We Are Church | Human Flourishing - Acts 6 & 7

Join us at Mountainside Church in Boone, North Carolina, as we embark on a deep exploration of the essence of servanthood and faith. This Palm Sunday, we delve into the story of Stephen, the first martyr, and draw parallel insights between his life and the life of Jesus. Reflect on the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and how it symbolizes a kingdom of peace. Witness the profound theological connection between seemingly disparate stories and discover the true meaning of human flourishing through service and sacrifice. As we navigate through Stephen's story, we see a life radiating with truth and love, inviting us to embrace a life of faithful serving and embody grace amidst adversities.

(more…)

We Are Church | What Does it Mean to Follow Jesus? - Acts 5:12-42

Witness the profound dedication of the apostles who, despite facing persecution and imprisonment, trusted in God's greatness and continued to teach the message of Jesus Christ. This episode highlights what it truly means to follow Jesus, emphasizing obedience, faith, and the anticipation of big things from God. Experience the joy and challenges encountered by the early believers and be encouraged to live out your faith boldly in today's world.

(more…)

We Are Church | Come Out of Hiding - Acts 4:32-5:11

Discover the contrasting stories of Barnabas, a man who selflessly supported his faith community, and Ananias and Sapphira, whose attempts to deceive led to grave consequences. Through this exploration, we learn about the significance of transparency, the potential dangers lurking within the church, and how hidden sins can threaten communal harmony.

(more…)

We Are Church | Can't Stop Won't Stop - Acts 4:13-31

Join us at Mountainside Church in Boone, North Carolina, as we delve into Acts 4 and witness the unwavering boldness of Peter and John. Despite being uneducated and untrained, their profound faith and powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit left a lasting impact on Jerusalem's crowds. Discover how the apostles' courage ignites a passionate call to share God's truth with boldness and love. Embrace the unshakable truth that Jesus is the only way, and be inspired to spread the gospel message with humility and determination.

Let us gather in spirit, uplifted by the community's prayers for boldness, and rejoice in God's boundless power to shake the foundations of the world. As we reflect on the teachings, may our hearts be set ablaze with a fire for Christ, compelling us to speak His word and live out His love in every step we take.

(more…)

We Are Church | One Small Step - Acts 3

Join us at Mountainside Church as we explore Acts Chapter 3, where Peter and John, filled with the Holy Spirit, bring healing to a lame beggar in the name of Jesus Christ. Witness the transformative power of faith as a simple act of obedience sparks a movement, leading to the growth of the church to 5,000 believers.

This episode dives into the significance of the miracle, illustrating how it points upwards to glorify God, forwards to a future restoration, inward towards our soul's deep need for salvation, and outward as an example of being a disciple in everyday life. Reflect on the butterfly effect of faith and consider what God can do with just a little bit of you.

(more…)

We Are Church | What Can I Do With My Obsession? - Acts 2

Discover the dynamic relationship the early Christians had with God, marked by their devotion to teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. This episode invites you to reflect on the profound impact of the Spirit's presence in our lives, urging a renewed obsession with living out this extraordinary message of grace and truth in today's world.

(more…)

We Are Church | Be My Witnesses - Acts 1:6-11

Through the lens of Acts, we witness the Holy Spirit empowering Jesus’ disciples to reach beyond the confines of Jerusalem into Judea, Samaria, and ultimately, the ends of the earth. The message echoes the profound purpose and power granted to believers, urging them to live out their witness in the face of any cost. As we contemplate Jesus’ call to his disciples then and now, listeners are encouraged to consider their own lives, to step into the 'boat,' and engage with the mission of spreading the gospel with the vigor and urgency depicted in these biblical narratives.

(more…)

We Are Church | Wait for the Gift - Acts 1:1-5; 12-26

Join us in exploring the powerful journey of faith as we delve into the story of the apostles from the book of Acts. Witness the transformation of ordinary individuals, often considered 'unqualified,' into bold witnesses of Jesus' resurrection. In this episode, we discuss the importance of waiting on God's timing and the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. Through prayer and unity, the early church found empowerment and purpose, challenging us today to step into our spiritual inheritance and embrace the mission of spreading God's word. Are you ready to join the movement?

(more…)

Unlikely Heroes of Faith | Buzzard Bowling and Covenant Keeping - Genesis 15 | February 9

Generated Transcript

Yes, if you do not know who I am, well, consider yourself blessed, but you're about to end that blessing, because I am the campus minister at Appalachian State campus Christian Fellowship. We really have the privilege partnering with y'all. We've done several events at this point where y'all have been coming out with us and interacting with college students. We have a few of our college students here with us today. We are. We're a pretty small ministry right now, and it's a huge blessing to be a small ministry. Sometimes you don't see it that way, but it really is. And we have a rock star of a crew right now, and so five of them are here with us today. So thanks for coming out. Y'all can go meet them. I'll let you introduce yourself and get to know them. But I Zach asked me to come and asked if I would share with y'all today. And he said, basically, you know, just share anything like any scripture or something that's means a lot to you for whatever reason. And so I was like, All right, I'll run with that. That gives me no direction whatsoever. So, but the passage that we are going to share today is one that I think for the last few years has really been super impactful for me for various reasons. So even some of the application that I'll share today,

well, I'll say one thing, part of the application that I share today, I didn't even realize this until this morning, as I was preparing I was like, Oh, this is what was going on. So that's part of it. But the other part is this passage has come up over and over and over again in so many different ways. So the application I share may not be what actually hits you, and that's what I love about Scripture. It's what I love about God. It's because that's what he does. And so whatever it is for you, I hope something comes out and stands out. But there's one rule that I have when we engage scripture. I don't really share this all that often, but the rule that I have is, it better be fun. Now, how many of you here don't have fun in church? All right? Trick question. Y'all Gotcha? Okay? No, we should, I think, have fun as we engage Scripture as we worship together, of course, as well. And part of that is because scripture is written in a way to make us ask questions. It's written in a way to make us say that's really weird. And so we're going to do that a couple times today and just point out the weirdness of scripture. But I want to start by sharing a scene with you from The Lion King. Okay, so the Lion King. I am intimately familiar with the Lion King because every drive we've had over two hours for the last seven years, we have listened to the Lion King almost seven years. He's not quite seven. Yet our oldest son loves the Lion King. We have it on a little recording that he can listen to, and boy, we listen to it a lot. He's actually changed the Finding Nemo lately, so we're kind of grateful for that. Anyways, there's this part in The Lion King where Simba after Mufasa. If you don't know the story, I don't want to ruin it for you, but Mufasa dies, and Simba his uncle Scar, evil uncle Scar tells him, like, Hey, you got to run away. This was all your fault. And so Simba starts to run away, and he runs and runs and runs across the desert to the point of exhaustion. And finally he passes out and he's there exhausted, basically left there to die. And then the next thing we get is this warthog named Pumba and his friend the meerkat named Tim, on coming, and they're charging through, and they run the buzzards off, and Pumba turns and says, I love buzzard bowling. So today I'm going to invite you to go buzzard bowling with me in Scripture, because I promise you, it's there. You may be thinking, What in the world is this guy talking about buzzard bowling, to which I'd say, Good. I'm glad you're thinking that, because in Genesis 15, verse 11, we have our verse for the day, and the verse is this, and when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. So here we have Abram or Abraham. I'll refer to him mostly as Abraham, but we have him running away buzzards, basically he's buzzard bowling in scripture. But I have two questions that I think need to be answered in order to understand what's really going on.

On. The first question is, well, what is actually going on in this passage, like in the greater context, what's happening? The second question is, why in the world would this verse be included in the story? Now you have to think, as this was getting written down, especially but even before that, as it was getting told to each other through story, every detail would matter. One is it was getting written down, and super costly to write these things down, so you're not going to include extraneous details. Two, as you're telling the story, when you include extraneous details, people get lost in those details, so when you include a detail, you want them to think about, Why is this here? So that's how the Old Testament, especially is written. So the question is, why is this verse included about Abram driving birds of prey away? So let's go into the context. And to do this, I want us to look at the greater story of Abraham up to this point. And let's not go too far. Let's just go up to this point. But if we go back a little ways, our first introduction to Abraham is actually in the last bit of Genesis. Chapter 11. We're introduced to his family. And then we start in Genesis, chapter 12, where God gives an invitation to Abraham, one of the greatest invitations in all of human history, I believe. And his invitation is this, Hey, leave everything that you have, leave everything that you know, every bit of security that you possibly have on this earth. And come follow me, and I will bless you so that you can be a blessing to the entire world. Now for whatever reason, Abraham actually says, All right, I'll do this. And as he does it, one little detail is, Abraham's like, Hey, I'm gonna bring my nephew Lot along. Now the question is, why would he bring lot along? The second question I have is, why would lot agree and lot in the same way he's leaving everything that he knows, everything he has, and yet he continues to go and say, Okay, I'll, I'll go with you on this crazy quest. But why would Abraham actually bring him along? God shows up, gives him an invitation, and says, I'm going to make your descendants into a great nation, and I'm going to give you this certain land. And Abraham is like, hey, lot Come with me. And I think for Abraham, Lot was his security blanket at that point. He knew his wife was barren. That would have been very apparent at this point. And so he looked at God, said, Okay, if you're going to do this, you're probably going to do it through my nephew Lot. So not lot come with me, and this is what God's going to do through us. And so the story continues. The next story that we actually get is Abraham. And lot do pretty well in life. They end up being really wealthy, and all of a sudden they come into this problem that they have. Of they have too much. It's a good problem to have, right? But they're sitting here, they have too much. And the land that they're sojourners in so they don't have one spot, and the land that they're going around doesn't have a whole lot of water, doesn't really have a whole lot of green grass, which is cool to have green grass in it. Yep. So they come to the problem, and Abraham comes to lot, and he says, Hey, we got to split up. We have too much. I'm going to let you choose where to go. And lot, like all of us, says, I'll go to the green grass in the water. And Abraham says, All right, go ahead. I'll go the other direction, and so they split up. Seems like a good choice for lot, until you realize that everybody wants the green grass in the water. So as the story progresses, the next story is lot actually gets captured by someone else, and he's taken away to be a servant. So Abraham comes and says, Well, wait a second that that is my nephew. So Abraham takes on this battle and goes into a battle he has no business going into and no business winning. And he actually comes out victorious. And this is Genesis 14, and he gets to the end of this battle, and he's coming back, and all of a sudden, the king over lot's area meets Abraham and says, Hey, nice job, Abraham. If you don't mind just giving me the people back, you can keep all the spoils and all the stuff. I'll just take the people. Now, what you have to realize is Abraham won the people also in battle. So Abraham has every right in that culture to say, Hey, these are mine now. And here he's finally restored with lot. This is his opportunity to say, No, this is God's plan to go through lot and work through lot. Remember the whole security blanket idea, and Abraham instead says, All right, here's the.

People. And here's everything else. I'm not taking anything. I don't want it to be by your hand that I've been wealthy. I'm gonna let that be through God. So I'm taking nothing. That's the context we find ourselves in. Abraham just says I'm taking nothing, and that's where we pick up our stories. So in the beginning of Genesis, chapter 15. We're going to work our way through it slowly, but God shows back up on the scene, and we'll work through verses one and two to start. It says, After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not. Abram, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. But Abraham said, oh, Lord God, what will you give me for? I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. All right, we're going to pause there, so God basically shows him. Says, great job. I love what you just did, and your reward is going to be awesome. And Abraham's response is like, okay, come on, God. I've heard this before. You can hear the windiness starting to come out. Like, what are you gonna give me? That's such a great reward. I don't even have an heir to everything you've given me. I'm kind of tired of the stuff. I just want an air and God's Well, what does God do? Notice the next three words, And Abram said, and this is verse three, if you want, yeah. And Abram said, so, a little lesson in reading, especially Old Testament scripture. So Old Testament, when you have a conversation between two parties. And then you have a

phrase like And Abram said, so the same person speaking, then you have two different conversations. So basically, God says, Hey, your reward is going to be great. And Abram says, Well, what are you really going to give me right now? Eliezer is my heir. I don't have any children, and God just is like

So Abram comes back and he says, so God, what about this? And let's pick up in verse three. It's a whole different conversation. He says, Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir. How far Let's go? Through six Let's go. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, this man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven and Number the Stars. If you're able to number them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be and he believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness. So Abram comes back to God. He still got the whiny tone a little bit. And he says, Hey, God, you remember this, I have this member of my household who's going to be my heir. No children. What's going on? And God finally says, okay, okay, I'll make this promise to you that you will have a child and he will be your heir. And let's do one more. Let's take you out. Go ahead and Number the Stars. Yeah, that's as many as your descendants will be. And Abraham actually believes God, so it seems right. He just takes his him at his word,

which is crazy when you really think about it, he just takes him at his word. And then we pick up in verse seven as we continue the story. And He said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from the Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. But he said, So notice this response, oh, Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? So God says, Hey, I'm going to give you as many descendants as the stars in the sky. And then God continues on in this and he says, Hey, and remember, I'm the God who took you out of the land you used to be in, and I'm gonna give this land to you and your descendants. And Abraham, this time, says, How am I going to know this. It's like, at first, Abraham says, Yeah, okay, I'm willing to take you at your word. You're going to give me this. This all these descendants. Great. And then as he chews on it, as time passes, he's still struggling with nothing happening. And so when God shows back up and says, Hey, I'm going to give you this land. Abram says, How am I going to know? The question he's wrestling with is, is this God actually a God who keeps His word

right? If.

We put ourselves in Abraham's shoes. At this point, he's left everything he's had. He's come to this place, and he's gotten wealthy and wealthy and wealthy, and all these other things that God has invited him into are not happening. He doesn't have a child. The land is not coming about. In Abram's shoes, he's starting to question, is this God that I've chosen to give everything to a God who's willing and able to keep his word? So now here's where things start to get a little fun. Let's pick up verse nine and 10. So he said to him, this is God. Bring a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. And he brought him all these, cut them in half and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. So notice what God asked Abram to do. He says, Hey, go get this RAM, This heifer, these couple birds of female goats, get all these animals and bring them to me. And then, what does Abram do? He's he cuts them in half, right? God never asked him to do that, but Abram knew exactly what to do. Anyone know why?

Because they were making a covenant together. And Abraham understood it. When God asked to bring these animals, he said, Hey, let's make a covenant together. And so Abraham did it. He came, he cut them in half, he set them up on either side. And the way a covenant would work in this situation, as you'd set the animals up on either side and the two birds pacing each other, and then the lesser party. So each covenant had a lesser party and a higher party. The lesser party would walk through the blood first, and it would stomp in the blood to get blood on there. And they're saying, by the blood of this covenant, I am agreeing to whatever terms you would have after the lesser party walked through, then the greater party or the Higher Party, in whatever situation would walk through, and they would splash the butt on them, saying, according to This blood, I am agreeing to whatever terms this covenant would have. So as they were making a covenant together, we get to our verse where Abraham drives the birds of prey away, it says. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. So now that we know what's going on in this situation? Why do we think this verse would be included?

And I think Abraham, in this moment, had two realizations that led him to hesitate and stop himself. The first one is he realized he would never uphold his end of this covenant as much as he would love to say he could. He knew he would come up short. He knew there would be moments where he wouldn't be ultimately committed to living life with this God. And so he hesitates. But then, I think in a a realization of genius, he had one more significant realization. He realized that if this god he had chosen, chosen to follow, was actually the God he says he was, then he would be willing to make the covenant to himself, because this would be a god for him to be the ultimate god. He would be a God who simply kept his word to himself. And so when Abraham waited, when we get to this verse, we realize that driving the birds of prey away is Abraham waiting in expectation to see if God is a God who keeps His word to himself. And what happens in the rest of the chapter is pretty fascinating. So let's read. We'll read the rest of the chapter as the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there. They will be afflicted for 400 years, but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve. And afterward they shall come out with great possessions, as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in good old, old age, and they shall come back here in the in the fourth generation. For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet.

Pleats when the sun had gone down and it was dark. Behold a smoking fire, pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. And on that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying to your offspring, I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the kenizzites, the cadmonites, the Hittites, the parasites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the girgashites and the Jebusites. So we see this,

well, God shows up to Abram in this deep vision. He says, hey, just so you know it's not coming in your lifetime. It's coming, but now I'll tell you, it's not coming in your lifetime, but I'm willing to do this. And God comes, and he shows up both as the lesser party and the greater party, and he says, I am the God who keeps my word to myself.

And so he makes this covenant with Abraham. And so as we well, we'll kind of finish up. There's really two places I want to go and want to land. The first, as we talk about driving your birds of prey away, I want you to learn to love to drive your birds of prey away. And it means two things. One, just kind of an encouragement, but it means that as God's children, as His people, we strive to be people who keep our words to ourself. So I may make an agreement or a covenant with you, but it's not about me keeping up for you, it's about me keeping it up for myself. It's found in science, actually, that the basis of self confidence and self esteem is ultimately you being able to keep your word to yourself. I find that fascinating. And our God is a God who keeps His word to himself. But two, I think, even maybe more profoundly, as we think about driving our birds of prey away, or buzzard bowling, it is the invitation to wait with expectation, and let's see if God will be a God who keeps His word for himself to himself.

So this could look in so many different ways. Sometimes it's just the willingness to forgive someone else, and let's just see if God will show up in that situation, if he'll be someone who keeps His word to himself. Ultimately, sometimes it's in showing incredible patience to your kids or to your spouse, she's not even listening, all right, or to friends, whatever it may be. Sometimes it's in having really big patience with the college students that you hang out with. Oh, is that just me that needs that all right,

in all situations, is showing up with the expectation to see if God is a God who will keep his word to himself. And the reality is it may take a lot of waiting, sometimes it's waiting through our lifetime, but God is always a God who's willing to keep his word to himself. So let's pray and think we'll do another song, right,

Father, we thank you,

honestly, we we thank you and we praise you that you are a God who keeps your word to yourself. It's not about us,

and yet you work through us, and you partner with us and how awesome it is. So God, I pray that we can realize that all the more that we are waiting with expectation to see how you will keep your word to yourself, and I pray that we can walk in that and we can wait with patience for you to show up as only you can Lord in the name of Jesus, I pray Amen.

Luke to Acts: The Mission Continues | The Glory of the Ascension - Luke 24:50-53 | February 2

Generated Transcript

Last week we talked about the last chapter in Luke, Luke 24 and we're going to be there again as we're preparing,

as we're preparing for getting into the book of Acts.

There we go. So last week we talked about

how Jesus had that amazing Bible study right with his disciples, how he fulfills all the Old Testament, right? And we looked and we saw how all of the Old Testament, all of the scriptures, point to Jesus. And it's through the Christ event that we able, are able to understand all scripture. And we talked about how Jesus opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures. And we kind of, I personally, was like, Oh man, I wish I was there for that. But then we talked about how we have the Holy Spirit who is our intercessor, and he's the one who now opens our understanding to understand the scriptures, to see Christ as the culmination of all scripture. So today we're going to finish the last three verses, last three sentences of the book of Luke. So I'll start by reading that, and then we'll explore what it means.

And he led them out. This is verse 50, Luke, 24 verse 50.

And he led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up his hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass, while he blessed them that he was parted from them and carried up into heaven, and they worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. Amen, Father, this is your word. We want to see you rightly. We want to know we want to know you. We want to be near to you. God, I I pray that as we study Your Word today together for just a little bit, that we would have a clearer picture of who you are and who you've made us to be Amen.

So we're talking today about this very important event and idea and staple of the Christian faith, which is the ascension in our tradition, we often highlight we have the maybe the birth, the death and the resurrection of Jesus. But the ascension, I would say, is on the same level. It should have the same value in our understanding of who Jesus is and what he's done in his life, and what he's done for us and for the glory of the Father.

And I want to, this week, look at just a little bit applying what we did last week. Last week we learned that all scripture is pointing to Jesus. So this week I want to see how all scripture points to Christ in His ascension. And so if you have your Bibles, if you could turn to Second Kings, chapter two, we're gonna read a good chunk of scripture here. So would love for you to follow along, if you can second king chapter two, and we're going to start in verse one, this story that we're about to read as you'll come to grasp. Sam and I watched a movie last night, and we did not read the description of the movie before watching it. And so it was like seeing a movie for the very first time. And Sammy kept saying how stressed she not stressed, but how she just wanted to know what was going to happen in the movie, right? She just, like, was like, Well, tell me, like, Well, tell me, like, at least the idea. So I know what can come we didn't have that. But today I'm going to give it to you for Second Kings chapter two, and that is that this is when Elijah is ascending into heaven. And so already we see maybe how this relates to Jesus's ascension into heaven. But I think it can be instructive for us even, even more than the first surface level. So verse one, and it came to pass when the Lord was about to take Elijah up into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. Then Elijah said to Elisha, stay here please, for the Lord has sent me on to Bethel. But Elisha said, As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel. Now the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today? And he said, Yes, I know. Keep silent. Then Elijah said to him, Elisha, stay here please, for the Lord has sent me on to Jericho. But he said, As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they came to Jericho. Now the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho came to Elisha and said to him, do you know that you're that the Lord will take away your master from over you today? So he answered, Yes, I know. Keep silent. And then Elijah said to him, stay here, please, for.

The Lord has sent me on to the Jordan. But he said, As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So the two of them went on. This is a Jewish tradition of a way of telling stories as you have three events and the first two are the same, and the second or the third is the departure. Just so that's it's kind of like a storytelling technique. Let's keep going. And 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood facing them at a distance, while the two of them stood by the Jordan now Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up and struck the water, and it was divided this way and that, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground that should be activating in our minds stories of the past, right? We have the Joshua's entrance into the promised land. We have Moses's crossing of the the Red Sea. And so it was when they had crossed over that Elijah said to Elisha, ask, What may I do for you before I am taken away from you? Elisha said, please let a double portion of your Spirit be upon me. So he said, You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me, when I am taken up from you, it shall be so for you. But if not, it shall not be so. People will sometimes say that Elisha was being arrogant in this place, that he wanted to be as doubly powerful as Elijah, probably a more different.

Scholars think different things, but, but many would say that this is actually an act of humility for Elisha, that he saw himself as doubly weak to Elijah and needing an extra portion of the spirit of Elijah going forward. So just a little note there. Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried out, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen. And he saw him no more, and he took hold of his clothes and tore them into two pieces. He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water. And said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that, and Elisha crossed over. Now, when the sons of the prophets, who were from Jericho, saw him, they said, the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha. And they came to meet him and bowed down to the ground before him. And they said to him, Look now there are 50 strong men with your servants. Please let them go and search for your master, lest perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has taken him up and cast him upon some high mountain or into some Valley. And he said, You shall not send anyone. But when they urged him till he was ashamed. He said, send them. Therefore they sent 50 men, and they searched for three days, but did not find him. When they came back to him, for he had stayed in Jericho, he said to them, Did I not say to you, do not go.

I think there are a number of things as we're reading the book of Luke and thinking about the ascension of Jesus, that this story activates in our minds, one you have a a master and a servant or a disciple, and the master is taken up, right that we see that very clearly in the book of Luke, as Jesus ascends, we see a desire for nearness from Elisha, to be near Elijah. And so we see the disciples desire to be near to Christ as before His ascension. And then Elijah asks, What may I do for you? And Elisha, he asks for a double portion of the spirit of Elijah. And we see the ascension of Jesus. What happens as we're preparing our hearts to look at the book of Acts. We see that Christ ascends, and then his followers, his disciples, receive the Spirit,

and then Elisha, he he goes with the mantle of Elijah, and he strikes the water. And this is what was stumping me this week, as I was kind of meditating on this passage. I You see some of the ideas clearly relayed, but, but this idea of splitting the water water, I was having trouble finding that in the book of Acts, and I was thinking about it. And you guys in the audience are probably a little bit smarter, and so you're already there, but I didn't see any of the disciples go out, and I don't know split the Jordan or the Sea of Galilee. I didn't see much walking on water in the book of Acts. But then I thought, you see the disciples. The Spirit of God rests on them, and then they go and they baptize. And so this idea of splitting waters, it traces back, like I said, from Elisha to Elijah, from Elijah to Joshua, from Joshua to Moses, and then from Moses actually to Yahweh. Yahweh splits the waters. Then the Hebrew or the New Testament authors, they often looked at Israel's passing through the Red Sea as their baptism, their new birth. It was.

The birth of the Jewish nation. And so for us, as we're stepping into preparing and understanding acts, I think it would be good for us to be seeing and meditating on this idea of baptism as the splitting of the waters. And I don't have much more there. I think as a church, we can be thinking about that like, what does that mean for the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, to rest on his church, and then for them to go and split the waters through baptism? I think there's a rich, rich well of knowledge that we can tap into together as we meditate on that. And here we see in the book of Second Kings, we see Jesus fulfilling Old Testament, scripture. But it's not so much the fulfilling of Old Testament, scripture, of direct foretelling, prophecy, but it's a typological fulfillment. And so as we read Scripture as a church, we want to be seeing Christ as our lens for understanding scripture. We want to even understand Christ as the fulfillment of all types. He is the One in whom all fullness is found.

I think

moving on from Second Kings, when we look at verse 50 of Luke, chapter 24 it says, And he led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up his hands and blessed them, I think Luke, when he says that he's meant to activate in our minds this priestly image. This actually hyperlinks directly back to Leviticus, chapter nine, verse 22 and it says, Then Erin lifted his hand toward the people and blessed them.

I think scholars will look at the book of Luke and they don't see Luke using the priestly type much through the book, except when it gets to right here, Luke is very clear in highlighting that Christ is the fulfillment of Aaron, and he desires to bless His people. And it's Christ's desire is so

axiomatic, it's so central to his character, that it not only does he bless them, but his blessing continues even as he's ascending to his throne. And I think when we think about this, we can be thinking all the way back, actually, to Genesis. Chapter one. In Genesis one, we see God. It says, Let us make man in our image, in the image of God. He created them, male and female. Created them, and then the first thing God does with humans, he doesn't give them a command. He doesn't give them instruction. He doesn't say, Go fend for yourselves. It says that he blessed them, and then he said to them. And so the first thing God does with humans is he blesses them. And then the last thing the historic body of Jesus when he was here on the earth, the last thing he did was he blessed his disciples. I think sometimes I myself can try and reject the falsehood of maybe the prosperity gospel, that would say it's all about our blessing, and I then begin to believe things like, God isn't for me. He's distant. He doesn't know me or want me or want my good. Yet I think what Scripture is indicating is that blessing humanity is so central to God's character that it was the first thing he said, and it was the last thing Jesus did on Earth. And I think it would be good for us as we're stepping into the book of Acts, as our church is continuing to grow to receive that blessing, and we're going to talk about this in communion. And we don't know what that blessing was that Jesus gave. We just know that he blessed them as he was ascending. But I think it would be fair to look at some of the Aaronic blessings. And there's one Aaronic blessing that is quite familiar to us, and it's been spoken to the Jewish people and then now to Christians for 1000s and 1000s of years. And it's actually the oldest fragment of scripture that we have, dating back 27 centuries. The oldest fragment of scripture we has, we have is Numbers chapter six, starting in verse 24 The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Jesus's desire for his disciples is that they would be blessed, and He blesses them. And then in Genesis, one, we see Jesus, or we see the we see Yahweh bless Adam and Eve, and then he says to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And then what is it that the church does in Acts? They are blessed, and then they are fruitful and they multiply and they fill the earth. And so I think these are also things that we should be thinking about, meditating on as we're stepping into the to the book of Acts. There's two more ideas that I want to highlight, and one of them is quite familiar to us as we spent a long time in the book of Daniel. The ascension of Christ is his enthronement in Daniel chapter seven, it says I was watching in.

In the night visions. This is Daniel 713,

and behold one, like the Son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him, then 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. His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed.

The the ascension of Jesus is the enthronement of Christ over the cosmos. He's given authority. He's given a kingdom. And in Acts we'll see Luke, he describes the ascension of Jesus as He ascends until the clouds hit him. That Luke is very intentionally inviting the reader to think of Daniel and think of Christ sitting at the throne next to the Ancient of Days. I think one thing that I would want us to ponder and wonder about is when I think of the ascension of Jesus, or when I thought of the ascension of Jesus, I thought of him going and passing, and then it says, through the heavens, or through heaven. And I thought that meant he went beyond the stars, outside of the universe, and that we know that the whole world is in his hand, right? And so I think of God in this cosmological worldview. It's distant. The kingdom of God, and the throne of God is distant, unintentionally, perhaps. And yes, it is true that God does have the whole world in his hand, and that it spans between his hand, right? What's that? Anyway? I believe all of that to be true, but I I wonder if the biblical authors, the New Testament authors are actually inviting us to think of the throne of Christ in the skies. When Stephen, the martyr, the first martyr, is stoned, he looks up into the sky and he sees Christ standing when Ezekiel sees the throne of God coming in chapter one, he sees it coming in the sky? And I think what this has done for me in the last couple weeks is it's reshaped the way I see the realm of Heaven and the realm of the land, the realm of of God and His divine counsel, and the realm of humanity in the physical. And they're not separated and far from each other, but they are intimately related and near this, these ideas might be familiar to you, and they might be comfortable for you if, but if they're not, I think it might be worth it for us, as we're stepping into Acts and as we're seeking to obey Christ and be His servants kneeling before His throne, to have that more near understanding of his throne. And this actually

leads us to where we'll begin our initial descent for today, and that's in the book of Hebrews.

In the book of Hebrews, the author is seeking to highlight the kingly and priestly nature of Jesus,

and we see in chapter four, a direct reference to the ascension. It says in verse 14, Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession. The author of Hebrews sees the ascension of Jesus as the thing which allows us to hold fast to our confession of hope and faith in Christ. But then he actually, he continues. He says, For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. The idea of ascension is meant to call back on the theme of mountains. And if you're interested, the Bible project just did a long study into what is the theme of mountains. They have a great podcast on it or video, but it's this ascending the mountain, and we see in Mount Sinai that the people were at the base, and then Moses and a few others went up the mountain. And then it was Moses who went all the way up where heaven and earth met, where he met the presence of God. And that was one person ascending to be the intercessor for us. And then we see that same model recreated in the tabernacle, right? You have the court, then you have the the inner sanctuary, where the priests could go, and then you have the Holy of Holies. And in the Holy of Holies you have the Ark of the Covenant, on which is the throne of God. What the author of Hebrews says is that since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, he's ascended, then he actually says that we may come boldly. And he says that we can come boldly not to the outer courts or to the sanctuary, but into the throne of grace. Another word for that throne of grace is the.

Seat. And the mercy seat is what was the on top of the Ark of the Covenant, surrounded by the cherubim, where the hottest hot spot of God's presence was. Christ's ascension allows us to make the same ascent to God. We are no longer,

no longer is it just one person who can enter the hot spot of God's presence once a year. But we all are called by the ascension and blood of Jesus that's been sprinkled and sacrificed for us. We are called into the hot spot of God's presence, the Holy of Holies, the throne of grace. And so when we think about the ascension of Jesus, we are meant to also be thinking about our ascension, that we are on a process of sanctification, of being made more like the image of Christ, and we are being brought up in ascent.

But the author of Hebrews also has a very interesting way of thinking about this. In chapter 12.

In chapter 12, verse 18, he begins to reference Mount Sinai, and I'm going to read it, and then we'll talk about it. For you, his audience and us today have not come to the mountain that may be touched and burned with fire and a blackness and darkness and Tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, said those who hear it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore, for they could not endure what was commanded. And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow. And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and trembling. So that's where we're not thank goodness. That is the if you read the narrative of Exodus, that is exactly what the author of Hebrews is highlighting. This narrative of Exodus, where the people are waiting at the mountain of Sinai, where Moses will go up and receive the law from God. And the author of Hebrews says, That's not where you are, but he says, But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and church of the firstborn, who are registered in Heaven, to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of a New Covenant, and to the blood spring of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel,

the author of Hebrews, doesn't say you will come to Mount Zion. He says you have come to Mount Zion. And so as we think of the ascent of Jesus up the mountain or into his throne room, where he sits at the right hand of God. We are meant to think of it as the ascent, but we also are to understand it that we have come, that we have come to Mount Zion. We have come to the city. The Heavenly Jerusalem Revelation talks about how there will be no more need for sun or moon, For Christ will be the light, and his light will permeate the city we are. We are meant to understand the ascent of Christ as our process of ascension. But we also are meant to understand the ascent of Christ as in Him we are already ascended.

And I would encourage us this 22 through 24 of Hebrews 12, there's a lot present, and it's been helpful for me to kind of meditate on it this last week, and it might be helpful for us to just think of the fulfillment of Christ in those verses that, yeah, I would just encourage us to meditate on that,

but for us to land the plane as we're stepping and we're gonna worship and reflect on these truths,

I think sometimes I can grow discouraged. I can grow tired on the ascent, right? If we think of hiking, there's many great hikes here around us, when we see Christ in His ascension, when we see him coming to his throne, we are meant to see and meant to be encouraged, and meant to be encouraged to press on to the hope of our ascension and union with God.