He Parted From Them And Was Carried Up Into Heaven

I want to give us a bit of context before we jump right into our text. This obviously comes in this life of Jesus after his resurrection, after his death, after his resurrection. And one of the things I want us to bear in mind about his resurrection is that after he's raised, he's not revealed to the public. The public never sees him. He reveals himself discreetly to people that he's chosen. If you were to read in 1 Corinthians 15, you would see how he reveals himself to Peter, and then he reveals himself to... the apostles, and then even to a group called the 500. Presuming a small group, if you can call a group of 500 people a small group. He reveals himself to them. But he doesn't step back into his public ministry. He doesn't go back out and start teaching in the synagogues again and proclaiming and dealing with Pharisees and scribes. There's no record of him ever dealing with any of that stuff after his resurrection. And so what I want you to see as we come into this is that Jesus has...

a purpose of wrapping up some of the loose ends, some of the work, some preparatory instruction between his resurrection and his ascension. And he does that with his people. There's no longer teaching in parables or miracles, at least not miracles of healing. He wants to prepare his disciples especially to lead his church, to plant and grow his church as he goes back into heaven. And so after he's raised from the tomb, You'll remember that the women, Mary and Mary, and some other women, they go to the tomb and they say, Jesus isn't there and what's the angel tell them? The angel says, go back and tell them what you've seen, that he's not here. And tell the disciples to go meet him on this mountain, on the Mount of Olives. So the women go back and do that. Peter, hearing the news, he runs to the tomb to confirm what he said. And Jesus appears to them and says, to the mountain. And so they go back to Jerusalem and they tell what they've heard. And then the men on the road to Emmaus, they see Jesus.

And they get up by night and they run back to Jerusalem and they say, we saw him. And there's this instruction as he's going after his resurrection where he's telling his disciples pretty basically, meet me at the mountain for our final instructions, the Mount of Olives. And so they come to the Mount of Olives. And what happens on the Mount of Olives is that he gives them the Great Commission. He says to his disciples, to the 11, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. And that in our minds, I think often, is the end of it. Because that's the end of Matthew. That's the instruction. But here Luke records for us there's something that happens after that. These disciples are led out, our text says, as far as Bethany. So a little ways from where they've met. Still in private.

And he takes them out, and as he prepares to leave, he blesses them. He blesses them. Now, what is a blessing? What's a blessing? What do you think of as a blessing? It can take many forms. But in general, a blessing is a declaration or a pronouncement of love, of kindness, of mercy on somebody. It's a gift. It's a good word. It's very closely related to a benediction, which literally means good word. And so he takes them out, and his very last work with his disciples is to bless them. He's instructed them, he's commissioned them, go and make disciples, and this is how you'll do it. But the very last thing he does is bless them. And I think it's significant that we give time and attention to this. Because most of us, I think, would be more like Martha and less like Mary. We have a lot of work to do.

The commission makes sense to us. Go and do this thing. And we say, I've got to go and do this thing. Lord, help me go do this thing. But that's not the last word. Go do this. That's not the last thing Jesus says to them. The last thing he does is he blesses them. He speaks a good word to them. You see this sort of thing happening throughout Scripture, blessings being given. Aaron blesses the people. After they come and they make their sacrifices, in Leviticus 9.22 it says, then Aaron lifts up his hands toward the people and he blesses them. And he steps down after making the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offering. After there's been this work of sacrifice, he declares a blessing, God's blessing on the people. And so one of the questions that came to mind was, well, what did he say? And it's not recorded here in the gospel for us. It's not recorded anywhere else. We don't know the words that Jesus spoke to them. All we know is he lifted up his hands and he blessed them. So we go look in scripture. What's that blessing sound like? And there's blessings all through scripture.

You know, in Leviticus 9.22, it just says Aaron lifted up his hands and he blessed the people. But in Numbers 6.24-26, this is what Aaron says to the people. This is his blessing. He says, And so he gives them a good word. And you realize he gives them this good word in the context of them offering sacrifices. And what's the context of them having to offer sacrifices but their sin? failures, the ways that they've fallen short of what would be required of them. After the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offering, then the blessing, then the mercy, then the promise. The people have come at this time and they've brought their sacrifices and they've offered them up to the priest and the priest has slaughtered the animals and he's portioned them out and he's given some to the priest to eat and he's given other parts to be burnt.

And they're all watching this and going, this is what I deserve. Cut up and separated like this. Death. Ugh. And it's an appropriate time for a blessing, a reminder of the promise of God toward the people. And so Aaron says to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you, be gracious to you. The Lord lifts up his countenance to you and give you peace. Now, one of the things I want you to notice is in that blessing, there's nothing to do with the people. Meaning, that blessing doesn't come to them because they've earned it. It doesn't come to them because they've deserved it. It doesn't come to them because they're entitled to it. They haven't done anything to merit a good word. And the same would be true of these disciples. These were the men who just a few short days before this were scattering like cockroaches when the light came on, away from Jesus when he was being arrested. They couldn't be found with him. These are the same men who've been holed up in fear for their own lives.

These are the same men who didn't believe that he'd been raised. They were doubting. These are the same men who when Jesus, after leaving Emmaus miraculously, just disappearing, these are the same men whom we studied last week, were gathered together hearing the report of these men from Emmaus and Jesus appears to them and he says, peace be to you. And then he says, why are your hearts troubled and why are you doubting? That's these men. And so I want us to see first that blessings don't come to those who don't need them. Blessings come to those who do need them. And the people who need them are those who are not perfect. Those who have been weak and who have faltered. Those who have sinned. Those who have not done what they should have done. Blessings are not earned. You ever done something wrong and then you got caught? And there's this thing that goes on in your stomach and kind of in your throat where you're going, oh, it's going to be bad. Or is it going to be bad? And I wonder how bad it is. And you kind of wonder.

Am I going to get what I deserve? I know what I deserve. I know some flavor of what I deserve. Or is there going to be some mercy? Or when will the mercy come? This is a question of blessing. And in that moment, you know you don't deserve a blessing. You don't deserve kindness. You don't deserve any sort of grace or mercy or anything like that. And you're right. Your behavior and the things that you've done don't earn you a kind word. They earn you consequence, judgment, discipline of some sort. What's my boss going to say? Am I going to get written up? What's my dad going to do when he gets home? That sort of feeling. And how many of us, when we're not the offender but the offended, withhold blessings at that point? You've sinned. There's no fatherly kindness or mercy here right now. Of course I love you, but you've done wrong. And what we're going to do is we're going to pay attention to what you've done wrong, and we're going to tease it all out and flesh it all out and spend all of our time talking about what you did wrong.

Because the goal is to work in the guilt, work in the misery, work in the pain. Because that somehow produces Christian faith. And yet it doesn't. These men were not worthy of a blessing. Neither are we. And yet after the commission of giving them work to do, which you have to acknowledge, they were entirely unfit for. These weren't the best of the best men. They were the cream of the crop and they were the ones who could do it. No, the Great Commission ends with, and lo, I am with you even to the end of the age. Which means I'm going to go and I'm going to prepare your way and I'm going to attend you as you falter and as you fail. And I'm going to build through your shortcomings, your failings, your lack of faith. You go do the work and I'm going to take what happens and use it to build my kingdom and to make my name famous. I'll be with you through the end of the age. It's meant to be a comfort to them. Could you imagine sitting there and being told,

Go now. They just killed me. Go now and disciple the whole world, whether they know me and heard of me and hate me or whether they have never heard of me. You go and make disciples. And the way you're supposed to do it is by baptizing them and teaching them everything they're supposed to do. This is not easy work. It's glorious work, but this is not easy work. If you had been there, you wouldn't have been going, sign me up, coach, put me in. You've been sitting there going, okay, help, please. What a comfort it would have been when he said to them, go back to Jerusalem until you receive power from on high. Go back and wait until I send my helper to help you do this work. You have to see the intimidation or the immensity of this work. The whole nation. I mean, consider your own family. How hard is this work to do just with the people you know and love? How slow are we to speak of what God says? How hard is it for us? What are they going to think?

Are they going to listen? What if they get mad? What kind of example am I? We could go on with the thoughts that race through our minds when we consider the work of making disciples. This is these men who failed, who haven't risen to the top. They're not disciples or apostles because they're the best of the best. They were chosen right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. It wasn't like, okay, guys. We're all going to go for a run. And the guys who finish the top 12, you're on varsity. That's not how it works. He went through and he walked along the beach and he said, you fishermen, come over here. Leave your nets. I'll make you fishers of men. You tax collectors, you know how they already hate you because you take money for the Roman government? You come on over here and I'm going to make you my disciple. But what about my debt? Let the dead bury the dead. You come with me. These were not the best of the best men at any point. And yet Jesus chooses them. And we see their failures.

Not understanding what he says. Not believing what he says. Running away from him when he's persecuted. Peter, being ashamed of him. Can you start to see some resemblance between these men and yourself? Good. Now. The whole point of me bringing that up is not to grind you into the ground and to say, you're terrible people, just like these disciples. We shouldn't even listen to them. My point in bringing this all up is saying, these kind of men are the men who he blessed. His final word to them was a blessing. And there was no basis for his blessing. in them. Consider for a minute the opposite of a blessing. What's the opposite of a blessing but a curse? You go, I don't want a curse. They say, you're right. Who wants a curse? You've earned a curse. That's what we've earned. That's what we deserve. But what they receive is a blessing. Blessings come in all kinds of forms. Sometimes they're spoken as we looked at with Aaron or Jacob when he's dying. Blesses his sons. Sometimes blessing, you know, Jacob,

How did Jacob get his blessing? He stole it. Children are considered a blessing. Suffering is a blessing to us. Because in our suffering, we identify with our Lord. It's purifying to us. It's good for us. While our bodies are weak, our souls are strengthened through it. So blessings come in many forms. So Jesus lifts up his hands, blesses his disciples. And as he's doing it, it says he parts from them. He's parted from them. He left of his own volition. As he's blessing them, he ascends into heaven. Now I want you to consider the roller coaster that these men have been on. Up and down and up and down. And around and back again. And at the end of it, Jesus blesses them as he's leaving. Consider for a moment what you might want to do if you had been there. As he's lifted up his hands and he's speaking God's blessing to you and comforting you as he's leaving you. What might you want to say or do?

Maybe you'd want to do what the disciples did when he was transfigured on the mountain. Would you like us to build us some tents? This is a very good thing. You can stay a while along with Moses and Elijah. Why don't you hang out a little bit? This is as good as it's ever been. Stay with us a while. Maybe you just want to go with him. Take me with you. Don't leave me here. Whether you'd want him to stay, whether you'd want to go with him at that moment. I'd suggest to you that the reason you'd want both of those things is because you're scared or worried to have him depart. I doubt that any of our natural responses, if we were just left to our own devices, would be to rejoice at Jesus' departure, to respond with joy as he leaves. You remember when he's talking with the disciples in John 16, and they say, he's telling them he's going to leave, and they say, well, but if you leave, what's going to become of us? And he says to them, it's better for you that I go. If I go, I'll send you a helper.

He'll lead you into all truth. And besides, I go to prepare a place for you. In my Father's house there are many, many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. And in time I'll return and receive you into glory. It's meant to be a comfort. It's meant to be an encouragement to them. But you see they're scared. You see they go, we don't want you to go. And yet here, as he's blessing them, as he's departing from them, our text tells us that first they worshipped him, praised him. And then they returned to Jerusalem with joy. To the city that they had been holed up in, fearful for their lives before they left. They returned with joy. And we see that also they begin to go back out into public. They were continually in the temple praising God. They no longer were hidden. They no longer were filled with fear, but rather with joy. And you have to ask, how did they get there from his ascension? What was it about his ascension that gave them joy?

Nothing in their circumstances had changed. Jerusalem was still a hostile place. They hadn't yet been filled with the Holy Spirit. And yet now they have joy. Why? Because what they saw was Jesus' glorification. They saw the end, and they were glad. Have you ever thought in your own mind, when you've done something difficult, someone I know and love did it? Whatever the hard thing was, it could be as simple as running a race. Or it could be more significant. They overcame their temptation and their sin. Someone I know crossed the finish line and they did well. Is that not an encouragement to you and a strength to your soul? What they see here is what Jesus has told them would come. He would die. That he'd be raised from the dead because death couldn't hold him. That he would conquer it. That he would kill death. And when he had done that, He would ascend to heaven. And as he ascended into heaven, he would lead and set free a host of captives. He would cut a path for us to follow. He would show us the way. What good would it have been for him simply to stay here on earth? What hope would we have if he hadn't ascended to heaven? Oh, he died, and he was raised, and here he is. Well, what happens to us then?

We die, we're resurrected, and we come back to a sinful world and get to stay here for eternity? How is death ever fully conquered unless there's an ascension from the sinful, corrupted world that we live in into glory where there's no more of any of that? There's hope in his ascension. All that he's told them about going to prepare a place for you, they're watching him go. They're watching it happen. They're seeing him enter in. to the joy of his Father and ours. And they trust by faith that where he leads, they will follow. And so they have joy. So what's it all mean for us? That's really the question. We can see what happened here, his ascension, and we can see how the disciples responded to it. But it's not sufficient for us to look and go, good on them. I'm glad that they did well. The goal is to say, how then should we live? What does that mean for me?

Because it's all well and good to have in our minds. They praised God when Jesus left from them. But what's it mean for us? How are we supposed to do it? If we say what they did was good and right and appropriate, how then do we share in that? The answer to the question has to do with our heart's desire and what we want. Each one of us in our hearts, we have all kinds of desires. We go after all kinds of things. We have all kinds of pursuits in this life. Consider what makes you angry. The things that make you angry have to do with what you want. And your anger is largely due to the fact that you're not getting what you want at the moment. Maybe it's not anger. Maybe it's depression or discouragement, despair. Why do you do those things? Why do you feel that way? Why do you respond to your circumstance in that way? Well, because your eyes are fixed on what is going on in front of you. Your heart is set on having what's going on in front of you give you a certain...

Feeling, affirmation, joy. And it doesn't. And so you respond with some sort of poor response, not joy. It's because of what your eyes are fixed on, what your heart is tuned into. What do you want? What did it mean for these men to go back into Jerusalem and return to worship in the temple? Did it mean that they went back to being Jews? We can't assume that. They're commended here. Their joy led them to go back to the temple and to praise God. And we know from the testimony on into the book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament, these men continued to build God's kingdom. So what happened to them? Their desires were changed. Before, they'd been afraid and fearful of what might happen to them. They now weren't, because they'd seen Jesus. They'd seen him ascend, and they go, whatever befalls me in this world is worth it. I'll take it. Lord, preserve me through it, but I'm no longer afraid of it.

Because I've seen Jesus and my eyes and my heart have been changed. And so now I'm willing to go through things, to do things, to endure things, to say yes to the things I ought to and no to the things I ought to because I've seen Jesus go to heaven. Now these men had a benefit that we don't have with regard to their hearts. They saw with their own eyes. They saw him ascend into heaven. No one but them have ever seen it. The public didn't see it. The 500 didn't see it. The 11 of them saw it. And yet we're not ignorant of it. It's not lost on us. Jesus has written this, or rather Luke has written this down for our benefit. That we might see by faith what they saw by sight. And that we might take hold of it the way they did because the same joy that they have is ours. Now does that mean your life's going to be easy? Does that mean that your circumstances are supposed to make you happy? Or that they will? If you just get the right perspective, all of a sudden the pain in your life is going to be turned into not pain. No, that's not it.

Seeing Jesus ascend into heaven doesn't take your pain away and say, oh, what do you mean it's hard? What it does is it gives context to your pain, or your sorrow, or your doubt, but really your sin. It says, to those who've seen Jesus, they say, this momentary light affliction that's come upon me. And by that, when Peter says that, he's talking about persecution unto death. So don't mistake when he says momentary light affliction that he means like stubbing your toe. That's not what he means. He means what we would consider the worst of the worst sort of pain and agony and difficulty in this life. This is what he describes as momentary light affliction. And he says, it'll pass. And when it's passed, there will be glory. Okay? One of the things I would like to do if I had a bunch of free time and money is learn to be a woodworker. From the very beginning, like from logs, like I want to get a sawmill.

None of you know that. My wife doesn't know that because they're really expensive and I don't have any room or time for one. But I think they're really cool machines. Because when you cut open a log, what you see is the work that God's done hidden under the bark for how many years? Decades. Hundreds of years. It's cut open and you see God's workmanship in the log. There's an amazing store up on Lafayette Road. Northwest Lumber. They have the coolest wood inside there. All kinds of stuff from all over the world. Now, when you cut a log open, you make a big mess. Lots of sawdust, right? That's what happens. There's a big mess. And so you end up, if you run a wood mizer along and you cut that top section off and you take the board off the top, what you're left with is this really thick layer of dust. So then you come with your broom and you swipe all the dust off and you just move the mess around. And you look at the log and you go, well, that's what wood looks like. It looks kind of like a two-by-four.

And then you know what these woodworkers do to show you the beauty? It's what they always do. This is how they test to see if the wood is pretty or not. They take water and they throw it on the board. They get a hose and just rinse it off or take a bucket and just throw water down it. And if any of you know about wood, what does the water, when you put the water on it, what's it do? What's that? It raises the grain, yes. But it shows you the depth. It shows you the grain of the wood in a way that you never saw it when it was dry.

This is why if you take a piece of wood and you put some sort of finish on it, it pulls the grain out. This is why some of us think it's close to a sin to paint oak wood. Because it's so beautiful. Some of you are like, I don't know what you're talking about. Some of you are like, that's right, I can't stand it when people paint. It's because there's beauty there. But it has to be cleaned off. And it has to be seen. And before it's finished, and available for everyone to see, the woodworker has to look at it and go, I know what's there. I know what's in that log. And I'm going to cut it, and I'm going to sand it, and I'm going to clean it, and I'm going to finish it so that it's revealed. And that's the work of a Christian. To look at the log, to look at the mess, to look at their life such as it is and go, there's glory in here because Jesus has ascended into heaven. And their hearts then say,

That's what I want. Give me some of that. I'll cut the log open. I'll wipe the dust off. I'll sand and sand and sand. I'll do all this work in pursuit of the finished product. And this is our place as Christians. When we see Jesus ascended into heaven, we go, that's where he is. And that's where I want to go. And so I'm going to follow him there. And he went there through suffering. And he went there through sorrow. And he went there through grief and pain and nakedness and hunger and shame. But underneath all of that sawdust, there is glory to be had. And I want some of it. If our hearts have that perspective, all of a sudden the suffering is here. And when we look at it with our eyes and our sinful desires, we look at it and go, oh, why?

Why hard things? Why difficult things? Why me? Because we don't see beyond it. And we don't see what it's producing. Why does the log have to be cut to produce beauty? Why does the tree have to be pruned to produce fruit? So it'll produce more fruit. That's why. And so when our perspective changes and we go, this is the refiner's fire. Whatever it is, you say, well, I don't know about my suffering. I don't think it is. And I say, yeah, it is. I know it may sound insensitive, and I don't mean it to be insensitive, but it's your refiner's fire. That's what it is. You're being made holy, and you need to be. Which one of us can say, I'm good, holy, over here, that's my name. Each one of us needs to be put through our paces, to be cleaned up, to be cut into, have the filth taken out, and the glory put in.

These men loved Jesus. They glorified. They reveled in and were filled with joy at his ascension because they understood what it meant for them. And they wanted to, having enjoyed being with him on earth and seen his power and his mercy, they said, I want some of that forever. And not only do I want some of that forever, I want it without the stumbling blocks and the difficulties of sin. That's what you're going to and that's where I want to follow. And they went back to Jerusalem and they suffered. And they were imprisoned. And they were beaten. And they were killed. And they sang in prison because of what they saw. So we as Christians are not to be without hope in this world. In this world, you're going to encounter all kinds of temptations. And it would be foolish for any of us to try to plot them out and map them out or prepare for them. You can't. Not in the way that you think. You think, oh, I see trouble coming. If we were to talk about this in terms of financial...

You look at the market and you look at the election cycle and you look at all of these indicators of when things kind of go down financially. And you go, I'm reading all of them and I'm going to do this to respond to it. Well and good, fine. But you can't do that with your soul. You can't prepare like that. Because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. And even if you did, you couldn't stop it. You remember Peter thought he could stop. Jesus says, they're going to kill me. And Peter says, no they're not. I'll die with you. I'll go to jail with you. And Peter's saying, I'm going to fight for you. I'm going to stand between them and you, and I'm going to put down all of the opposition to you because you are Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, and I won't have anybody do you harm. This was Peter's intention. How'd he do? Not good. Not good. Well-intentioned, didn't count the cost, didn't consider his own weakness, his inability to prepare for the sort of difficulty that he would face.

Some of you are planners and you go, I got a plan. I spent my whole life, got a plan, got a plan, got a plan. And I say, I'm not opposed to planning. But for all of your planning, you're not going to subvert the will of God. If there's hardship to come into your life for your good, you aren't going to escape it. Whether that hardship comes in the form of physical troubles, financial troubles, relational troubles, you will not escape it. And you can spend your life trying to escape it and you'll fail. Christians ought not to try to escape their sanctification. They ought to prepare for it, though. How do they prepare for it? Like they did. Like the disciples did. They saw Jesus and they went, I see where he went and I want to go there. And whatever my path is to get where he went, I'm going to walk on it. And so when those difficulties pop up, they go, I still see Jesus. And I still want to be with him. And so if this is the valley I have to cross, I will. In this world, you'll find trouble.

These men found trouble before Jesus was ascended into heaven and afterward. But Jesus gives us his peace. He gives us his perspective. And we would be wise to take it, right? To look and see how he conducted himself in the face of hardship and then do the same. This is work we always have to do in our hearts. Our hearts are quick to run astray, to forget this, to neglect it, to try to trim it off and say, well, not in this. No, you don't know. This is actually hard. And they say, is anything you've endured comparable to what Jesus endured? Not to minimize or say it's no big deal, but in terms of perspective, our hearts have to be changed. We have to be vigilant over them. Here's the final thing I'll say about it related to that. And it has to do with when we watch other people suffer and suffer well. We ought to take heart. We ought to be encouraged when we see those who are enduring pain and trials that we're not enduring in the first person.

As we bear their burdens and we see them persevering by faith, we ought to strengthen their faith and encourage them. And we ought to be encouraged by them doing it. These men were strengthened by seeing Jesus ascend into heaven to win. As I was preparing for this, I couldn't help but think about funerals. Jesus left his people twice, right? He left at the crucifixion. He died. Grief all around. He leaves them again. Joy all around. And it is because they understand that this separation is not a permanent separation. The disciples are glad to see their beloved Savior go to glory. And I think we'd be foolish to say that there was no sense of loss with them. Scripture doesn't say it. I may be wrong. But when our loved ones leave and they go to glory, it's bittersweet. It ought to be bittersweet. The only other choice is bitter. And so when they see Jesus go and finish his race, They rejoice in his glory, wanting to follow along with him, knowing that they will follow along with him. Because they understand that his victory and the fulfillment of the promises that he's extended to us by grace extend beyond the grave. And so our work as Christians is to have a perspective that extends beyond the grave to eternity. And to have that perspective inform all the rest of our life. And so when we see others follow Jesus to heaven through separation from us, there ought to be joy.

It won't be perfect joy, but there ought to be joy intermingled with our loss. So when you read and you see what these men did, and you see that Jesus blessed them, unworthy sinners that they were, and you see that they responded with joy and faith, take strength from it. Be encouraged by it. When you say, I can't, and it won't work, and how will I? Look at who's gone before you. Jesus went before you. These apostles went before you. Hebrews 11 outlines in very brief form all kinds of men and women who've gone before us so that we would not lose heart. So don't lose heart when you face adversity. There's no hope in that. There's hope in Jesus, who sits at his Father's right hand and is still working for us, interceding and preparing a place for us. So there's no reason for our doubt. Tell your heart that next time it doubts. Say, why are you weak within me?

Why do you falter and fail? Look up to heaven and see Jesus and come on. This is how David writes to his soul and his heart in the Psalms. This is how we ought to speak to ourselves and to one another. Let's pray.