us in power, in Jesus name. Amen. All right.
Verse six. So when they come together, they ask him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it's not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. So they had planned their thinking he's going to overthrow the Romans. He's going to inaugurate the kingdom. It's going to happen.
He dies. Then he rises. And so in that time, as he's teaching them again, they go now, now are you going to do it? Now, are you going to overthrow the Romans? Now, are you going to set up the kingdom? Now, are you going to restore power to Israel, which is part of the prophetic promises of what the king is going to do.
So they're not far off in the idea of something that the king is going to do, the Messiah is going to do, but they've still missed what Jesus had come to do, which was to offer forgiveness of sins. And so they ask, are you going to do that now? He doesn't say, no, he says it's not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. Which, you know, how often do we still want to ask this question? When is Jesus going to come back? When's it going to look like?
When's he going to set it up? When's all this going to be over? We want the answer to this question. But we shouldn't spend a lot of time on it. There shouldn't be whole ministries devoted to it. There's a book that came out in 1988 or it came out before then, but it was called 88 reasons.
Basically, the title was 88 reasons why Jesus is going to come back in 1988. If you hadn't had a chance to read it yet, I don't want to ruin it for you. But he did not. Sales really plummeted in 1989. We shouldn't spend whole ministries and time on this question. If the disciples don't get to know the times and seasons set by the authority of the Father and John, one of the disciples is going to write the book of Revelation as God reveals all this stuff to him.
If they don't get to know, let's focus on something else. And we're going to see, he tells them what to focus on. He says, but so he says, don't spend your time on that. 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. He tells the disciples, they're going to be empowered by the Spirit.
He's told them what we read last week to wait until the Spirit comes, until they're baptized in the Spirit, then to go. And he's reminding them, you're going to be empowered by the Spirit and then you're going to be my witnesses. So the Spirit is going to empower them to do the work that he has for them, which is to witness to the world. Now, when you get a job, they give you the equipment for the job. You're in high school, you got you a sweet job, that cold stone creamery. You get to meet a lot of people.
It's nice. You're doing something fun, which is handing ice cream. Like how could they be mad at you for this? You just hand them ice cream and maybe you get free ice cream. You don't know you're at orientation. You're hoping fingers crossed.
Fingers crossed, ice cream is part of the gig. And they're like, here, this is your hat. So you don't get hair in the ice cream. Sounds fair. Here's your apron. So you don't get ice cream on yourself.
Sounds fair. Here's your scoop so that you can scoop ice cream. Right? Here's your Glock and your Bulletproof vest. What? Immediately you'd be like, I'm going to let, I'm going to let, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
It's my first day. I'll let you finish, but, but real quick, but also real quick. What? What, what happens at this Cold Stone that I haven't seen at the other Cold Stones? Because you get the equipment, you get equipped for the work. The Holy Spirit empowerment is for the work of witnessing.
The Holy Spirit is going to come. They have to wait on the Spirit. They're not supposed to get started until the Spirit comes. But when the Spirit comes, they're going to witness. And if, if you're not a Christian, if you're here trying to figure this out, if somebody's brought you or invited you, they've been bugging the snot out of you. And you're like, Oh, fine.
You ran out of excuses. I'm so glad you're here this morning. But before you understand the Bible as the word of God, which we do believe it is, and we logically get there, but before you take it as the word of witnesses. That the New Testament is delivered as witnesses. They saw these things. They saw, they heard Jesus teach.
They saw him perform miracles. They saw him brutally murdered. They saw him buried. They saw him after the resurrection. They saw him lift up into the sky. And then they went and told people about it.
And they wrote it down. Do you know that most of everything you believe on the word of witnesses, your understanding of history, your understanding of science, people say, trust the science. What you mean is trust the scientists, the people who did the work. Somebody's, some of you have reported two people this week. You know what I heard? And you're just, you're just quoting some dude from a YouTube video and you're like, you know what they're up to and you're saying it like it's fact, but you're just basing it off of a witness.
I'm going to show y'all a picture. Y'all recognize this picture? Who's that? Who's the tall guy in the middle? George Washington. Do we know what he's doing?
He's crossing the Delaware. Yes. Now y'all know that's not a photograph, right? We don't have any photographs of Washington. How do we know he crossed the Delaware? Now this is Christmas.
He was like, Hey, you know what I think they're doing on Christmas celebrating Christmas, but they're in the wrong country. So let's shoot them. That's what he did. Now, how do we know he did this? People witnessed it and told us about it. I doubt he stood like that, but it's cool in the picture.
They witnessed it. That's how we have information. That's how we have history. And that's how this comes to us is that they went as witnesses to proclaim this message. And before you understand the Bible as God's word, you need to at least take it as the word of witnesses and it has been examined, cross examined, cross, cross examined, cross, cross, cross, cross, examined, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross examined. People don't want this to be true and it holds to the test of time.
So he says, you're going to be witnesses. And he says in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the end of the earth, which is just kind of an outline for the book of Acts. Holy Spirit is going to come. They're going to start in Jerusalem. They're going to move to the areas around Jerusalem, Judea. They're going to move to Samaria where the Samaritans are that they don't like.
And then they're going to move to the ends of the earth. And it doesn't seem like the disciples wrapped their head around at this moment that he doesn't just mean to the Jewish people in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. Because when Samaritans believe and receive the Holy Spirit, they're like, what? That's allowed. And then later Gentiles do and they go, what? That's even worse.
Is that allowed? They have a discussion and they decide that if God did it, then it's probably okay. Like they have a council where they discuss that. But this is going to spread. It's going to expand. They're going to witness further and further out until it reaches the ends of the earth.
And we're going to see is the book of Acts just kind of Spencer talked about it last week, but it's going to it's going to work. And then it just kind of doesn't really end. It's kind of stays open ended. And that's because the work has continued to go to the ends of the earth. Verse nine. So he says, you're going to go be my witnesses.
This is his last commissioning. We have the great commission and then there's commissionings that are listed in all of the gospels. This is his final one. So last thing he says, and it says, and when he had said these things as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. Okay. So he tells them they're going to be his witnesses and then he just leaves.
He goes into a cloud, which is a picture of being welcomed by heaven. It's just going into glory. Sometime later when you're standing outside, just stand and try to picture that from him. What that would look like. He's talking to you and then he just leaves. And when he does this, there's the beginning of some fulfillment of prophecy.
There's this picture that's from the Old Testament that's happening here and that we're going to see continue to be fulfilled. But it's Daniel seven. He says, I saw in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man. He looked like a person and he came to the ancient of days as God the Father and was presented before him and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away in his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. Now that is a bold claim for someone who looks like a person.
That he's going to exist forever. He's going to live forever. That all nations, all peoples, all will start like that's that's bold. He's actually getting things that should be ascribed to God. But then we see, oh, that's this is God in the flesh who ascends.
This is him. He's this is when he looks at the Sanhedrin. He says, you'll see me at the right hand and coming on the clouds with power. He's quoting this and they see the beginning where he's taken up into the cloud and it's like, oh, this is this is him, the son of man. So I want to consider for a moment some of the theological realities around the ascension and we could we could spend weeks on this.
We're not. We're going to move fairly quickly through some of the things that you need to understand. They're going on here in the ascension. The first one that we should consider is that Jesus's role as the suffering servant is complete. His role is the suffering servant from Isaiah who by his wounds, we are healed. The chastisement of us was placed on him when Jesus on the cross and he says it is finished.
His work in humility is finished. His work in suffering is finished. This is where Philippians says that he took on the form of a servant taking on the likeness of men and that he was humbly to the point of death. That's completed. He's exalted now, which is the second part of the reality of the ascension is that his role as a suffering servant, his role in humility is completed and he is taken up into glory, into exaltation that he now reigns as a king, as the king. Psalm 110.1, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
Or Ephesians 1 when it's picking up this idea, talks about the power of God. It says 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 his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. So Jesus is exalted to sit at the right hand of God, to reign as king, to sit on the throne of David, to have a dominion that lasts forever.
To begin this kingdom, he's raised into this. So his role as a suffering servant is completed. He is exalted as a king and he is now beginning or fulfilling his heavenly ministry. And we're going to see the New Testament talk about this, what Jesus is doing now. He reigns, he rules, but he also intercedes. So Romans 8 says this, talking to Christians, he says, 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. So that Jesus, in his position of risen Christ, at the right hand of the Father, intercedes on behalf of all those who've placed their faith in him. He says they're one of mine. And when the enemy accuses and says, you're a sinner, they fail, they're broken. Jesus says, no, they're covered by the blood. They belong to me.
This is what Hebrews says. Consequently, he, that's Jesus, is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him. So the only way to draw near to God is through Jesus. And if you draw near to God through Jesus, you were saved to the uttermost, which isn't a word you use very often, probably. Probably. Someone's like, how was work today?
And you're like, it was hot and I sweated to the uttermost. And you're like, don't say stuff like that. You could just say hard, like, I don't need all that. But this is a place that you probably should memorize it. How are you saved to the uttermost? What about this thing?
Yeah, that's covered too. All the way, completely covered, all the way to the uttermost, to the very edges of anything that you could come up with. If you've drawn near to God through Christ, you are saved completely and fully and forever. He's able to save those who draw near to him since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. He is exalted, risen, and always lives to make intercession.
That's the third reality. The fourth is that he will return. We're going to consider that one more in a moment, but I want to take a second as we consider these ideas and say, what does that mean for us? Those are realities for Jesus. What does that mean for us? Well, his role as a suffering servant is over, which means that the work necessary for you to be saved has been completed.
That all of the work needed for you to be made right with God has been accomplished through the blood of Christ. He's exalted as King, which means it is fitting and right for us to gather and sing to him. It's fitting and right for us to pray to him. It's fitting and right for us to obey him and submit our lives to him. It's fitting and right for us to understand him as exalted and glorious. And it is out of place and incorrect.
Whenever you hear anybody say, well, if Jesus does return, here's what I'm going to say to him. It's like, no, he was humble once. He will reign in glory ever after. Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess. Everyone will praise Christ, whether they want to or don't want to.
They will see him reign. That's the reality. So we worship him. We honor him. We glorify him and we proclaim him. Third, who is there to condemn you?
If you've trusted in Jesus, who can condemn you? If you've trusted in Jesus and his precious blood has paid for your sin, who is there to accuse? He intercedes for you. This is the way John puts it in John 1. He says, my little children, I'm 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.
That Christ stands at the right hand of the Father and says, they belong to me. I paid for them. And no one will be put to shame. They trust in Christ. His payment will always be sufficient. He'll never get overdrawn on that account.
Fourth, he will return, which means we await his return. And that's what we're going to see happens in this rest of this passage. So it says, verse 10, while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes. OK, so we're to understand by the way that's written, those are angels. There's two keys in the text. It's called men, so they look like men.
But the word behold is a is a surprise word. It's like suddenly look. That's what that's what it's saying. And it also tells us what they're wearing. They're wearing white robes. It's not a normal thing for Luke to do when he's writing in Luke or the Book of Acts to just tell you what outfits people have on.
So it's significant that he points it out. He's not just like him. Paul went out to preach and he was wearing this fancy little blue number. Like he just doesn't do that. It's irrelevant. But here it's relevant because suddenly there's two men in white and the white there could also be like shiny, glowy, like so suddenly there's angels present and these angels are going to say something to them.
Here's what they say. 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. So we await his return. He will return the same way physically. Jesus is bodily resurrected, bodily ascended and will bodily return.
But what the what the angels say to the disciples, as I was thinking about this, it almost feels like it doesn't line up. Like I say Tuesday, they ask the question and they make a statement and they don't seem like they fit well together. So their question is, why are you looking up into heaven? And their statement is Jesus will return the same way you saw him. Now it says as he went, they were looking up into heaven.
It feels like they have a really good answer as to why they're looking up into heaven. Like just an immediate like good answer. Like for the angels to appear, God sends his angels, his messengers, and they don't come to just do frivolous things. We have to assume they've got a good purpose in being here. But their first question is, why are you looking up into heaven?
Which is like he, because he just, he was here and he went. It would be weird if they didn't almost like if he started to go off and they were like, all right, cool, let's get out here. Like, no, you would think. Watch him. Watch him. And then the angels say he's going to come back the same way, which almost seems like it gives you a reason to keep looking up.
Right. Yes, he went that way. He's going to come or look, we're looking for him. But Christians aren't supposed to stand staring into heaven, waiting for Jesus to return. So imagine with me for a moment that you're a child.
Your mother says to you and your siblings, or you by yourself, I don't know. I always had siblings. There's always a little crew of people getting told things at my house. Says, I'm going to the post office. And when I come back, this house better be clean. Boom.
And you may be standing by yourself or with your little team. Staring at the door. And let's imagine your dad walks in and he says, why are you staring at the door? You know, she's going to come back. What's he implying? Get to cleaning.
You weren't lit. You didn't hear her post office. Ain't that far away. So when the angels show up and they say, why are you staring up into heaven? He's going to return. What they're saying is, didn't he tell you to do something?
Didn't he just he just told you what to do? Don't you all have something to do? And I think this would have begun to make so much sense of all the places where Jesus told the disciples parables, which are stories to this effect. There's a master and he puts his servants to work and he leaves. He told this parable over and over and over again. He told this parable over and over and over again in different ways.
And then he comes back when the servants don't know he's coming. Blessed are those servants he finds working when he comes back. Blessed are the servants he finds doing what he told him to do when he comes back. Or he'll say the inverse. Woe to those servants who have decided he's not going to come back and have started doing whatever they want. Jesus told that parable all the time.
There's this picture of there's a master who's given you a task and then he says a lot. He's going to return when you don't expect. And he says the Son of Man will return at an hour you don't expect. He's going to arrive suddenly and we should have known that was going to happen and be at work. That's what the disciples said. He's just left.
And the angels say, get to work. So the church, because we expect the imminent return of Jesus, is at work doing what he called us to do. His imminent return does not slow us down. It speeds us up. The potential return of Christ does not hinder the work. It propels the work.
And the church has been sent to be witnesses with Jesus. And the church has been sent to be witnesses with Jesus. And the church has been sent to be witnesses with Jesus. And the church has been sent to be witnesses. We say this every week, except for when we're commissioning missionaries or group leaders. But every Sunday, when we're finishing our time together, we'll do it again today.
We say the hope of the gospels in Christ. Jesus has done the work of salvation. He's going to return and judge the world. There's the world is broken and marred by sin. But there's hope in Christ and the plan for that message to go forward that you can be saved by Jesus is the church.
The church is plan A. There is no plan B. Jesus talking to his disciples. There's at least 11 here. We know there's 120 to get together and pray later. So somewhere between 11 and 120.
And he says, you're going to be my witnesses. You're going to take over the world. This message is going to go to the ends of the earth. And then he leaves. And he expects his church to do it. Spencer showed this slide last week.
It's cross the ascension, the return. This is not to scale because we have no clue when the return is. But you're somewhere between those two points. We're going to take communion today and communion is a commemorative memory memory practice for us where we say we're in between those two poles. We're in between those two poles. We're in between the cross and when he returns and we're proclaiming the cross until he returns.
And we're in this spot where we have something to do until he returns. This is this is why we talk about we want to be everyday missionaries. Like when we say we're a gospel centered community on mission or we want to be a gospel centered community on mission. I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. All we're saying is that we're a church. That's all that means.
We're just trying to put some handles on it. We're trying to put some words to it. We're a gospel centered community on mission. But that's all churches everywhere for all of time should have been centered around the gospel should belong to each other into Jesus and should be on mission to see other people come to knowing. That's that's right here. That continues.
When we talk about being everyday missionaries what we're saying is it's okay that you live here. You're allowed to live in Columbia or to Cayce or West Columbia or Irmo. That's good for Hopkins for some reason. That's good. But you're to be a witness.
Olivia is in my community group. She just got back from three months in Cyprus. She was talking about that one of the things that happened while she was there was right at the end. Was there someone she'd been building a family she'd been building a relationship with and they got invited to a party. And she said that they told her while they were at the party. We've been here for over a year and we've never been invited to anything.
And they were just thanking her and saying that she had good friends and they were glad to be there. And I'm listening to that and I can't I couldn't help but think we're surrounded by people who that's the that's true for them to. And I've lived I've lived in this neighborhood. I've lived in this neighborhood. For five years I've never been invited to anything. I've worked at this job for 10 years.
I've never been invited to anything. I've gone to this gym. I've never been invited to anything. There's people who do not have relationships do not have friendships. We live in one of the saddest loneliest environments in the history of humanity. And we have a king who's made us family.
Lord help us and forgive us if we don't go talk to our neighbors. We're to be witnesses. I want you to reframe what your life looks like. There's a reason why we don't do a ton of stuff in this building because the mission isn't in this building. We gather to exalt Christ. We gather to encourage.
We gather to pray. But then we go. I've had people before say things like it's so hard to work at my job because I'm the only Christian. I believe that is hard. That can be hard. But I also want to go.
You mean to tell me Jesus has already infiltrated an unreached people group right here. Jesus is at work among a group of people who don't know him. He's got you there. Are you praying. Do you see the opportunity. Do you see the beauty of it.
Some of you are in class just surrounded by pagans. Praise Jesus. Start praying. Start making friends. Some of you work jobs like that. Some of you are in neighborhoods like that.
Some of you are like my neighbors don't want me to talk to them. It's true. But it's also not completely true. Completely true. It's going to be completely true for some of them. But some of them are just uncomfortable by the idea.
I tell this to our like our host team and our church family. If somebody shows up on a Sunday if you're an introvert and you show up to a church on Sunday. This is your first time here. You walked in going please don't talk to me please don't talk to me please don't talk to me. Somebody almost made eye contact you. And then they were looking at somebody behind you.
You sit. You get up. You leave. You get in your car and you go. Nobody talked to me. What kind of place was that.
There are neighbors who you go say hey to and they almost have a panic attack. But they need people to talk to them. So many of you your story of becoming a Christian is that you are harassed by friendliness. They just kept talking. I couldn't shake them. We kept being on the same shift and they wouldn't shut up.
They wouldn't leave me alone. They kept inviting me to stuff. I can't. It's like the dumbest person I've ever met. Couldn't take a hint but they kept inviting me to things. I finally had to go.
And then at some point you were like oh praise Jesus. I see how good he is. You stood here and got baptized and you said thank you so much that you would not leave me alone and that you would not stop telling me this stuff and you would not stop harassing me. And you're going to stand in glory in front of the King of Kings and you were going to praise him as tears roll down your eyes as your heart beats more than it's ever beat. And it's going to be because somebody was a witness. And Lord help us that we go tell people about how good Jesus is and we don't waste time.
I wonder sometimes if the angels appeared to us if suddenly there were two men in white and they said what are you looking at. What are you doing. Don't you know he's coming back. We've got work to do and we've got such glorious news to share. And if you're like OK I got to do that but I don't know how I don't know how. Well he told you how the empowerment of the Spirit.
Do you know there has not ever once ever been in the history of the church. Someone who went and told somebody about Jesus and that person placed faith in Jesus where Jesus wasn't there and the Spirit wasn't there. It's never once happened. There's never been a solo Christian who's gone and done anything because they only ever are able to work in the empowerment of the Spirit. Not once ever has there been a solo Christian who's ever done anything because Christ is with his church in the empowerment of the Spirit. And when you walk on that floor when you walk down that hall when you walk into that classroom when you walk into that gym you walk in the power of the Spirit to do the work he set before you.
And if it doesn't work today OK the Spirit didn't move in power today but that's up to the Spirit. And if some of you got it I've never felt the power of the Spirit. I'm willing to bet you've never been witnessing. You haven't been doing the job. We're equipped to do the work. The Spirit is at work when we're doing the work he's empowering us for the work.
And there's never been a time where he hasn't shown up and done what he wanted to do in those moments. We just get to move forward faithful and they won't all believe but some will and we're supposed to go because the gospel is wonderful news. It's the fragrance of death to those who are perishing but the fragrance of life to those who are being saved. And we're the fragrance of Christ everywhere we go. And some people don't like it but some people do and the Spirit goes to work and they come to know him. And it was absolutely worth it.
And there's not another thing that you'll do on earth that is worth as much of your time as this. Let's not stand waiting for him to return. Let's be actively at work doing what he's called us to do to the glory of Christ. Let's pray. King Jesus you are high and lifted up. You are exalted above the heavens and in you we have hope not in our morality not in our work not in our effort but in you and only in you even in our sin.
We just get an advocate Jesus Christ the righteous. So we praise you. And Lord may we tell others about you. By the empowerment of the Spirit may we go. May we witness. May we see clearly those around us who need to hear.
Lord let us coach little league. Let us be in the gym. Let us join a book club but let us do it as missionaries who see the value of proclaiming the gospel. And Lord may your Spirit move in power for your glory. In Jesus name. Amen.