We'll go ahead and take out your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Acts, chapter 1, this evening. Acts, chapter 1. And we'll hear from verses 1 through 11 tonight. But we'll be focusing mostly in the sermon on verses 6 through 9. But before I read the Word of God, let us pray for the Spirit of God to illumine our understanding of His Word tonight. Please pray with me. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. And we ask, O Lord, that You would help us, Lord, to set aside our cares and anxieties of this world, even from this past week, so that, Lord, we might focus on Your Word tonight, and chiefly in Jesus Christ, as we hear the Gospel proclaimed from Your Word. And so we ask, God, that You would cause us to receive Your Word with true faith tonight, that You would comfort our souls with the good news of Jesus Christ. And Lord, may we honor and glorify You with grateful hearts in our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. And so, loved ones, hear now the Word of God from Acts 1. In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command, Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So when they met together, they asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven. So far, the reading of God's holy word tonight. Also, if you would like, you can turn to our catechism, question and answer 49, which I believe is on page 25 in the back of our Psalter hymnal as we come to Lord's Day 18. And I will read specifically question and answer 49 and feel free to follow along as I read. And I remind you, loved ones, this is not the Word of God, but a helpful summary of it. How does Christ's ascension into heaven benefit us? First, He pleads our cause in heaven in the presence of His Father. Second, we have our own flesh in heaven, a guarantee that Christ, our Head, will take us, His members, to Himself in heaven. Third, He sends His Spirit to us on earth as a further guarantee. By the Spirit's power, we make the goal of our lives, not earthly things, but the things above where Christ is, sitting at God's right hand. And so may the Lord help us to understand more about the ascension from Acts chapter 1 this evening. Well, beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, It was the first day of physics class during my senior year of public high school and I sat down in my lab station and I was waiting for the teacher to show up and all the students were filing in and a young lady sat down next to me and I was kind of nervous as she looked towards me as I realized she was about to actually say something to me and she simply asked me this question, are you a Christian? And it was an odd question to me at the time because I was raised in a theologically liberal Presbyterian church that never preached the pure gospel. And without a moment's hesitation, I replied, no, I'm not a Christian. I'm Presbyterian. And she didn't really say anything after that. And I, to this day, still don't blame her for that. And about three months later, the Lord thankfully pulled me out of my darkness and out of my sin into Christ. And I heard the good news and received it with true faith by His grace. And so here I was, a brand new Christian, living the Christian life in this public high school. And not long after this, I walked up to my physics teacher after class and I asked, Are you a Christian? And he seemed caught off by that, caught off guard. And he kind of looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, skeptically down through his glasses at me. And he said, well, I don't believe in miracles. And one of the things and miracles that he went on to speak about concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ was that he didn't believe in Christ's ascension. And he said, this whole business of Jesus ascending in the clouds. And he kind of was like, you know, mocking Christ here. And so he got hung up on the ascension of Christ. He rejected Christ and the ascension. He wasn't a Christian. And since we're considering Christ's ascension this evening as we come to Lord's Day 18 and question and answer 49 in particular in our catechism, I tell you this true story to highlight the fact that Christ's ascension to heaven is essential to the good news. It's essential to the Gospel. Without it, we have no Gospel. Without the Ascension, we have no Gospel. If you reject it, you cannot be a Christian. Without it, we have no hope of salvation. We have no hope of heaven. So have you ever thought of the Ascension in that way before? And truth be told, I don't think that there are very many things concerning Christ's ministry that we think about less than Christ's Ascension. We celebrate His birth at Christmas, we celebrate His death on Good Friday, we celebrate His resurrection on Resurrection Sunday, and we hear a lot about these truths in the Gospel, thankfully, every Lord's Day. But honestly, though, honestly, who often specifically thinks about Christ's ascension into heaven? We confess it every Lord's Day, as we just did tonight, when we say, I believe He ascended into heaven. We know that it had to happen, but we don't always think about its importance for the Gospel or its importance even for our daily Christian lives in Christ. And so this evening we want to spend some time really dwelling on and thinking about this important part of the good news of Jesus Christ for our Christian faith and our lives tonight. And so there's a lot that we could spend time on regarding the ascension. And even our catechism speaks of many things. But let's specifically think about the benefits of Christ's ascension this evening, tonight, for us as Christians. What are the benefits of Christ's ascension? What does it teach us? So let's think about that through these three points tonight. The ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, it teaches us first that He pleads our cause in heaven. Second, that He prepares our place in heaven. And third, He empowers our Christian lives from heaven. And so, let's make a beginning. In the first place, the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us that He pleads our cause in heaven. Look with me at verse 9. After Jesus said this, He was taken up before their very eyes and a cloud hid Him from their sight. You see, Jesus, not only was He bodily raised from the grave and from the dead, but He also bodily ascended into heaven. And the disciples saw Him firsthand as their mouths were no doubt hanging open, as they saw their Lord lift off the earth. They saw Him literally be physically lifted up and received into a cloud of glory. He literally, bodily, ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. This is what Ephesians 1 verse 20 tells us. It says that God's power raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms. That's why Christ ascended. To be seated at God's right hand. And when it speaks of Christ ascending and then sitting at the right hand of God. It's teaching us something. It's meant to tell us something here. It's meant that He received the supreme dignity, the supreme glory and majesty of heaven when He ascended and sat down at the right hand of the Father. It signifies His supreme power and His omnipotence over all things. And it tells us He's the One with all the authority. It tells us He's the One with all the power over the church, ruling and reigning over us from the glory of heaven. So the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed a human body and a human soul. And He lived righteously in our place. And He died on the cross for our sins and was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven to rule and reign over His bride, His church. To us. And so our head is in heaven. In our flesh. Think about that. He has no sin. He's purchased us by His blood and righteousness. He's gone on before us into heaven now by virtue of His bodily ascension. So just even speaking just these few words about the ascension, we can begin to even get just a sliver, a small glimpse of just how crucial His ascension is for the good news for us tonight. And there are so many aspects about it that are important, but the one that I want to highlight is that we now have our advocate. We now have our advocate standing in heaven, pleading our cause before the Father in our flesh. And our catechism directs us to this benefit of Christ's ascension. In question and answer 49, first, He pleads our cause in heaven in the presence of His Father. And so without Christ's ascension, we would have no advocate. We would have no one pleading our cause in heaven. And 1 John 2.1 in the New King James Version says, My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Christ in His earthly priestly ministry, He offered Himself up in our place and He perfected us who are being sanctified forever, as the Scriptures say. And now Christ, He continues in His priestly ministry in heaven on our behalf. As Hebrews 9 says, He ascended and entered into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us. Wonderful words to meditate on. Now Christ, He isn't offering Himself up again in heaven because He only did that once on the cross. Rather, He's now pleading our case, if you will, before the Father as our representative and as our advocate. And so you can think of the benefit of Christ's ascension in this way. Whenever Satan accuses you in your conscience or dares to lay a charge against you, Jesus Christ, God's very own Son, whom He loves dearly, is your faultless advocate. And He stands ready. And He does perfectly defend you in the courtroom of heaven. You see, that is a wonderful blessing and benefit that we have as Christians. We have an advocate standing in our flesh pleading our cause before the Father. And so Romans 8.34, a verse I trust you know very well, it says, Who is He that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God. and is also interceding for us. So the Scriptures teach us something very important about our ascended Christ. He pleads our cause before the Father and defends us. And by way of further practical application, it's a great comfort to us as pilgrims traveling through this present evil age to know that we have our Savior in heaven defending us. He's praying for us before the Father as our advocate. He's defeated all of our enemies through the cross and the empty tomb. And our certain hope is on the last day we'll receive the fullness of all the spoils of that victory He gained. And this is why our hearts love Romans 8. Verses 35-39. It says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, neither angels, nor demons, neither the present, nor the future, and this list is long, nor any powers, neither height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in our ascended Christ who stands now before the Father in our place. That is a great comfort to us. It's a great comfort to you, Christian, as you make your way through this troubled world. You have an ascended Savior whom you cannot be separated from standing before the Father. And our Lord's ascension into heaven is not only a great comfort to us, but it also motivates us to run to Him in our time of need, in our times when we need help. Have you ever thought about the ascension that way before? Knowing that He is our Advocate in heaven, in our flesh, having lived among us in this fallen world, knowing that He is our Advocate pleading our case before heaven, we can confidently go to Him. Knowing that He is for us. knowing that He's not against us and that He actually sympathizes with us and He has promised to help us when we are in need. This is what Hebrews 4 says in verses 14-16. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, there's a language of the ascension there. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus Christ, Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. But we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. It's a wonderful promise that the Scriptures give to us, reminding us that our Christ is ascended through the heavens and is before the Father, and so we can go and find help, grace, mercy in our time of need. So our Good Shepherd, He knows our frame. He loves us. He mediates our prayers to the Father, and He aids us with the mercy and grace that we need all throughout our lives to persevere to glory. And dear ones, I know we have the natural tendency to run away from God and even to trust in our own resources and strength when our consciences, for instance, feel guilty or when we need help of some kind. But I encourage you, loved ones, in those moments to remember this part of the good news, the ascension. I encourage you in those moments of temptation to think about our Savior's ascension and His compassionate disposition towards you as your advocate pleading your cause. Remember that. And run to Him in your time of need always for mercy and grace. Well, not only does Christ's ascension benefit us in that He pleads our cause in heaven as our advocate, it also benefits us in that He's gone to heaven to prepare a place for us, which is our second point tonight. Christ's ascension teaches us that He prepares our place in heaven. And so we've talked a bit about the significance of Christ taking up our flesh, both body and soul, and ascending into heaven to be our advocate before the Father. But having our flesh in heaven also guarantees to us that He'll also take us to heaven to be where He is. Christ is the ascended head of the church. And as such, He's reigning over us from heaven and He represents us, His elect, in heaven. And He's obeyed God's commandments in our place and He's received God's wrath on the cross in our place, blotting out, taking away, removing all of our heinous sins. And He died our death and was raised up from the dead on our behalf as well. And by this work, His death became our death through faith alone in Him. His righteousness has become our righteousness. His resurrection has become our resurrection. And also His glorification has become our glorification. And His ascension to heaven has even become our ascension to heaven as well. So the great blessing in this is that His ascension means that we've been given the right in Him to follow Him into glory. That's what our catechism says. We have our own flesh in heaven. A guarantee that Christ our Head will take us, His members, to Himself in heaven. A wonderful Gospel truth for us to be reminded of. You see, He's ascended to heaven in our place so that He might bring us there. As Hebrews 6 says, We have this hope as an anchor. As an anchor for the soul. Firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where Jesus who went before us has entered on our behalf. So Jesus has ascended to heaven as our forerunner. He's gone there before us in order to bring us there at His appointed time. So He is preparing a place for us there right now. That's what He says in John 14. Verses 1-3 Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you, I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am. What wonderful words our Good Shepherd speaks to us. And so, loved ones, there is a place in heaven for you right now. And your Savior has promised and He's guaranteed to you that He's coming back for you to take you to be with Him where He is now and you will see Him face to face. Now, in fact, the Holy Scripture tells us that the Spirit of God has so united you to Christ through faith that there's a sense in which you already live in heaven and have already received the benefits of heaven and even already sat down in heaven. Ephesians 2 teaches us, because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. And Colossians 3 tells us a similar thing. That our lives are hidden with Christ who dwells in glory above. Have you thought about your life in that way? You are hidden with Christ. It's as if you now even are seated with Christ in heaven. And this is why we can say that our citizenship is already in heaven right now, as Philippians 3 says. But our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you've trusted in Him, loved ones, Christ has promised to prepare you a place in heaven and has already granted His citizenship to you. And so not only did our Lord promise to bring us to Himself in heaven, but He also prayed to the Father for that to happen as well. He prayed, Father, I want those You have given to Me to be with Me where I am and to see My glory, the glory You have given Me because You loved Me before the creation of the world. That's our Lord's prayer for us, for you. And part of the good news is that The Father in Heaven always hears and He always answers the Son's prayers. You see, our Christ will gather us to the place that He's prepared for us to be with Him and to behold His glory face to face forever. So therefore, Heaven, that's our pilgrim destination. And because Christ is there now having ascended in our glorified flesh, We've been guaranteed a spot there among that uncountable number of glorified saints who are worshiping the Lamb before the throne. And so our Lord promised heaven to us. He's prayed for us to be with Him in heaven to see His glory. And He's actually procured our entrance into heaven by His sinless life. By the shedding of His blood on the cross for our sins and by resurrecting from the dead for our justification and by His ascension to the Father's right hand in majestic victory and glory. So loved ones, that's some serious good news for us tonight. His glorious ascension guarantees our glorified entrance into the eternal joys of heaven. And so loved ones, tonight if you feel that your knees are buckling in the midst of your troubles, In the midst of your trials or in the midst of your temptations, look to Christ, loved ones, who is there in heaven now, standing there, there in your perfected flesh. Look to your risen, ascended King knowing that He is preparing a place specifically for you there. And not only is your Lord preparing your place there, but He's also preparing you for your place there. And He's doing this by using the very hardships that buffet you, the very circumstances that vect you, the sufferings that you're experiencing right now, whatever they are. The Lord, in His goodness to His people, is using those things to fit us, to prepare us for that place of glory with Him. And so what you are suffering and what you are enduring is not in vain. Our Lord is making you more like Himself through them and He's getting you ready for that great day when He will bring you home and you'll be with Him forever. And so look to Him, loved ones, to persevere, to endure to the end, to finish the race. Well, the third point that we want to consider is that Christ's ascension teaches us that He empowers our lives from heaven. Look with me at verses 6-8 in chapter 1 of Acts. Just before our Lord ascended, the disciples, when they met together, they asked Him, Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for You to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority, but You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on You. And You will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So another really important part of Christ's ascension is that if it didn't happen, We would not have had Pentecost. We would not have had the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the people of God. So Jesus in John 16, verse 7, He says, But I tell you the truth, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you. And so the ascension of Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost are intimately linked. So Christ's departure, His physical departure from the earth was for our good so that He would send His Spirit back to be with us so that He would be with us forever. And so in a sense, He's sending Himself back to us by His Spirit to be with us. And Jesus says in John 14, And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. And so it's the Holy Spirit who applies the atoning work of Christ to us. First, He makes us alive. He takes away our dead hearts of stone and He gives us new living hearts in Christ. And then He imparts the gift of faith to us. And through faith then we're justified and we're declared righteous in God's sight. And then the Holy Spirit forms us more and more into the image of Christ and our sanctification all the days of our lives. And He preserves us all the way to glory through His means of grace. And so the gift of the Spirit is our guarantee of entrance into heaven. And He sealed us for that great day, as Ephesians 1 teaches us. So that's what our catechism is getting at here when it says Christ sends His Spirit to us on earth as a further guarantee. You see, the Spirit is the down payment guarantee of our entrance into heaven. In the catechism, it goes on to say, By the Spirit's power, we make the goal of our lives not earthly things, but the things above where Christ is sitting at God's right hand. And so, our catechism is simply echoing there and commenting on Colossians 3, verses 1-4. And there it says, If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. And so it's the Spirit of God who has united us to Christ. And He gives us the power to live for Christ. It's by His power that we live for Christ, our ascended King. It's the Holy Spirit who enables us to live out our Christian lives. It's the Holy Spirit who produces the fruits of the Spirit as we read them in the book of the Galatians. And so it's the Spirit of God who causes us to long for and think about the things of heaven and to seek the things of heaven. and so christ's ascension his leaving the earth when we think about these things is a great blessing to us as believers now we might not intuitively think that way that our savior leaves and that's actually for our good and our betterment because we in our christian lives so often if we're honest with ourselves it would just be so much easier if we could just see jesus face to face if he was He's just here for us in the flesh. And we can behold Him through whatever trials we go through. But we remember though, that even though He left us in body, thankfully, He is still with us by His Spirit. He hasn't left us as orphans, loved ones, to struggle alone through this present age. He is with us even until the end of the age as He's promised us by His Word and His Spirit. So in conclusion, loved ones, without Christ's ascension, we wouldn't have an advocate in our flesh in heaven. We wouldn't have a place being prepared for us in heaven. And we would not have the power of heaven to live for Christ. So without Christ's ascension, we would still be dead in our sins. Without faith in Christ, without the power and ability to live for righteousness, and we would have no hope of the guarantee of heaven. That's how crucial understanding this teaching of Christ's ascension. So loved ones, whatever stage you are in your Christian life, whatever you are struggling with, whatever hardship you're enduring, remember that our Lord is in heaven. He is for you. He is not against you. He is going to bring you there to be with Him no matter what, loved ones. And so let's love and learn and think more deeply about this wonderful truth that our ascended Christ is in our flesh in heaven now. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You this evening for Your Word and we thank You for the good news of our Savior that He not only has taken away our sins and risen from the dead, but that He has also ascended to heaven where He is now in our place. Thank You, Lord, for this good news. Comfort us, Lord, with these truths. For we pray them in Jesus' name, Amen.