Mr. Higginbotham told me I have all the time that I need. Thank you very much. If you weren't here at Sunday school, Jeff was getting me back because I announced that our official hours at the church are 9.30 when we start Sunday school and 2 o'clock when Jeff finishes preaching. Those are the official hours there. So that was a little dig back at me and it was well-deserved and well-executed. So thank you, Jeff. I'm really thrilled to share God's Word with you this morning. This is not about me. It's not about the church plant. Providentially, things worked out well where we had several people that were going to be gone for G3. And if we have about 13 people gone, I get to preach. That's where I'm at in the bullpen. I'm short relief down there. But we had enough people gone that I was going to get to come up here and preach. I'm thankful to do that. I am going to be preaching from Acts this morning, Acts chapter 1. And I decided, by the way, Probably two two weeks ago when Jeff asked me about preaching this particular Sunday almost that same day that he mentioned me preaching I Was you know, you're you're always thinking here's one thing about being a preacher Instinctively is your you can't read the Bible and not think about preaching a particular text So you're reading through and you're just always thinking, man, a sermon from there would be great. And I've been reading through Acts, and there's several things in Acts, and perhaps up at Clinton we'll even preach through Acts. It's, so this passage had been in my mind. I was already turning it over in my mind. And so then Jeff said, hey, will you preach this week? I told him, yeah, I would love to. And I already had, it's like my heart was already set on preaching this particular text. And then last week, late in the week, he reached out and said, by the way, Sunday morning, before you preach, can we share with the church about the church plant? And so I wasn't setting you up with like the talk about the church plant and then preaching from acts chapter one about going into all the world It's just it's worked out. Well, and and the lord has providentially ordered this and I'm, very thankful for that So we are going to read together in acts chapter one this morning You're probably familiar, you know, most most of you here are familiar. You know your bibles well, which is a compliment to you And uh, i'm, sorry i'm giving all kinds of feedback from this mic here but You know your Bibles well, and you know that Acts is a transitional book, that the Gospels cover for us the life and ministry of Jesus. And so, starting with his genealogy, all the way through his death and resurrection, and even touches a little bit of Jesus' appearances to the apostles after his resurrection. But everything that's happening in the Gospels is happening with Jesus present. It's happening with the Son directly involved physically with what's happening in the ministry and the life of the church. The book of Acts is a transition from the ministry primarily of Jesus as he is on the earth, really to the ministry of the Holy Spirit as he is working through the church and through the apostles to take the gospel first to Jerusalem there, then to all of Judea and Samaria, and eventually to the ends of the earth. And it's a transitional period where the church has been working under the direct contact with and help from Jesus, and now will be working under the direct leadership and guidance of the Holy Spirit as they go out into the world. There are a lot of different themes that you might ascribe to the book of Acts. But I think that verse eight in chapter one captures the theme of the book of Acts and even Luke in this verse presents for us what the theme is. And it's found in Jesus's words that you will be my witnesses. As you read the rest of the book of Acts, I have this compulsion where I feel like if I say something, I have to defend it. If you read through the rest of the book of Acts, the rest of the book follows the things that are presented in verse eight here. It's the story of Jesus's church being witnesses first in Jerusalem, then in Judea and Samaria, and eventually to the uttermost parts of the earth. So verse 8 is central to and encapsulates probably what the theme of the book of Acts is from the perspective of Luke who wrote it. The book of Acts is a book of reclamation. And that's a particular term and theme that you don't see a lot talked about when you read about the book of Acts. But what it is, is it's a story of how God goes about reclaiming the earth for himself. how he begins that work of redemption. And it's not truly beginning in the book of Acts. It started all the way back in the Old Testament. But through all the ministries of the prophets that led up to this time in the New Testament where Jesus would appear, now the work, reclaiming Jerusalem for Yahweh and reclaiming all of Israel, reclaiming all of the earth back to its creator, begins in the book of Acts. And that's what this book is about. It's about being his witnesses, going out into the world and reclaiming it for the creator. By the time you start reading in the story of Acts, which we're going to read in chapter 1 momentarily, Jesus has already, you know, been raised from the dead. But he didn't just show himself to the disciples and then ascend back into heaven, never to be heard from again. There was a period of time, of 40 days, where Jesus was periodically showing himself again to the disciples in one sense so that they could be witnesses again to his resurrection. They could see him raised from the dead again, talking to him physically, touching him, seeing that he had been brought out of the grave. But it says in Luke 1, the specific thing that Jesus was doing during this 40-day period is he was speaking with them or he was teaching them about the kingdom of God. which I take to understand that Jesus was teaching them about the nature of the kingdom of God. This is what the kingdom is going to be like. But he was also teaching with them about how it was going to grow and expand. So Jesus said, if you take all of his conversations with the disciples during this post-resurrection period, you could put a theme on those conversations and say the thing that Jesus wanted to speak with them about was about the kingdom of God. And He had told them not to scatter and go back to their homes, which they were prone to do. Jesus was still in the tomb, probably the second day that He's in the tomb, and where did all the disciples go? They go back, right? They go back to Galilee, go back to the things they had been doing before. Jesus had told them to wait. Don't go back to their homes, don't scatter all over the earth, but to wait in Jerusalem because He would be sending the Spirit to them there to help them. Their work as Jesus' disciples didn't conclude or end with His resurrection and the conclusion of His public ministry. It was a lifetime commitment that He was preparing and equipping them for. And I can't help but wonder, and this is what I call sanctified imagination, when you just kind of make things up and think about it, but it's from the Bible. And I'm thinking about this, and I can't help but wonder if the disciples assumed that now their work was done. that now they were going to go back home. Obviously, they had this testimony of what they had seen. That wasn't going to leave them. They weren't going to act as though they had never heard of Jesus. But I wonder if they think maybe the work was over. And Jesus was telling them, no, wait here, because really their ministry is just beginning. And it was a lifetime commitment that they had entered into when Jesus had told them, hey, if anyone wants to follow me, he has to know, take up your cross and follow me. Be willing to leave behind mother and father and sister and brother and everything that you have. Be ready to sell all that you have to follow me. Be ready to go wherever I send you. And that wasn't a temporary, you know, three, three and a half year thing. This was the rest of their lives. And that's the place that we find them when we encounter them here in Acts chapter 1. Now, the passage that we're going to read sets the trajectory for the whole book of Acts, like I was talking about in verse 8, about being Jesus' witnesses there, close to home, and then eventually to the ends of the earth. But I want to emphasize something to you right from the very beginning of this story. The story of how Christ commissioned and empowered His church in the book of Acts is not a distant story. We don't read this story. as though we're reading ancient history. It's a story that you and I are still participating in today. It's a story for which the last chapter hasn't been written yet. We know what the last chapter looks like, and I guess you could say, if you were being really theologically precise, that the last chapter has in fact been written, but it's the middle chapters that haven't all been written yet. And you and I find ourselves in this story that started with Jesus' conversation with the apostles. We are the direct heirs of the gospel that was given to them, and we share their commission to be his witnesses, and we serve the Lord Jesus here on earth while he is reigning and lording over the earth and over his church in heaven. In Acts chapter 1, beginning in verse 6, it says, When they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has fixed by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. And when He had said these things as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven, He went. Behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. It is to me understandable that the apostles were geared up and that they had seen and been a part of things that had them anxious to know if Jesus was now about to consummate the kingdom back to Israel. They had seen this man's miracles. They had seen him take somebody that was paralyzed, tell him your sins are forgiven, get up, take your bed, walk, and the guy would get up and walk. And they saw people who were blind, and he would heal them, people who couldn't hear, They were deaf. He would give them the ability to hear. They saw people who had died and He would raise them from the dead. And these miracles that they had seen and the internal witness in their spirit at the hearing of His preaching taught them that this man is indeed from God and He is the one who He claims to be. This is Israel's Messiah. And they'd also seen this man beaten and murdered and well, they had first seen him arrested and then beaten and murdered and suffering and die. And then they saw him raised from the dead. And for 40 days after his resurrection, they continued with him and they continued to fellowship with and learn from this man who they had saw die. And they knew he was dead and there were witnesses to his death. And now they were They were talking with him. He had told Thomas, reach out, look, the place where they'd put the nails in my hands. And now by this time, they're being promised the spirit who God had been promising to Israel for at this point for hundreds of years. God is promising that he's going to pour out his spirit on Israel. And it's easy to understand why these men are so geared up, because they're getting all the signals from Jesus that now the kingdom is going to be consummated. That God is finally pouring out His Spirit to His people. He has sent His Messiah. His Messiah is in Jerusalem. He's going to rule from there. And so it's understandable that they jump back to the question they had periodically, you know, touched on in the Gospels. Lord, is this the time that you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And you notice that Jesus' answer here is not yes, and it's not no. What's happening is that the disciples, if you think of a continuum here, if you think of a timeline, the apostles are jumping all the way to the end of God's redemptive plan. So they're thinking all the way at the very end of God's eschatological program, where all the nations are being gathered, and a son of David is ruling on a throne from Jerusalem over all the nations of the earth. And they had seen that Jesus had inaugurated the kingdom and is coming, right? That's what he had preached. That's what John the Baptist had preached. That if you hear this preaching, you know the kingdom of God has come upon you. And they knew the kingdom had been inaugurated. But they were jumping all the way to the end to where it would be consummated, where it would be finalized. So their question was misguided because they're not at the beginning of God's redemptive plan, nor are they at the end of it, but they're actually in the middle of it. And what Jesus is doing is He is redirecting their question so that they're not any longer thinking about what's happening and interpreting it in light of the very end of God's eschatological program. But he's telling them that they are going to be participants in that act of seeing the kingdom grow and go into all of the world. Now, I don't know if this exactly makes sense. It's making sense in my head. I don't know if it's making sense as I'm saying it. But they're looking at it and going, this is it. God's work on the earth is finished and he's about to build his kingdom here. And they still don't seem to realize that really the work for the church is just getting started. So Jesus' answer to them was that the Father had set a time for the consummation of the kingdom and that would take place in due course, but it wasn't for them to know when exactly that time would be. For one, it wasn't their prerogative to know it, but secondly, it didn't aid them in their mission. It didn't change how they were to operate as the church to know whether the consummation of the kingdom was coming in a year or a thousand years or ten thousand years. It didn't change fundamentally who they were and what they were to be doing. Their focus needed to be in the present, concerned with the work that was still to be done for the kingdom to advance on the earth. And so Jesus' response to their question was to tell them that the church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, would bring the gospel, and thus the kingdom, to the ends of the earth. So Jesus is not, in fact, really answering their question at all, because they're geared up, Lord, now's the time for the consummation of the kingdom. And Jesus says, well, you don't know when the consummation is going to be, just to be clear. But what we're going to do is empower you, speaking from the perspective of the Godhead, to empower you to go into all of the world to be my witnesses. This is the answer to the question of how will the kingdom of God grow and expand? How will all of the nations be gathered in? How will the people of every tribe, tongue, and nation be gathered together? This has been talked about for thousands of years in the Old Testament. The prophets have talked about it. And the answer to that question of how it will happen is now found in the book of Acts. It will be the work of the church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, that will bring all of the nations of the earth to the worship of King Jesus. Jesus explained that the kingdom would go forth into every part of the world by these two statements in verse 8. First of all, he told them, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Now, of course, this looks ahead to Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost, when the apostles and others are gathered in the upper room, and the Holy Spirit does actually descend upon them, and there's a special manifestation of God's Spirit in that passage. But this isn't the only reference or the only appearance of this kind of language in the Scripture, and that's not the only instance in which the Holy Spirit is going to be poured out for the edification of the Church. If you hearken back to the Old Testament, you know that the work of God the Spirit was present in believers in the Old Testament as well. That the Holy Spirit is active and involved in the ministry of the church under the Old Covenant just as He is the church in the New Covenant. Although many of these things are hidden behind the veil of time and not always being explicitly given to us there, we know that the Holy Spirit is not on the sidelines of the narrative of what God is doing in the world in the Old Testament. Jesus had promised His disciples that He was going to send them the Holy Spirit to aid them in their ministries. He said to them in John 16 that when He comes, talking about the Spirit, He will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin, because they don't believe in Me. So the Spirit will convict them of their sinfulness and their rebellion. The Spirit will convict them concerning righteousness, because He is leaving to go to the Father. You will see Me no longer. And concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. This language of the Spirit coming and Jesus descending into heaven and seeing Him no longer, it sounds a lot like The language that we're reading in Acts chapter 1 verses 9 through 11. He went on to say, So Jesus prepared the apostles for the Holy Spirit's arrival. And what he told them about the Spirit coming is that they were going to receive power when the Holy Spirit would descend upon them. You wonder when you read in Acts, how is this little band of apostles? And it's not just the apostles. There are other Christians and converts and things there. How is this small little band going to overtake the entire world for the cause of Christ? Because even though their history is deeply important to us, most people in Jerusalem probably didn't know or care much about who these people were or what they were doing and didn't know them, they didn't revere them, they don't think of them the way that we're thinking of them. And how is this little group of people going to go out into all of the world? I mean, was Israel able to do that with their millions of people? Was Judah able to do that? How was this little group of Christians, most of them Jewish, a few Gentiles probably at this point, how were they able to go into all of the world for Christ? Well, they're going to preach and they're going to share the message as God has given it to them through the act of preaching. But Jeff's been reading to us from 1 Corinthians and explaining to us that the ability to preach and preach well is not about being eloquent. It's not about having elegantly crafted sermons. It's not about being witty. It's not about being able to communicate well and clearly. We want to do those things. But that's not what the power of preaching hinges on. It hinges on a man of God who stands up, who is full of the Spirit of God. And God is pouring out His Spirit into that man and sending it out into the congregation. to accomplish whatever He cares to accomplish in the hearers, to harden their hearts, to soften their hearts, to draw them, to cast them out, to convict them, to encourage them. These things are done not in the power of man's ability to craft sermons and preach, but because the Spirit of God is within him and is preaching in him. This little band of preachers, I mean, again, sanctified imagination, they were probably pretty good. A lot of them wrote portions of the New Testament, and they were good writers. But to go into all the world and preach the gospel didn't hinge on Peter, on Stephen, on Paul, on James, on these men's ability to preach. That preaching had to be full of the Spirit of God for it to be effective. How were they going to go into all the world and suffer the way that they were going to suffer, to be rejected, to be beaten. Not one of these men died a glorious death, at least in human terms. None of them died probably comfortably in their bed or on hospice care. They died brutal, agonizing deaths. And how did they continue on? How did they keep going? It wasn't just this internal fortitude that they had. It was the Spirit of God empowering them. When they would go preach, they would go from town to town and they would perform miracles. And it wasn't because they had conjured up some ability to perform these miracles, it's because the Holy Spirit was empowering them to do these miraculous things that would authenticate their message that they were preaching. When Jesus was telling them they were going to receive power, notice the indicative statement in verse 8 is not that you will receive the Holy Spirit. They had already been told they would receive the Spirit. They're being told you're going to receive power when you receive the Holy Spirit. That this work of going into all the world with the gospel would be empowered by and the catalyst of this would be the work of the Holy Spirit and the person of the Holy Spirit. The second statement Jesus made was that you will be my witnesses. in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And I want to point out again that this is a statement of reality. Jesus isn't telling them, it's not a command, go be my witnesses. He's telling them, you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. He has called them, has sanctified them, has saved them, is sending the Spirit to them. Now he's going to send them out into the world to be his witnesses. Now, I want to take this definition of witness and maybe broaden it a little bit, because when you think of witness, I think there's two ways primarily that you think of it. In one case, a witness is somebody who observes a thing. So when you're sitting in a court of law and you call in a witness, That person's a witness because they were an observer of what happened. They had seen this murder take place, they had seen this theft or this auto accident or whatever, but they're being brought in because they were an observer of it, and now there's a witness in the courtroom to authenticate the proceedings and the things that are being said and done. There's another sense in which a witness is one who goes out and gives testimony of something. So that person may be one in the same. He may be called up to the stand to give a testimony. But think of evangelicalism, when we say we're going to do evangelism. Don't we use the term witnessing interchangeably? Or when you have a lost person in your family and you say, I'm trying to witness to them, what you're saying is I'm trying to share the testimony of Jesus with them. I'm trying to share with them the things that I've observed, and now I'm taking that message to them. And so being a witness brings both of these ideas together. That idea of observing something, being able to give testimony to it, And then the actual act of giving testimony to it, which I know is kind of splitting hairs here, but I think it's an important distinction for understanding what a witness here is in this passage. Now, in Isaiah 43, God had told the people of Israel, you are my witnesses, declares the Lord. And my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe and understand that I am He. Before me no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no Savior." Israel was Yahweh's witnesses because they had seen and observed that He alone possessed power and authority. He alone was the self-existent and true God. And God was telling them, you were witnesses to this fact. You know it to be true. You go to the next chapter in Isaiah, the Lord tells Israel, fear not, do not be afraid, for have I not told you from old and declared it, and you are my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? There is no rock, I know not any. He's telling them again, you are my witnesses, who have seen the work that I've done, and of course you can read Isaiah 43, 44, and see the list of works that he's recalling there. But then a couple chapters later in Isaiah 49, Israel's being personified as the servant of the Lord. And here's what Yahweh says to the servant of the Lord. It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel. I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach the end of the earth. What is in the mind of the apostles and of Jesus during these proceedings in Acts chapter 1 is this language of what it means to be a witness unto God. One who on the one hand has seen and knows and has observed His character and the things that He has done, but one who on the other hand will take that testimony therefore out into the world. This rich backdrop of the Old Testament is what was in their minds. This is what they're thinking of when Jesus tells them, you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. This isn't just a statement of reality. This is a fulfillment of what God had promised to Israel through the prophets. That now you will be that servant, personified in Isaiah 44 and 49, that takes the gospel to the ends of the earth. Just think of some of the families in this church. This one single church in Conway. There are men and families here that are taking the gospel to Cameroon, to Turkey, to Ecuador, to Cuba, to Kenya. There are other places that I know are taking the gospel. And that's from one church here, one little church in Conway. But I don't want you to overlook this fact, that those of you here from Conway, Greenbrier, Little Rock, Clinton, Fort Smith, Paraguay, I've met people from all over the state of Arkansas at this church at one point or another. You too are part of the nations. The nations aren't somewhere else. They are here. And you and I stand here today because the story that started in Acts chapter one has continued unabated by the power of God to this present day. And here we are, the nations that are sending out the gospel to the ends of the earth. You see, we don't just read the story of Acts, but we participate in it as it is being written. And just like the disciples, we are participating in God's work on the earth by taking the gospel empowered by the Holy Spirit to the ends of the earth. There are two things in line with those statements in verse 8 that I think we would do well to remember. First, we must remember that this work is empowered by God, the Holy Spirit. We must remember always that the work that we are doing for the growth of the kingdom is useless unless God goes before us, unless God empowers it, unless God puts this on us convictionally to go and do it. Unless God is in it, everything that we do is in vain. When I think about this church, you know, I made the joke earlier about being so far down in the preaching bullpen, but it's because we do have an unusually high number of gifted teachers and preachers in this congregation. and skilled teachers and preachers. But their teaching and their preaching is useless if the Spirit of God does not fill it. If God doesn't put the message in their heart and on their mouth, their preaching is in vain, regardless of how good of an orator they may be. The work that we do in supporting and sending out missionaries all over the world and supporting international church planners and all of the work that's out there It's all in vain if the Spirit isn't in it, if the Spirit doesn't empower it. We have a seminary. You know, you take a small church, and I know we're a bigger church, we're a growing church, but we're still a relatively small church, I think. And I've worked with hundreds of churches, and we're, you know, in the middle pack. But if you got outside of Arkansas, we're not really that big of a church, if you go to a lot of other places. And to think that we've got 85 men studying at our seminary. 85 men who are either pastoring churches or are going to go out and pastor churches. And we're training them here. Huge responsibility and a huge opportunity. But I'll tell you this, as much as I love the seminary, if the Lord's not in it, you know, I'll quit yesterday. We believe in this church, in this seminary, in this mission work that we do. that the Holy Spirit has to empower it, that it's a waste of time, it's a waste of effort to go out and do these things in our own effort. For the church, this realization that our kingdom work is dependent on the Spirit should do two things. Number one, it should humble us from thinking that we can do things in our own power. At the same time, it should liberate us from believing that the work depends upon us. We need to be humble enough to understand that we can't do these things in our own ability, But we need to be liberated from the thought that if I don't do this, and if I don't do it perfect, and if I don't do this thing or that thing exactly right, or if I make a mistake, or if I don't know the Word of God as plainly as if it was written out, or the will of God as plainly as if it was written out on a piece of napkin, if I make a wrong move, the whole thing is compromised. Now, we can be liberated of that, because the work isn't powered by us, and it does not depend upon us. The second thing to remember about his statement in verse 8 is that our work, the work of witnesses, has no boundaries. That we are to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. I can be personally thankful this morning that the gospel did go from Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth because if you look at a globe, and the world is in fact round, and it's a globe, and you look at it, You can't get much further from Israel than Arkansas. You're on almost opposite ends of the globe. I'm thankful that the gospel went forth to the ends of the earth. There are no boundaries on this work of the church that has been given to the apostles in Acts chapter 1. The call to be Jesus' witnesses is fundamentally a call to go. And that's something that those of you who are involved in mission work, you know this. The call to be Jesus's witnesses is fundamentally a call not just to stay or always to stay, but to go. Where and when and for how long is for the Lord to decide, but every one of us must be willing to see the kingdom grow in our cities and towns and communities and wherever the Lord, our God may send us. He sends some of us, some of our people here, he sends into the prisons and they go and they go willingly and they preach the gospel there. And He sends some of them into nursing homes, and they preach the gospel there. And He sends some of them to faraway countries, and they preach the gospel there. And He sends some to plant churches, and they go and they plant churches. But wherever the Lord calls us, we have to respond. Because we are participating in this story of how God is going to draw all the nations to Himself through His church, empowered by the Spirit. When we took up the cross to follow Jesus, you entered into this story Knowing it or not, knowing it, you're here now and here we are. The Lord has invited us in to be his witnesses and to go. I read a quote from F.S. Spencer this week that has stuck in my mind. I've been turning it over in my mind. I probably shouldn't have set it up because it's not that long of a quote. In talking about Acts 1.8, he says, rather than sinking roots in Jerusalem and waiting for the world to flood in, Jesus's followers are to move out from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria and out into the ends of the earth. How easy it would be, even reading the Old Testament, to be the apostles and think all we need to do is plant the flag here. Start building the walls, start building the temple, and the Lord's going to gather the nations. That's the language, right? He's going to gather the nations from the corners of the earth or the ends of the earth. And we're just going to sit here and wait. But that's not how the New Testament church goes out into the world. There's good reasons and there's good times to stay. The church isn't transient. It doesn't show up in a town and disappear and move to the next town. This isn't a traveling thing. It needs to stay everywhere it goes, but it has to go before it can stay. The church has to go into the world. And Jesus' disciples are given that commission in chapter 1 and verse 8. So after Jesus had given this mandate, look what happened in verse 9. When He had said these things, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. And they were gazing into heaven as He went. And behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven." Now, I think it's significant And I'm not trying to over-read it, but I think it's significant that there's no formal introduction or transition that takes place here. It doesn't say, for instance, you'll be my witnesses, Judea, Samaria, outermost parts of the earth. And then there's this kind of transitional clause like, so after Jesus had completed teaching them everything He intended to teach them, then He was taken up in a cloud into heaven. You're just reading the story, He's talking to them, and then, boom, in verse 9, As He said these things, the implication being, even as He's still speaking, He's just taken up into heaven out of their presence. It doesn't tell us how the disciples responded or if they even did respond to the things that Jesus had told them in verse 8. I think this is intended to make the point that this is Jesus' final and continuing mandate to the church. that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you will be my witnesses to the end of the earth. And that open-ended mandate has no conclusion, it needs no transition. Jesus' final words to the church are, be my witnesses to the end of the earth. And then he goes to sit on the throne in heaven. Now, you read this, and of course there's some interesting details in these verses that could be explored if we had more time. I mean, Mr. Higginbotham told me I had as much time as I want, so I'll take the liberty to do that. There's the language here of the cloud. And the theme of the cloud, you know, representing the divine presence is a tantalizing one. It's one you want to spend some time thinking about. It was a cloud, for instance, that sat on Mount Sinai, right, when Moses went up to speak with the Lord. And it was a pillar of cloud that led Israel out of the wilderness as they were traveling, making their way in a long roundabout way to Canaan. It was a cloud that filled the temple when they were bringing the Ark of the Covenant in. And the priests would go in there and they would just disappear out of sight. We're meant to think this is the divine presence, right, being represented in this cloud. You remember that there was a voice speaking, but a cloud hid the voice when all of the People are standing at the Jordan River, and John the Baptist is standing there. And they're looking up into heaven, and they can't see anybody. They just see a cloud. And it says, this is my beloved Son. Listen to Him. A cloud that had hid the people from the face of the Father speaking there. It was a cloud from which the Holy Spirit was going to descend. this language about a cloud and its reference, the reference here that Luke makes to the two white-robed men, is meant to make us think not only of the divine presence in this story, but to think about all of the ways that God has testified to the work of His Son. The women, remember, run up to the tomb, and there's just two men that are sitting on either end of the tomb, two angels sitting there, white-robed. Why are you here looking for Him? He's not here, He's risen, just as He had said. And we don't know, of course, if these are the same two, Part of me wants to hope that they are, that they had seen both the empty tomb, and now they were seeing the Holy Spirit come. But part of me also wants to think that these kind of duties were delegated into heaven, and a lot of different white-robed angels got to participate in it. But what these men really are, is they are witnesses. And just like the divine law mandated, bring no case, make no accusation, make no statement, except in the company of witnesses. When Jesus walked out of that tomb, raised from the dead, God sent His own witnesses to testify to it. And when He sent the Spirit to descend upon the church, to go in His power to the ends of the earth, He sent His witnesses again to see it and to testify to it. I want to lastly pull your attention to verse 11, where the men say, Why are you looking up into heaven? Because this Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. You know, part of me, I read that and I kind of understand what's happening there. I think if I was standing there and Jesus was talking to me and then he just gets carried off in a cloud, I think I would probably just stand there looking into heaven as well. I think I would be just watching this, probably not saying anything. My wife probably disagrees with that, but I don't personally think I would say anything in the moment. I would watch, I would watch as the cloud disappeared into heaven. But I think their question is basically rhetorical. And it was a gentle way of saying to the apostles, it's time to get back to work. Why are you standing here, gazing into heaven? You're watching him go. And they're telling him, look, you've been with him, you know, for three years. He's told you what the mission is. He's sending you the spirit. So now it's time to quit. looking off into heaven. And that's easy to say if you're one of these men who's presumably going to heaven, right? And you're going to get to go and be with Jesus while the apostles are left here on the earth. But they're telling them it's time to get back to work. The Bible certainly tells us that we are to be watchful, to be sober-minded about the return of Christ. And I think we probably neglect to do this well. I would confess that I neglect to do this well. We would likely live most of our lives with more vigilance, with more urgency, with more compassion, with more sense of loving our neighbor, with more sense of loving God, if we were convinced that Jesus would return at any moment. But we should also heed this question as a reminder that it's time for us to get to work. It's time to be busy and to busy ourselves with the work that God has given us. that we reclaim whole days, even hours, even moments, that we claim weeks at a time and months at a time, that we resolve that we're going to live day under day, week under week, month under month, as though Christ would be here at any moment. I want you to leave here this morning understanding that you're living right in the middle of this story that began in Acts chapter 1, and that our King Jesus is alive and is seated right now at the position of authority in heaven at the right hand of the Father. that his church and his kingdom is under his constant care and that he provides for it. He provides for us in every way possible. And someday he will return and put every enemy under his feet and will judge the living and the dead. But at the same time, we find ourselves here on earth. And it's a hard transition. It's not hard for Dr. Moore because he's an expert, but for the rest of us, it's a hard transition when you try to go from this statement of Jesus to be my witnesses and then this story of the ascension because there's no introduction there. But I think there's a picture being painted here that Christ is back in heaven. He's sitting on his throne. He's ruling over the earth. He's sending his spirit and his church, his little, I don't want to say fledgling, but there are problems in the early stages. His young church is here on the earth, empowered by his spirit. And they will take the gospel to the end of it. And you and I are in year probably 1980 something of that work going on here in the world. Let's pray. Father, there is no piece of this earth which you don't claim for yourself. And we know that your kingdom is a kingdom not wrought with human hands, not brought about because of the power or the ability of your people. And until you establish the new heaven and the new earth, we know that your kingdom here is in the hearts of your people who you have called to yourself, that you rule and reign with unbridled, unchecked authority, that you deserve and will command the worship, the undivided loyalty, the complete obedience of all of the earth. And Lord, we are grateful to participate in your plan to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. We pray fervently for all of these men and their families who labor. in Turkey and Ecuador and Cuba and Cameroon and Kenya and everywhere that they go, everywhere you send Ryan Bush with heart cry, everywhere that you send your people. We pray that their work would be empowered by the Spirit, that they would go and that your Spirit would do great work there, would give them power. Lord, we pray for Luke Cummins as he goes into the prisons and he ministers there, and for the men of this church that go to the nursing homes and they preach to them. And Lord, we pray for this work in Clinton. That as it goes forth, your testimony, your witnesses will be empowered by your spirit. Lord, we eagerly await the return of the Lord Jesus, and we would invite that he would come even today, but it's not for us to know the days and the seasons. And so, Lord, until he returns, we pray you would empower your church by your spirit. that you would give us a keen sense that you would never leave us or forsake us. Do these things, O God, to glorify your great name.