Luke 24:50-53 | Don't Sleep On the Ascension

Preacher: Scott Hollingshead

Text: Luke 24:50-53

Big Idea: Jesus ascension is his exaltation to the Father’s right hand, wherein His successful redemptive work qualifies him to reign as Lord of all.

1. Four significant realities of the ascension (vv. 50-51)

a. Concludes Christ's earthly limitation

b. Completes Christ’s redemptive work 

c. Continues Christ’s heavenly work

d. Confirms his second coming

2. Our response to the ascension (vv. 52-53): Whole-life Christ-centered worship.

Worship incomplete without: 

a. Obedience

b. Praise

c. Mission

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Church, so great to worship with you as we go before the Lord in prayer. I'm gonna come out of Psalm 96 as we pray. Lord, your word says, Oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord and bless your name. Lord, that is we came here together today on your day to bless your name, to exalt your name, to tell of your salvation to one another, to declare among us that you reign. Lord, this is something you desire to be said among the nations, you reign. Specifically, Jesus Christ reigns, and it's seen so clearly in his coronation through the ascension, and is being seated at the right hand of you, Father. Lord, as we get to study your word today, we're blown away. Great are you, Lord, and greatly to be praised. You are to be feared above all gods. Lord, create in us a singular fear, for if we were to fear you rightly, we need not fear anything else. If Jesus Christ is in the rightful place in our lives, then everything else falls to the wayside. For it is true that all the gods of the people are worthless idols, but you, Lord, made the heavens. And your son is the Lord of the new creation, the mediatorial ruler. Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and beauty in your sanctuary. And so we come before you, Lord, to ascribe as your people to you glory and strength. The glory do your name. And so the rightful response for us is to be glad and to rejoice. Lord, sweeten our hearts today to the privilege that it is to worship you, to join with heaven and earth in rejoicing, letting the sea roar and all that fills it, the fields exalt, everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord. For he comes. And your Son will come to judge the earth. He'll judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness. Lord, prepare us for that day. Cause us to look forward with hope to that day. For that judgment for those who are in Christ is a judgment of commendation, not condemnation. Lord, take your word, multiply its impact into the lives of the hearts receiving it today. May there be two preachers up here today. The fickle, finite, human one here, but the Spirit of God, your very Holy Spirit, doing what I cannot do in the lives of those whom you've ordained to be here today. In Jesus' name. And all God's people said. Amen. Amen. As you stay standing, I'm gonna have you turn in your Bibles for at least for now, the last time, to Luke chapter 24. I didn't say forever. You know that just preaching Luke once doesn't mean we've exhausted Luke. Is that clear? We could preach it again, and it would be mute as beneficial to our souls as it was the first time, if not more. So for now, it's the last time we'll open Luke. Beginning in verse 50, reading down to 53, this is the final word of the Lord from the book of Luke. And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And were continually in the temple blessing God. Loved ones, this is the word of the living God to you for us today. May the Lord write these eternal truths on your hearts. And with that you can be seated. Church, great to see you this morning. Cool. It's good it's mutual around here. It's encouraging as always to be here. I'm gonna just like go with uh you guys can't multitask. So sitting and speaking, you were receiving, hearing me, sitting down. There's a lot going on. I will understand that. If you have your Bibles, why don't you grab them, go to Luke chapter 24? My name is Scott, by the way. I'm the lead pastor here. We have fun here, don't we, church? If you've been here for a while, we have fun, we like each other for the most part. And uh I will say it was a little bit bittersweet uh to take all my books from my study. I usually study at home and put them back on my shelf. Um I've accumulated more books over the years, so they didn't fit as well. But it was uh yeah, just kind of a memory. 24 chapters, 1151 verses, 127 sermons, of which I preached the majority of those, so um, Luke's staying with me, you know. Uh it's been etched on my heart, and I'm excited to finish up this series. Wanted to give you a little bit of a heads up to what's coming. Uh three standalone sermons the next three weeks, and uh things that are on my heart, uh things that I've talked to the elders about. Next week is a must listen. It is a must come. Every Sunday is a must come, right? You hate to say uh this Sunday is a must-come. Every Sunday is a must-come, but next week is particularly important for uh the near-term future of our church. And so even if you can't come in present next week in person, make sure you listen online. But we'll do three standalone sermons before we get to our next series, which is gonna be between Acts, sensing what our church needs on marriage, titled The Grammar of Marriage. And that will start May 31st, and uh we look forward to diving into that. But not before three standalone sermons over the next few weeks. All right, you've got to be in Luke 24 by now, yes? Title of the final message in Luke Don't Sleep on the Ascension. This may be the most important doctrine you never think about. You go, why? Well, I think there's a few reasons why we don't tend to think about this. One is that there's other really good doctrines that seem to swallow up the importance of the ascension, right? I mean, we have the incarnation, we call that Christmas. It's a big deal for us, right? We have the resurrection. We call that yes, now we're dialed in, right? And it's a big deal for us. In fact, every single year since our church began, our biggest attendance is on Easter, and yet again this year, largest attendance in the church's history by hundreds on Easter. And that's because it is a big deal to celebrate something as significant as the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and something as significant as Jesus Christ rose from the dead, never to die again, right? But where's Ascension Day? Where does that show up? By the way, it's usually in the month of May. We could do it, we could be the ones, guys. We could add this, right? Doxic Church gets on the map. How? Because we started something called Ascension Day, all right? This is so important. You think about holidays and you think about the way we celebrate important people and we celebrate their birth, but really we should be celebrating the last day of their life, right? Because it is the culmination and the accumulation of everything that they've done. But I think that's one of the reasons why this is the most important doctrine you never think about. I think another reason it's the most important doctrine you never think about is because there's just not much about it in scripture, right? In terms of quantity. 1,151 verses just in Luke alone, which makes this 0.002% of Luke. I can tell you, most certainly, it is not that level of significance in Luke. You think in the whole Bible it's 0.0003% of the Bible, but ladies, ladies, we know, ladies, we know some of the best things, what? Mother's Day is coming, some of the best things coming, very small. You don't need a lot of verses to be power-packed. Do you understand what I'm saying? Men, Mother's Day is next week, just so you know. Yep, yep, yep, that's important. So we go, ah, there's not that much in scripture, so it must not be something super important. That's not true, not true. And then can I just be honest? Maybe the most important doctrine you ever think about why? Because you're not sure you prefer the fact that Jesus ascended and went to heaven. I think if we were honest with ourselves, we would be like, yeah, but it would be so much easier if he was somewhere. It would make my evangelism so much easier if I was like talking with one of my friends, and it's like, oh, you don't believe me? You don't believe me? Let's just fly to wherever Jesus is. Right? And we'll get in line, we'll take a number, we'll get in line, and we'll try to get close enough to see his hands and his feet. Like, we think that would be better for us. We think it would be the same with our counseling. Man, I just don't feel that close to Jesus. I don't feel like being led by the Spirit is sufficient. But if I had Jesus and I could take a number, again, like at the DMV, and just wait for a counseling session with him in person in the flesh, that would be my best scenario. But that's not how Jesus thinks about it. It's not how Luke thinks about it, it's not how Acts thinks about it, which is also written by Luke. And so we get a picture of this today, and as we conclude the book of Luke, you have to understand that Luke's gospel comes full circle. And you see very much Jesus' you-shaped ministry, right? That it kind of ends as it began. It began with a humble condescension, right? A humble incarnation, and it ends with a glorious exaltation. It began in promise, and it ends in fulfillment and a new promise. The book of Luke begins in praise with Mary's praise and Zechariah's praise and Simeon's praise and Anna's praise. And we see here that it ends in praise. The beginning of Luke in anticipation of the Messiah, but by the end of Luke in praise of the Messiah. The book of Luke starts at the temple with Jesus' parents bringing him in accordance with Jewish custom, taken to the temple, and in the end here celebrating Jesus Christ, worshiping him in the temple. What I want to talk about today is just what's in the ascension. Three verses that are power-packed with a doctrine so significant. And as such, we're going to have a more significant or sizable big idea to go with a small set of verses. And so you have to hang in there with me. I wanted to kind of shorten this and simplify it, but I just got to give it to you. Want to define the ascension for us. And so I told the guys already, just leave the slide up. We got a lot of scribblers. All right? Don't panic. They're going to put it up there for plenty of you to write it all the way down. But here is the big idea, and it's defining for us the ascension. Jesus' ascension is his exaltation to the Father's right hand. Wherein his successful redemptive work qualifies him to reign as Lord of. Clear? And so, yeah, thank you. And so what I want to do today is I want to talk about some of the significant realities of the ascension, then I want to talk about our response. And it's the movement of the text. You're going to see in the first couple verses, he, he, he, and then it's going to move to they, they, they. Here's the response of the disciples in light of the reality of the ascension. And we can follow in tow as we understand what's going on here. So here's the first point four significant realities of the ascension. We're going to talk about these. Four significant realities of the ascension and of the ascension, and we're just going to jump in here. Now, as we look at verse 50, we understand. Anyone know how many days between the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus? Forty days, okay? And we've seen the resurrection take place, right, according to Luke's account at the beginning of Luke chapter 24. And we get some of the interaction that took place on the day, and perhaps some kind of base overview stuff of what was happening in other days, right? Where he was opening their minds to understand the scriptures, and he was teaching them from the Old Testament all the things concerning himself, showing them that the plan from the very beginning was to bring a Messiah who would be a suffering Messiah, who would live among us, suffer for us, die in our place, rise from the dead, that this was predicted and typified, and all the institutions pointed to it, and Jesus was teaching them the Old Testament, preparing them to go with the message of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and take it to all the nations. Or as Luke says in chapter 24, verse 47, to proclaim repentance, which is that turning from your own thinking, turning from your own ways, turning from your own self-sufficiency, and turning from your sin and turning to Jesus Christ in whom salvation alone can be found. Turning. Repentance is the idea for the forgiveness of sins. But here's something so interesting. Of all those 40 days, we get less than a chapter in Luke about it. But he makes sure to be lined to the ascension. Uniquely so among the gospel writers. And we find that account beginning in verse 50 says that he led them out as far as Bethany. We know where Bethany is. That was one of Jesus' favorite places, right? They were in Jerusalem. He told them to stay in Jerusalem. But for this moment, he takes them out for the time being. Bethany's on the back slope of the Mount of Olives, which is where the ascension takes place, which again, Old Testament prophecies and like Zechariah, speaking of that place where the Lord would ascend and descend. Lifting up his hands, it says, He blessed them, which is the posture of a priest. Now, last week Jesus comes to the disciples and says, What? Peace to you. And now he's pronouncing blessing. A couple things that we need to see. One is, those are things God does. Announce and bring peace and blessing. So the first thing we begin to see, and this is significant to the last two verses, Jesus is doing what God does. Jesus is doing what God does. This is what we see in the text. But there's a particular order to this peace, then blessing. Peace to you and blessing. They're a package deal and they come in that order. Think about it. Peace has to be secured before blessing can flow. Would you agree? You can't have chaos going on and expect to extend peace. And so here's what's happened. The effect of Jesus securing peace for his followers by means of the blood of his cross is to say, in dying and rising for our salvation, he defeated all of our enemies. Satan, sin, death, wrath, hell, all of them defeated in the cross. And so now he is set to reign, to bring all things under his rule, that that blessing might be consummately enjoyed, presently enjoyed, and then enjoyed all the more and ever increasingly. And so he blessed them, and it says this in verse 51 while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. In full view, this is really important, in full view of the disciples. And like, say it's 19 kids, 14 don't have one in the first two and a half minutes, right? Here, kid, just hang on to this. They're seven. They're like, cool, they drop it, you know, they let it go, and it flies off into the air. Have you ever seen this before? And just the balloons go on, and you can take it, and you're like, dang, this is that's high. And that helium will shoot all the way up until eventually maybe it's covered by clouds, or you get, you know, don't want to watch anymore, or whatever else, or a kid's going crazy as you're watching the balloon, and so you have to stay focused. Stay focused over here, right? The reality is they saw Jesus Christ ascend. It was a visible event like the resurrection. And it's caught in such few words. This is not abnormal to Luke, where he summarizes something significant in a few words. So, what I want to do is break down what's in the ascension, what's actually taking place in these few words. And like I said, I want to give you four significant realities of the ascension. Let's process it. First thing is this this ascension is the conclusion of Christ's earthly limitations. Right? This is the Jesus who, according to Philippians 2, emptied himself, right? By taking the form of a servant, being obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Well, now he has died and he is risen. And now, as he ascends, the earthly limitation to which he subjected himself in the incarnation for our salvation come to a conclusion. Or as Romans 6 would say, he died no longer to die again. And all God's people said, Thank you, Lord, right? Because that one death was sufficient. It turns out that that work that Christ did in his emptying himself by taking the form of a servant and being obedient to the point of death is literally the framework through which Luke gives us this lens into Jesus' ministry, right? So the first time we see ascension is not actually here. If you go back in Luke, the first time you see any talk about ascension is in the beginning of his journey to Jerusalem. It's described as an ascension in Luke chapter 9, verse 51. Because even at the beginning of that journey to Jerusalem, Jesus had his eyes on more than the cross, had his eyes on more than the resurrection, had his eyes on his ascension. That is how certain and sure that that work was. The ascension is actually pivotal to Luke, because not only does it frame the significant portion of his gospel, but then he ends his gospel with the ascension here. And the very first thing we're going to see in the book of Acts is he begins with the ascension in Acts chapter 1. In one sense, you could say that Luke sees it as so significant, he culminates the end of one history with the ascension. And he inaugurates the beginning of another history with the ascension. The second thing we see is that it completes Christ's redemptive work. You go, that sounds a little bit weird. I thought his redemptive work was completed in his resurrection. Hang on a second. Let's talk about this for a bit. We need his ascension. For salvation to be accomplished, it requires an ascension to be completed. Let me give you the framework first, and then we'll land in that verse. But Hebrews 1:3 says it like this: After making purification for sins, he, that is Jesus, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Of course, we love that language of him sitting down, right? Because that means him sitting down is showing us the work is what? Finished. Contrary to the priests, by the way, with the book of Hebrews, we'll go on to later say, you know who never sat down in the Old Testament? The priests. Why? Because their work was never finished, constantly atoning for sins of the people and sins of themselves and sins of the people and sins of themselves on repeat all of the time. Jesus sits down. It's been finished. In one sense, you could say the ascension to the right hand of the Father is the Father's declaration of the success of the Son. If the resurrection is the vindication of the work of Jesus Christ, then the ascension is the coronation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the success that the Father sees in the Son's work and honors him rightly for. Moreover, in Hebrews 9, verse 12, says that he needed to enter the holy places by means of his own blood, listen, thus securing an eternal redemption. Christ had to enter the holy places, the true holy places, by means of his own blood, to secure an eternal redemption, to bring it to its completion. You think about Christ's redemptive work and one of the frameworks that you see that's unique, Christ is set apart from every other figure in human history, and that's in some part because he fulfills all three of the major Old Testament offices: prophet, priest, and king. Jesus was our prophet, our priest, and our king. And so when we think about that redemptive work being done, we think about it through those lenses. We think about as prophet, Christ ascends to heaven, where he now speaks to us as his people by his spirit through his means of grace. You go back to the idea of man, I just wish I could take a number and sit down and I could hear Jesus' voice. Do you realize there are too many people for that? Do you realize you would not be getting what you think you'd be getting? But now because he's ascended and he's given us his spirit, by the way, the book of Acts talks about the Spirit as the Spirit of Christ. This is how Jesus continues to dwell with his people in a rich, spiritual, deep, meaningful way. Far better than what they're even experiencing with Jesus on earth. His departure is the condition for the Spirit's coming, just as he says in the book of John. As priest, we see it even happening here. Christ is already going, how can I bless with the work that I've done, right? He longs to bless. He's eager to bless. He wants you to take the work that he's accomplished for you and receive it by faith. He's longing to do that. And listen, now as he's ascended, he ever lives to bless you. He ever lives to make intercession for you. He ever lives to bless you. Even the picture in the text of him holding up his hands and blessing was pictured in Leviticus 9.22 when Aaron, the high priest, after offering the sin offering, lifted up his hands towards the people and blessed them. And you need to understand in the Old Testament that when blessing is talked about in the Old Testament, it's always tied in some sense to God's life-giving presence. Well now you have it. You have his presence because you have Christ by his spirit who dwells in you as prophet, as priest, and as king. Think about this. As king, Christ's ascension is that coronation, that ruling, not over an earthly throne, but over the throne of the cosmos. You look at the text here, and it says this. It says in verse 51, he was carried up into heaven. Alright? Acts 1.9 says he was lifted up. Both of those are what we call passive verbs. So the question you have to be asking is who is the agent? If it's a passive verb, who's doing the lifting? Who's doing the carrying? We find this in Acts chapter 1. Acts says that they saw him, the disciples saw him, until a cloud took him out of sight. Now think about that for a second. That's super significant. Remember the last time we saw a cloud in the book of Luke? At the Transfiguration, when the Father speaks out of a. I know it's been a long time. You're like, you don't expect me to remember that, right? How long did you say the series was? Three and a half years? Yeah, right? Yeah, right? Okay, we'll go back. Great, great section. Chapter 9. I think it's verse 34, 35. Out of the cloud the Father speaks. This is my beloved Son with whom I am pleased. So who's taking him out of sight? If you're listening even a little closer, you start to hear Old Testament echoes, don't you? If you're careful, you're starting to hear a little bit of Daniel, that crazy book that everyone interprets in all kinds of wild ways. Daniel chapter seven is a little bit easier. Makes my work. I don't have to get into nine and all that stuff. We just camp out at seven. Listen to seven. I want you to listen to it because it's happening in our text. Listen to chapter seven, verse 13. And behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man. And he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him, and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom. That all peoples, nations, languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. Make no mistake about it. This is the Son of Man's journey to the ancient of days. This is happening in our midst. And then we get more in the New Testament, right? Philippians 2 says, He took his place and was given the name above every name. Do we know what the name was? Lord. Given the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is, what's the name? Lord. He is Lord. Lord of all. Ephesians 1 speaks of the same thing. He was seated at his right hand. Listen to how it's described, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, and gave him as head over all things to the church. This is exactly what Luke talked about at the very beginning. Do you remember when Mary is talking about the significance of the coming of the Savior? He says, she says this, he has brought down the mighty and exalted the humble one. Do you remember that in Luke chapter 1? It has come full circle. It brings you back to the defeat of Satan in the wilderness during the temptations. It brings back Luke chapter 10 when it's described as we I saw Satan fall like lightning. Do you remember that? The haughty brought low and the humble exalted. Jesus Christ assuming his rightful place as exalted Lord and King, triumphing over them in the cross, disarming the rulers and authorities and reigning over them all. So can I just add a little application? Isn't it great when the application is rest? You do nothing to secure your salvation. Rest in the glorious, finished, successful, father-approved work of Jesus Christ. Your joyful privilege is to bask in what he has done and where he reigns. To boast of it, to know it is finished, but even this, to know he's not done yet. You ever get the question? Well, where's Jesus now? You need to answer with, he's bodily ruling and reigning at the Father's right hand is where he is. We understand he didn't hibernate, right? He didn't like finish his work and go, you know what, I'm going to peace out, take a solid nap, I put in a good shift, and in several thousand years I'm gonna come back. We know that's not what's happening, right? So it's important to understand this third piece of the significance of the ascension is this. He continues his heavenly work. He's not done working, he is working even as we speak. We think of the gospel as Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, right? His life lived for us, a perfect life, a life you did not live, could never live, have not even got close to living. Jesus perfectly lived in accordance with the law of God. He then died as a substitute for sinners, though he had not sinned to pay the debt that sinners owe because of their sin, the wages of sin being death. He dies in the place of sinners and then rises from the dead, confirming he was a substitutionary sacrifice given by God to man who are sinners that need a Savior to deliver them. He delivers them and it's proven in his resurrection. We know that's the heart of the gospel. And those who turn from their sin and place their faith in Jesus Christ will be saved. But that's not the climax of the gospel. The climax of the gospel is that Jesus Christ ascends. That's the significance of it. He ascends, whereby we see in that ascension, not only is he crowned, but he is qualified to exercise and distribute the blessings of salvation. So if we think of B completing Christ's redemptive work as salvation accomplished, then we think of C as the giddiness of the Savior to apply salvation to everyone. Salvation and all of its benefits given out. He's like, it's like, you know, a candy shop owner. It's like Willy Wonka. Except way better, right? I mean, loves to give away the work and its manifold blessings to his people because of what he's done. He is living in salvation-applied world. He's accomplished it, now he's applying it. As prophet, speaking to his church by his spirit through his word. Now more than ever. Not just able to be present with the church, present in the church. As priest to provide the benefits of the atonement, one of the most counterintuitive things about the ascension is this. Jesus departed from us in order to draw closer to us. Do you know that? That is a mind-bender. How could you get further away and actually get closer to me? But please understand that the intent of the Lord Jesus is to depart from us in order to draw closer to us, because now from heaven by his spirit, he is even now more suited to care for you, comfort you, cleanse you, intercede for you, advocate for you. No charge is getting through. Nothing can swipe you out of the Father's hand. You are completely secure. You are being pleaded for. His atoning work is enough. And he's at a place of authority from which to proclaim it, right? As prophet, as priest, as king, as king, he's giving gifts to men for evangelism edification. All of you have a gift if you're in the Lord by his spirit. You've been given a gift to use in the body of Christ for the edification of the church. This is how Christ leads the church. It's how he builds up the church. It's how he governs the church. It's how he protects the church from evil influences and destroys its enemies. Because he's the one that's the king. And so we have this privilege. We have this privilege to live boldly before the throne of grace. To seek the mercy and grace that we we so desperately need. He's so willing to give and he's so more suited, all the more suited to give it to us. To live joyfully under the lordship of the King, Jesus. This is one of the things that I was just checking this week. How many of us as Christians don't live joyfully as we ought to live? We make it look like the kingship of Christ is this burden. We make it seem like his yoke is heavy and it's literally, you're dishonoring what Christ has said. His yoke is not that way. And so I think we need to get back to the woodshed if that's us, right? We need to get back on our knees in the woodshed, confess our sins, and go, Lord, I don't know where that's coming from, but that needs to stop today. Help me, God. Because your yoke is easy and your burden is light. Oh Lord, help me. And then just to live faithfully. Are you living faithfully? Is a steward serving the Lord with the gifts you've been given? Do you serve faithfully here? You serve consistently? Do you serve joyfully? Do you serve sacrificially? This is our privilege as those who worship the risen, reigning, ruling, prophet, priest, and king. And I'll just add this. Here's the last one. Four significant realities of the ascension, and concludes his Christ's, uh concludes Christ's earthly limitation, completes his redemptive work, continues his heavenly work, and confirms his second coming. Yes! Just the way you saw him go. He will what? Come back. The ascension is our preview, church. Of the resurrection of the dead, of the being caught up in the public rapture. To come down and rule and reign with Christ. His going is the commencing of the preparation of our eternal home, Jesus talks about, right? I go to prepare a place for you. Please be encouraged too that the resurrection body you will receive will be fitted for the realities of our consummate future, for the one who is our savior carried our humanity into glory. Resurrected, albeit but human. And it's already guaranteed. Sin has already been abolished. You might see it rearing its ugly head because the presence of sin's not been abolished. But the penalty for you, Christian, and the power of sin reigning over you no longer exists. And Jesus Christ, right now, is not kind of ruling, he's not ruling in a little bit ways. Later he'll rule in a lot of bit ways. He rules completely, totally right now over the cosmos, and he's uniting all things in himself, heaven and earth. And he's gonna bring it all together, and we're gonna enjoy him and all the fullness of glory in a new heavens and a new earth, because he is the reigning king of all. This is what the ascension helps us with. So it turns out it's a big deal, huh? Three verses. Power pack doctrine. Now, what's our response? How do we respond? Well, we've talked about a few things, but the text gives us a response of the disciples. They respond here. And what's their response? Verse 52 says this, and they, do we see it? Are we still taking notes? Let's glance at 52, and they we excited about this? Are we tired? I feel like so much grace is oozing through me right now because of this preaching, you know? Like the Lord's just been so kind to free my heart that I'll give you guys the second chance. I feel like very, very gracious today. Just to say, Lord, that was a mistake. We just we we botched it, honestly. We just we botched it, but we were focused, Lord. We were taking notes and doing other important things. We missed this opportunity when our preacher was like, and and we didn't say anything, or at least not with the gusto, like Pastor Ben said. So I'll give you another chance. We'll pretend that didn't happen, all right? So like I say it, like we actually um get what we're talking about here, right? And they much better, right? Much better. Anything less than that is not worthy of our Savior, right? No, I'm not talking about the response, but I'm talking about the heart of how you say it matters. Coming and worshiping is not the same, right? I'm always here on Sundays. Yeah. Great. Figure it out, right? Figure it out. And they worshiped him. Now, now, this word worship here, Luke has used this very selectively. He he likes this word on special strategic occasions, and there's been three of them. Two of them are used in one particular place, and the other one is used right here. Two of them are found in the temptation narrative in the second temptation, both in the second temptation, and the other one is here. Let me just tell you how significant this is, because if we will read this in light of Luke and read this in light of the second temptation, it is critical. Do you remember what the second temptation was of the devil? Worship me, and it will what? All be yours. Jesus' response, worship the Lord our God alone. First commandment, right? Worship is reserved for Yahweh alone. So think about that. That was Jesus' response. Now in verse 52, he's lived, he's died, he's risen, and he's ascended, and they worship him. We getting that? If ever there was a validation that the Jews here, now followers of Christ, right, declared Jesus to be God, identified with Yahweh, it is right here. Worship is the answer. What's our response? Our response is worship. But even more than this, you'll see the language that I put on this whole life Christ-centered worship. So there's a kind of worship, it's a worship of Christ. That this is what Luke has kind of been telling us that the whole essence of the Christian life is to worship Christ as Lord, as God. Now that worship is incomplete without three things, and we'll see them in our text. Here's our response. We're to worship Christ-centered whole life worship, which means not just Sundays, but every day. Look what the worship has with it. Worship is incomplete without, here's the first thing, obedience, right? Don't give the Lord the facades with a massive lack of obedience in your life. Notice what happens. They worshiped him, here's the obedience, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Why'd they do that? Look at verse 49, because he told them to stay. Stay in the city until you're clothed with power from on high. They did exactly what he told them to do, and not just with joy, guys, but it says they he they returned to Jerusalem with what? Great joy. Not wimpy joy. Chest out joy. Not begrudging, not forced, fervent, eager joy. Now listen, I look, there's different personalities. I get it. You probably understand from me, my joy is gonna look Pretty fired up. And I know some of you are subdued. But I want great joy out of subdued people as well in your own way. All right? Now you don't manifest it. The Lord grants that to you, right? To see him for all that he is by his spirit through his word as we gather amongst the people of God to come before him with a worship that includes obedience. But then here he says this too. And they were regularly or continually in the temple praising God. Which is to say, worship is incomplete without praise. Some of us equate worship with praise. I'm not worshiping until I praise. Worship is more foundational than praise. Praise is the expression of our worship. Our joy is incomplete without an expression of praise to God. They didn't do what a lot of us can do, which is we get excited about Jesus and we do the Christian stint thing. As a pastor, it's one of the most common things that I see. Christians, most, for the most part, live in stints. You get stints of excitement, stints of attendance, stints of eagerness. You lull out. Maybe you stay, but you're passive. You're not as encouraged. You're just kind of going through. And praise God. Some of you holding on for dear life, right? Been there, done that, understand. And then we get fired up again. And it's these little sprints. You're like a track star. We're like hundred-meter runners. Lord wants us doing marathons. He wants us enjoying it. Now, continually doesn't mean they were constantly in the temple. It means they were regularly in the temple, regularly. Think about that for us. Lord's Day worship, regular for us. Can't wait to be in the house of the Lord. Can't wait to be among the saints. Praise. Can't hold it in. Cannot hold it in. I have this really obnoxious sneeze. This isn't even. I mean, neighbors down the street can hear it. And I just thought the worst thing ever would be to keep it in. Right? It has to get out. I mean, it has to, and it has to bellow. You know what I'm saying? Like is something like that? I don't do that. I don't, I don't do any of that. I don't I don't absorb it inside. I don't let it resonate in my. I just get it out. All right. That that praise is. I'm gonna have to take that back for 1030 and 1230. I don't know. There's something there though. A whole life Christian Christ-centered worship. Wow, the wheels are falling off here. Obedience, praise. Let me give you one more. Let me give you one more. Because we we've we've seen an omission. Now it's you go, where is that in the text? Well, it's an axe. Well, it's an axe. This is our transition. But but it matters. A worship that's obedient, a worship that's praise-filled, right? Joy finding its appropriate conclusion. But what you find is worship ends up being the fuel and goal of missions. You will not take to your neighbor and to the nations what you don't treasure. Period. You show me how dead your mission-mindedness is, and I will show you dead worship. You will not take what you don't treasure to other people. When you treasure, you'll take. And here's the end goal. The end goal is worship, right? God seeking worshipers for himself. This is John Piper's classic line: missions exist because worship doesn't. And guess who's gonna get them to the non-worshipers? Those who are worshiping and are so fired up about the Lord, they treasure Jesus Christ and they can't help but sneeze him out. See, it's working. It's like I'm practicing right in front of you. Only connected because I said that. But we know this, right? It's true, isn't it? Show me you're fired up about the Lord. You'll be taking him. You'll be taking him. He's worthy to be taken to your neighbor and to the nations for his glory. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for the power of the ascension. We thank you for your goodness, Lord, in the way that you love us, the way that you have given us salvation, that we've done nothing to earn it or to deserve it, Lord. And I pray for those who do not know Jesus Christ that they would today, even now, respond to the glorious news of the gospel with a turning from their sin and themselves and a faith in the risen, reigning, ruling, ascended Jesus Christ, in whom salvation alone in Him can be found. In Jesus' name. Amen.