The book of Acts begins by picking up for us the history that was left off in the Gospel of Luke. And just like Hannibal from the A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together.”  Luke plans to tie together what is recorded in the Gospel, “all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1) and Acts which begins with the end of the direct teaching ministry of Christ and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. It could be said that this marks the end of His earthly ministry and the start of His heavenly ministry. That event which we confess in the Apostle’s Creed, “he ascended into heaven.”

             We are reminded that the apostles had been told to remain in Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Father that Christ had given them.  And Luke, stretching back to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, notes that John the Baptist’s ministry of pointing to Christ, saying that he was unworthy to untie His sandals, and that Christ must increase and John decrease is now being made fully clear. John baptized with water but now Christ would pour out the Holy Spirit. All that John’s ministry had been pointing to was now being fully realized as the promised Holy Spirit was about to be poured out.

            The disciples are asking Jesus, who had been showing them many proofs of His resurrection (1:3), “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?” (1:6). The disciples continue to show their confusion. The kingdom of God which Jesus had spoken of repeatedly was not like any earthly kingdom. Jesus was not going to set up an earthly kingdom. Jesus also makes clear that the time of His return in glory was not to be revealed to them, they had something else that was to be revealed to them: The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

            Now when we think of the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost, it is good to remember that the Holy Spirit did not just come into being after the ascension. The Holy Spirit has always been and has been revealed to be at work in various points in the history of the world. But after the ascension as verse 8 promises, the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and empowered them to spread the Gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. We can say that verse 8 gives us the historical and geographical spread of the Gospel and a basic outline of the whole book of Acts.

            Did you note that wonderful word of Gospel in verse 8? Verse 8 is not a command to somehow obtain the Holy Spirit. It is also not a command to be witnesses. Luke writes future tense verbs stating the reality of what was to come. This is the promise of God for the apostles.  There is no uncertainty in the words of Jesus. This is what will be.

   Rembrandt: The Ascension

            The apostles were with Jesus and as He spoke of the Holy Spirit’s coming He was physically lifted up, ascending into heaven. The apostles continued looking up watching Christ and two angels appeared. The angels gave a promise as well that day.  “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (1:11). It has been noted that at the great events of Jesus life angels have made announcements. At his birth, resurrection, and here at His ascension the angels clarify the significance of the event for the people there. His ascension means that His redemptive work is finished and He goes to sit at the right hand of God the Father.

            During those “many proofs” Jesus had been appearing and disappearing. Now, without a doubt Jesus was making clear to the Apostles that they were not to expect to see Him again in this way. We should be aware that looking for an appearance of Jesus in this manner, short of the end of time, is not to be expected. In fact, after the ascension of Christ the Apostles themselves were not to see Jesus in this way.  At the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost their vision, and also our vision, is taken from the heavens to the revealed Word of God provided to us as the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostles to write and teach.  Article V of the Augsburg Confession condemns those who teach “through their own preparations and works the Holy Spirit comes to them without the external Word.” We look to Christ in the Word and Sacraments, nowhere else.

            Chrysostom said, “Of Christ’s resurrection the disciples saw the final part, not the first part, but of the ascension they saw the first part not the final part.” In the book of Acts, we see the first part of how the Holy Spirit worked through the believers spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Today, the ministry of the Holy Spirit continues where the Word of God is rightly preached and the Sacraments are rightly administered. The final part of that work of the Holy Spirit will come to an end when Jesus Himself returns. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.

 

Full disclosure right up front here – I am a pastor (as my author’s tag indicates). My occupation is a fact that I typically keep discrete in the public square because of the baggage that accompanies it. Whether speaking to a believer or unbeliever, the response, “Oh, you’re a pastor,” is communicated either vocally or through body language. The conversation, if it continues at all, is irrevocably changed.

But I mention this off the bat to expose my bias. Remember, as you read the rest of this hodge-podge article, this author is a pastor who is going to tell you that you need a pastor.[1] Be that as it may, I hope the confessional, Scriptural teaching is recognized – all sinners need pastors.

Augsburg Confession Article V: Concerning the Office of Preaching

To obtain such [justifying] faith God instituted the office of preaching, giving the gospel and the sacraments. Through these, as through means, he gives the Holy Spirit who produces faith, where and when he wills, in those who hear the gospel. It teaches that we have a gracious God, not through our merit but through Christ’s merit, when we so believe.

Condemned are the Anabaptists and others who teach that we obtain the Holy Spirit without the external word of the gospel through our own preparation, thoughts, and works.[2]

Basically, the words boil down to this: God uses preaching, most commonly by pastors (another article would be needed to discuss Biblical doctrine of the pastoral call), to give the Holy Spirit who produces faith. The Holy Spirit does not come apart from the means of a preacher.

In my pastoral vocation, my favorite Bible story is Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch from Acts 8:26-40. The eunuch is reading Isaiah 53 when Philip asks him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The eunuch responds with what are some of, if not the, most beautiful words of an unbeliever in all of Scripture, “How can I [understand], unless someone guides me?”

Be still my beating, pastoral heart.

Few people today would have the cojones to admit when don’t understand something in the Scriptures. Conversely, when a sermon or teaching challenges a moralistic, Jesus-is-an-example-to-follow nonsense, people will say, “That’s one way to look at it, but I see it more like this…”

BTW: Still working on that polite, pastoral way of saying, “Great, but you are wrong. Dead wrong.” For now, I smile, but only on the outside. Inside, I wonder, “Hey, Holy Spirit, what are You waiting for?”

Back to Acts 8. The eunuch recognized his need (insert your own appropriate comment about a eunuch recognizing he has nothing to offer) for a preacher. Phillip, a deacon, preached. And the Holy Spirit created faith. Which brings me to the art of preaching.

Stephen Paulson writes, “Preaching is not neutral inquiry, nor is it merely thinking ideas or feeling emotions… it announces sin by using the law, then it bestows new life in the form of freedom by using grace.”[3]

Confessional, Lutheran pastors recognize they are not preaching to entertain you long-time members or draw-in potential seekers.

Sometimes, the task of the preacher is to surgically cut out the cancerous sin, sew up the wounds, and lovingly rehabilitate. Sometimes, the task is more like wantonly hacking with an axe to clear-cut a dark, black forest followed by a cataclysmic flood of grace.

Either way, the preacher is using the text to do, not his own work, but God’s. The preacher speaks for God.

Seriously, what better thing could you ask for than God speaking to you via His chosen vessel – a preacher…

…but, again, I might be biased.

I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up, and have not let my enemies rejoice over me. O Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me. O Lord, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You have kept me alive, that I would not go down to the pit. Sing praise to the Lord, you His godly ones, and give thanks to His holy name.  Psalm 30:1-4

Psalm 30 is a wonderful psalm of praise and deliverance.  King David wrote this psalm, thanking the Lord for all that He had done for him.  This psalm was used at the dedication of Solomon’s temple and in the years to come on the anniversary of temple dedication.  As we read this psalm, we are invited to take note of all the Lord has done for us and praise Him as He so richly deserves.

King David writes in verses 1 and 2, “I will exult you…I will praise you.”  Praise is a natural response when we recall how God has “lifted me up” (verse 1), “healed me” (verse 2) and “brought up my soul…You have kept me alive” (verse 3).   These promises point us to the cross and God’s work of reconciling mankind.  Only in Christ am I delivered from sin.  Only in Christ am I healed from the disease of sin (see Isaiah 53:5). The psalmist reminds us to look to the cross, rather than our feelings, emotions or notions of what makes a ‘better’ Christian.

The following article is from the February 9^th edition of World Magazine

Within hours, Sabine Moreau should have known she wasn’t in Belgium anymore. But misplaced trust in her GPS direction system turned what should have been a 93-mile trip to Brussels into a 900-mile, two-day odyssey to Croatia. On Jan. 12, Moreau, 67, left her home in Erquelinnes, Belgium, to go pick up a friend from the train station in Brussels. To navigate the trip, Moreau flipped on the GPS system in her car and dutifully followed the directions as she drove southwest hour after hour. First she saw signs written in French. Then German. Then in other languages. All this, she says, didn’t make her realize something had gone terribly wrong. “It was only when I ended up in Zagreb [Croatia] that I realized I was no longer in Belgium,” she told the UPI. During the 900-mile journey, Moreau stopped for gas twice, got into a minor accident, and even pulled over to sleep for a few hours. When she arrived in Zagreb, she phoned home to find her family had filed a missing person report and police were preparing a manhunt for her.

Many around us today are seeking to please God through their own actions.  Perhaps you have that same thought from time to time.  If I could just be a better spouse, not fall into the same sin like I did last week, or give more money than God would be happy with me.  Such thinking is common among believers, but it leads us farther and farther away from the truth.  Like poor Sabine in the above story, when we look to ourselves and our own actions to try to please God we wander farther and farther away from where we should be.

As a Christian and child of God, my only hope in pleasing God is found in Jesus Christ.  The New Living Translation paraphrases Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus our Lord has done for us.”

In Jesus, God sees me as perfect!  My sins are taken away and I am a perfect child of the king.  This is the blessing and lasting effect of Easter.  A Savior who died on my behalf, paying for my sin.  A risen Savior whose resurrection defeated death, the devil and sin.  Only when we come to this assurance can we sing with the hymn writer, “My faith has found a resting place…it is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me.”

The closing verses of Psalm 30 are a fitting conclusion in this thought.  “You have turned my mourning into dancing…and girded me with gladness” (Psalm 30:11).  O Lord, for all that you have done I will praise you forever (Psalm 30:12). Thank you that I am viewed in light of my Savior instead of my sin!

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Welcome to the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). I hope you had a blessed Holy Week and will continue to enjoy the next 50 days of Easter.

Throughout Easter – and on every Resurrection Day – believers celebrate the fact that Christ accomplished the justification in which you, believer, now stand (Rom. 5:2; 1 Cor. 15:1). Your salvation stands as a work of Christ completed about 2,000 years ago. The doctrine of justification has rightly been called “the article by which the church stands or falls.”

The Augsburg Confession concisely sums up this doctrine:

IV. Concerning Justification

Furthermore, it is taught that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God through our merit, work, or satisfactions, but that we receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God out of grace for Christ’s sake through faith when we believe that Christ has suffered for us and that for his sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are given to us. For God will regard and reckon this faith as righteousness in his sight, as St. Paul says in Romans 3[:21–26] and 4[:5].[1]

Precisely because the church stands on this doctrine, Christ made His final stand for it. Continue reading →