Father, your word is a marvel.
You write parts of scripture that are so simple that a two-year-old can understand them and
remember them.
And yet those same simple stories that even a two-year-old can understand, Father, they
can inspire the greatest philosophers, the greatest theoreticians, the greatest poets
and dancers and choreographers and musicians to heights of imagination.
And these simple stories can ground us in profound moral wisdom and insights, and, Father,
all from very, very simple stories.
So we ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would do a gentle but powerful work in our lives
this morning.
Father, I don't want people to remember my words.
I ask, Father, that these simple words of scripture will come deep into all of our hearts and that
Jesus will be more precious to us and what he did for us on the cross will be more precious
for us and that you will change us from the inside out.
And I ask this in Jesus's name.
Amen.
Please be seated.
The resurrection changes everything.
The resurrection of Jesus changes absolutely everything.
If it really happened.
If it didn't happen, every single one of us are profoundly, foolishly wasting our time and
our money.
Quite literally.
If Jesus did not physically rise from the dead on the third day, every single one of us are
wasting our time.
If you're here as a curious seeker, you're wasting your time.
If you're here as a seasoned believer, you and I have been wasting our time for a long time.
But if it is true, it changes absolutely everything.
If it's true, it means that Hinduism isn't right in its totality.
But we have a basis by which we can look and see what bits and pieces of Hinduism are true.
If the resurrection actually happened, it means that Buddhism's not true.
But it means that we can look at the practice of Buddhism and pick out the bits and pieces
that are true.
If the resurrection happened, it means that Islam isn't true at a fundamental level.
And we can look and judge which bits and pieces of Islam are true.
If the resurrection happened, it means that critical race theory isn't true.
But we have a basis to look at those bits and pieces of critical race theory that are true.
If the resurrection happened, it means agnosticism and atheism are not true.
They're just not true.
But we can look and see those bits and pieces that led people to those conclusions, which bits
and pieces are true.
And it's not just...
And it's more.
It means that our understanding of scientific theorems is going to change.
It means how we read, like, the first and second law of thermodynamics has to change.
Like, if the resurrection happened, it changes absolutely everything.
And it's not just, though...
It's not just, though, that it changes something just, you know, purely and utterly, like those
intellectual types of things.
And some of you are yawning and saying...
I mean, some of you may be shocked that I would say something like that live in Ottawa
in 2023, and it's going to go on YouTube.
And are maybe even a little bit threatened that I would say that.
But it's just true.
If Jesus really rose from the dead, it changes everything.
And it's not just that Jesus rose from the dead.
It's what happened before Jesus rose from the dead that makes it even more precious,
that it's not just an intellectual thing.
And, I mean, Deborah picked brilliant songs that help to illustrate how unbelievably significant
it is.
Because, you see, the message that we are to proclaim is that God so loved every single
one of you and me.
He loved us.
God loved us.
And he saw that we couldn't fix ourselves, and that we were going to die, and that we
were in desperate need.
And he did something for us that we could not do for ourselves.
And it means that God, the Son of God, left heaven, setting aside his glory and divine
prerogatives, and setting aside all of his appearance as God.
He enters our human life.
He is no longer God who is distant.
He is Emmanuel.
He was God with us.
He lives amongst us.
He suffers trials and temptations like we do, only without sin.
He lives the life that we should live, but we are never able to live.
And he lives that life.
And he's fulfilling all of these stories and all of these prophecies and all of these
images that God has sent messengers about for 1,500, 2,000 years.
And he's fulfilling them.
And many of these images touch on the very, very deepest longings and yearnings of our
hearts, that death is not the final word.
That there is a way to be reconciled to ourselves and to know forgiveness and to know that we
are forgiven by God.
And these intimations we have when we see beauty, and we think when we see beauty, there must
be something no more.
And Jesus comes.
And in all that context, when he dies upon the cross, he's not dying for anything that
he has done.
And he's not dying to show off.
It's not like he's going to try to win a mixed martial arts contest or an Olympic medal or
anything like that.
The message is that he does it for you and me because he loves you.
And he loves me.
And that's why he dies.
Because he loves you.
And it means, and then he dies.
He dies the death that you and I deserve to offer you and me the destiny and the rewards
that we don't deserve, but he deserves.
And when we put our hand in his and trust him, he takes our doom and gives us his promise.
Because he loves you.
He knows you and he still loves you.
He knows the things about you that you're ashamed of.
And still he loves you and loved you enough to die on you.
And there's no amount of sin or death or shame that is too deep that Jesus did not go deeper
in his identification and is dying for you.
And the resurrection of Jesus vindicates that all of what I have just said is completely
and utterly true.
So that it's not just a matter of, okay, now we know that critical race theory is a bit,
is wrong in all these areas.
We can think of, it's not just that.
It is that, but it's not just that.
It's something of the deepest level of our heart and our affections and our,
and how we can start to view ourselves and how we can start to understand that we don't
own ourselves, but that one who loved us so much that he died for us, he owns us.
He doesn't own us so that we can become slaves, but because for the, so he owns us and dies
for us because now we can actually start to become free and unashamed.
And, and so if the resurrection happened, it changes everything.
Now I'm going to read the Bible.
It's going to show you how all this is true.
And, and some of you say, well, George, that's fine.
You read the Bible and you believe that all stuff, but I don't believe all of that stuff.
And I just want to, I just, that that's fair enough.
I'm going to tell you why you should at least listen to what I'm going to read,
but let's read it first because you have to read it to understand at least why we have
to take it into account and how it fits with what I've just borne testimony to.
So if you, if you have, look at Acts chapter one and look how it begins.
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.
Now we just need to pause.
It says there's a first book.
This is the second book.
Now here, if you have your Bibles, you can follow along.
If you don't have your Bibles, it's going to be on the screen.
What's his first book?
Well, his first book is what we now call Luke.
And, and here's how Luke begins.
In as much, chapter one, verse one,
in as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished
amongst us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word
have delivered them, sorry, to deliver them to us.
Seemed good to me.
Seemed good to me also.
So, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you,
most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.
Now, here's just a couple of things about that.
It's, you'll notice in a moment when we go back to it, he's speaking to the same Theophilus.
He wrote Luke, this guy by the name of Luke wrote two books.
So, a couple of things about this, and this all goes to why or not we should, in fact,
listen to this and at least think about it.
First of all, Theophilus, we don't, nobody knows whether Theophilus was a real person,
but it's really neat because even if he was a real person,
it's all part of what I would say as a Christian is part of God's providence,
that he didn't pick somebody whose, I don't know, name meant all hail Zeus or something like that.
In fact, the Theophilus means, it can be translated as one of two ways in English,
friend of God or lover of God.
And so, many people think, I mean, whether or not there was a real person,
now in a sense, it's addressing, it's like some people write, when they write, they say,
dear reader.
But rather than saying reader, they say, dear friend of God, dear lover of God.
Now, does this mean that he doesn't want to address skeptics? Not at all.
One of the things I tell, I don't always do it,
but often I tell people when I'm doing a wedding rehearsal,
is I tell the men and the women involved, I say,
we're going to pretend for the next 45 minutes.
And so, what we're going to see is we're all going to be using very polite language to each other
and a very exalting language to each other.
And on one level, you might actually not feel that way towards some of the people,
like, you know, there might be family members who are there and you hate their guts
and all of that type of stuff.
But we're going to act formal and polite in a way that's sort of good and proper,
the way you should act, right?
And so, that's the same type of thing here that Luke is doing.
He's writing it to the friend and lover of God.
He's giving you, he's not saying, by the way, I know some of you are deranged skeptics
who rage against God for irrational reasons like a brutish beast.
I mean, he could say that, but he doesn't.
Instead, he says what we do at wedding ceremonies and other things.
He uses very polite language.
And this book is addressed to a lover of God, a friend of God.
That's who it is who's reading it.
But the other thing about it is you need to know a couple of other things about this,
which are very significant, is that, first of all, Luke was a pagan who became a Christian.
We don't know how many years after death and resurrection of Jesus,
but Luke was not an eyewitness of anything that happened with Jesus.
When you read the ancient biography written by John and Matthew,
you're reading an ancient biography, eyewitness, written by actual literal eyewitnesses.
And Mark would have been an eyewitness of some of the events, but not all of them.
But Luke didn't see any of them.
In some ways, then, when we read Luke and Acts, it's like us reading them,
because none of us have literally seen Jesus do all of these types of miracles.
The other thing is, and no matter what, if you go and Google this later on,
and they'll give you all sorts of dating things about Luke.
And I, you know, basically...
Go ahead, George.
Tell us what you really think.
Basically, if they give you really late dates, they're just blowing smoke at you.
Because, trust me, I studied...
I took courses at a secular university, an ultra-liberal seminary
that didn't believe anything in the Bible happened.
I heard from the horse's mouth how they think,
and there's actually no evidence for late dates.
In fact, all of the actual evidence,
like stuff that people really think of as evidence, like real stuff,
it would say...
We know that Paul died.
He was arrested in Rome in 62 AD.
We know that historically that that's the case,
and he died a couple of years later.
And so we know that the book of Acts was written before Paul died,
because it ends, if you go to the end of it,
it ends before we find out what happens to Paul.
He's just arrived in Rome to be tried by Nero,
and we don't find out what happened.
So we know that the book of Acts and Luke had to be written before that.
And the other thing, of course,
is that it had to be written before the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70.
So, you know, maybe nobody knows
whether he sat down and wrote Luke in a couple of days,
and then the next day he wrote, you know, the next book and did it all quick,
or whether there's a big gap of time.
But we know that within...
that what Luke did is he, in a sense,
probably retraced his own intellectual steps,
that he would have heard this phenomenal claim
that a man died an unbelievably shameful death of crucifixion
and then rose from the dead on the third day.
And he's a doctor.
Luke was a doctor.
We know that about him.
And so he probably began to research it
and talk to the eyewitnesses
and go and actually see the things
and recount the stories.
And so what we have here in this ancient biography
by a former pagan who was so convinced by the evidence
that he left paganism and became a Christian,
and he writes a careful eyewitness-based biography of Jesus
and then a careful eyewitness-based story
of the early days of the Christian movement.
And it all happened while many, many eyewitnesses were alive
and they could contradict it.
Now, there's two things that follow from this,
and they sound dry and unimportant,
but the fact of the matter is
is that Christians are concerned about evidence.
We aren't, like, properly understood, instructed Christians.
Don't just think you have to have some type of medical vision
or that you kiss your brains goodbye
when you become a Christian
or that it's just a matter of heart
or you're just like the little train that could, you know,
rather than saying, I will, I will, I will, I will do it.
We say, I believe, I believe.
No, it's not.
Those things are all fine, you know,
but there's, like, evidence and thinking matters.
And that just goes right back to books like Acts.
It's because it's, like, it's in the Bible.
And so...
If you're to be intellectually honest,
you need to deal with biographies like that,
and you need to fit it into what we know,
because there's all sorts of other evidence
around the early Christian movement
from historians who weren't Christians
and from court records and skeptics,
and you need to fit it all in.
And I just want to challenge you.
I'm not going to go through all of the evidence.
I just want to challenge you
that time and time and time again,
when people actually look at all of the evidence,
when they look at it very honestly,
there, it, to my mind,
it's very...
There is no explanation
of the emergence of the Christian movement
that is better,
that on the third day,
Jesus died upon a cross
in an unbelievably public manner
outside the gates of Jerusalem
on a Friday in April,
either the year 30 or April, 33,
and that on the third day,
the tomb was empty,
the body was gone,
and Jesus appeared alive,
and there is no other better explanation
of the facts than that.
And if you're online watching,
or you're here,
and you're sort of a bit curious,
or a skeptic,
or sitting here like that,
I challenge you to begin an inquiry.
I challenge you to do it.
I encourage you to do it.
Why?
Because if it's true,
it changes everything.
So, let's go back to the book of Acts,
and we'll see how, in fact,
just it continues on
with the same theme,
that even as Peter...
And so what we're getting here
is this very ancient recording
of sermons and deaths
and persecutions
and all of that,
and so there's this second aspect
of an eyewitness history,
which now Luke is writing
in the book of Acts.
So let's go back.
Chapter 1, verse 1.
By the way,
just so you know,
there's 14 verses.
I just spent 16 minutes
on the first verse,
so you can calculate
how long the sermon's going to be.
Just 14 times 16,
and you'll come up with the answer.
No, we'll go quicker
through some others.
In the first book, O Theophilus,
I have dealt with all
that Jesus began to do and teach
until the day when he was taken up.
He's sort of giving a bit of a foretaste.
He's talking about the ascension.
After he had given commands
through the Holy Spirit
to the apostles whom he had chosen,
Jesus presented himself alive to them
after his suffering,
that's after his crucifixion,
by many proofs.
And in the original language,
you could actually translate it
and some translations do put
many convincing proofs.
And we're going to show in a moment
how one of the convincing proofs were.
Appearing to them during 40 days
and speaking about the kingdom of God.
Verse 4.
And while staying with them,
he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem.
Now, just before we go any further,
if you're looking at some other translations,
you'll see that in some translations,
they say,
and while eating with them.
Both translations are valid.
Staying is a little bit more literal.
But let's just think about it.
Let's just be honest.
Unless somebody comes to your door to visit you,
and you really, really, really dislike them,
and can't wait for them to go,
what do you offer them?
Something to drink and eat.
And if they're coming overnight,
you don't say to them,
by the way,
I've already organized my own supper
and dessert and breakfast,
but here's a number for Uber Eats,
and you can order your own food.
Like, that's not what you do.
Like, when you're staying with them,
you give them stuff to eat.
Like, that's what people do.
And we're not nearly as hospitable.
Some of you are from countries
other than Canada,
and I can tell you,
like, if you go to Africa,
they are vastly more hospitable than we are.
And in many other parts of the world,
they're vastly more hospitable than we are.
So it's staying and eating.
Now, why is that significant?
Well, here it is.
Some of you might know,
I've met people
who, within the months
after the death of their wife or their husband,
or maybe a child,
they're convinced that they've seen them again.
Like, sitting in their favorite chair.
I've met people who've said that.
Some of them have come to me
and asked me,
how do you,
like, George, what's going on?
Like, how do I account for it?
Like, is it just, you know,
wishful thinking?
Is it, was I tired?
Did I fall asleep when I dreamed it?
Like, is it a ghost?
Like, is it a demon?
Like, what's going on?
But many of us have,
many people have seen their loved one
maybe sitting in their favorite chair,
and it shocks them
because they know they died.
And that's sort of odd, right?
It would be really weird
if you saw them in their favorite chair,
and then you went into the kitchen to eat,
and then they sat down and ate with you.
Like, like they did just like
what they used to do.
You made yourself an order of French fries,
and they sat down across from you,
and they took your French fries
and started eating them.
Like, that would really freak you out.
Well, that's what,
you see what I mean by this is what they're making?
They're making this deep acclaim about the fact
that that's what these people believed.
And one of the things about the book of Luke
is that in some ways they didn't do footnotes,
is that lots of times throughout the book of Acts
and Luke he mentions names,
and in a sense those are the footnotes.
Luke is saying,
oh, go look up one of these guys.
They can tell you this actually happened.
And they were sitting with Jesus after he died
and risen from the dead,
and he ate with them.
I mean, he is alive.
He rose from the dead.
He ate with them.
In fact, actually,
if you just jump ahead to verses 12 to 14,
the next page,
you'll see that he does it again.
And here's how he does it.
So we're going to get to a moment
about the ascension and everything.
I'm not that that's unimportant,
but there's some other stuff that happens.
And so verse 12,
then they, that's the disciples,
they returned to Jerusalem
from the Mount called Olivet,
which is near Jerusalem,
a Sabbath day journey away.
A Sabbath day journey away
is a journey under three kilometers on the Sabbath.
So they didn't have a very far walk.
Verse 13,
and when they had entered,
they went,
Jerusalem that is,
they went up to the upper room
where they were staying.
And then it mentions
that the people by their names,
that Peter and John and James and Andrew,
Philip and Thomas,
Bartholomew and Matthew,
James,
the son of Alphaeus
and Simon,
the zealot
and Judas,
the son of James.
All these with one accord,
were devoting themselves to prayer.
Now look at this next bit.
Together with the women
and Mary,
the mother of Jesus
and his brothers and sisters.
Now,
if you've read
any one of the ancient biographies of Jesus,
what do you know
about the ancient biographies of Jesus?
Jesus,
that his mother and brothers and sisters
did not believe
that he was God,
the son of God,
and they did not,
they thought he had gone nuts.
And it's very clear
from the ancient biographies,
they thought Jesus had gone nuts.
And by the way,
obviously in those days,
they could not diagnose somebody
as bipolar,
but they still knew nuts.
Like,
you don't have to be a psychiatrist
to recognize crazy.
Okay?
And that's what they thought.
And now here,
here,
and we're going to see
as it goes on,
here,
they're amongst the group of people
who believe that Jesus
had risen from the dead.
See,
one of the things
that has obviously happened,
not recorded,
is that somewhere along the line,
during those 40 days,
Jesus appeared
and proved to himself
that he was alive
to his mother
and his brothers
and his sisters.
Proved to them he was alive.
And now they were
amongst the Christians.
You see,
regardless,
it's not just the fact
that I say this is the Bible
and I believe it
because it's the Bible,
but even if you don't want
to grant it that,
if you want to be
intellectually honest
and intellectually curious,
these are ancient
eyewitness biographies
and have to be taken
and you have to account
for them
and you have to account
for what Philo
and Josephus
and others say
about the Christian movement
and you have to account for it.
And the best explanation
is that Jesus rose
from the dead.
And if he rose
from the dead,
it vindicated
what he said
about himself
and what he was doing
when he died on the cross.
And if he really is God,
the Son of God,
and he really became
God with us,
and he really died
on the cross
because he loved you,
and if his death
is that which can reconcile
you to God
so that you become
God's child
by adoption and grace
and you receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit
and all of your sins
have been forgiven,
there is no better news
in the history
of the world.
No better news
in the history
of the world
than that news.
And part of why
we come to church
is because we go outside
and we watch YouTube
and we watch Netflix
and we read books
and we see people
who don't believe that
and it starts to become
less clear to our hearts
and that's why week by week
we need to gather
with other brothers
and sisters
to remind ourselves again
that this is true.
This is,
as we sang at Matt's ordination,
what is my hope
in life and death?
I have no other hope
in life and death
other than Jesus is with me
and that when I die
I will see him face to face
and enter into the new heaven
and the new earth.
I have no other hope
in life and death than that.
I have no other hope.
There is no other hope.
That is the good news.
Now,
the next little bit,
you know,
so I've just made
a good case for this,
I hope,
but I'll be very honest.
The next bit
actually describes
why I became a Christian.
And it wasn't because
of these clever
intellectual arguments.
I don't think they're clever.
I think they're,
I'm just trying to honest,
be honest intellectually
and it's not,
it wasn't these intellectual things
that led me personally
to a faith in Christ
when I was in grade 12.
This next little bit
describes why it is
in a sense
that I became a Christian.
Let's see what it says.
It's,
sorry,
we'll go back up
to verse four.
And while staying with them
and eating with them,
Jesus ordered them
not to depart from Jerusalem,
but to wait for the promise
of the Father,
which he said,
you heard from me
for John baptized with water,
but you will be baptized
with the Holy Spirit
not many days from now.
So,
when they had come together,
they asked him,
Lord,
will you at this time
restore the kingdom
to Israel?
Very,
they're still sort of caught up
in a wrong way
to understand the Old Testament.
And Jesus said to them,
it is not for you
to know the times
or seasons
that the Father
is fixed by his own authority.
In other words,
that's all,
you know,
God's gonna,
God handles all that.
You don't need to worry about it.
You know,
we need that more.
That's God's problem.
Let him worry about it.
You deal with these other things
in front of you.
Like,
it's like a Christian version
of Steve Covey's
Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People,
right?
And one of the very first things
is to separate the difference
between things you can control
and things you have no control over
and not waste time
about things you have no control over
and think about
what you can actually do.
That's what Jesus is saying.
Listen,
that's God's prerogative
about how history's gonna be changed.
Don't worry about it.
Here's what you have to do.
And then in verse 80,
he says this,
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 ends of the earth.
See those three things?
You see,
what happened to me is
I came face to face
with real Christians.
Maybe,
I think,
I'd obviously met
lots of real Christians before,
but I think for me,
the real Christians I met
were so caught up
in a whole pile of,
I'm probably being
very unfair to them
and in heaven,
God's gonna show me
that it was my hard heart
and I wasn't perceiving
them correctly.
But it just felt like
it was rule upon rule
upon rule,
do this,
don't do that,
you're not allowed
to do this,
you have to do this.
And that's what it felt.
And then I came into contact
with people
and when I was with them
and they were praying,
the whole room was different.
I didn't expect
to get teary.
The whole room was different.
Like I felt something.
And I knew there was something more.
It's the Holy Spirit at work.
And so it wasn't because
I'd done an intellectual search
into the resurrection.
Other intellectual searches
in the resurrection
became increasingly important
in the years to come
as I had other periods of doubt
and other reasons
to be more confident in my faith.
But it was just that
powerful sense
that it was,
there was another person
in the room
when I was with
those people praying.
And I knew I wanted it
and I needed it.
And that's what led me
to give my life to Christ.
And here we have
this wonderful words
of Jesus
which explains it.
You know,
he describes the Holy Spirit
as the promise
of the Father.
And it's a very special
type of promise.
When I was a kid
I was probably
a very, very terrible kid.
And my parents spanked me.
And I'm not complaining
about any of the spankings.
I probably deserved
every one of them.
But at a certain point in time
my mom would spank me
and it didn't hurt.
And when that happened
she'd say,
when she realized that,
then what would happen
is when your father
comes home
I am going to tell him.
It was a promise
she made to me
and I didn't.
That wasn't a promise
I look forward to.
But fortunately
my parents made
other promises
just like we make
other promises.
Like wonderful promises.
Like you're going to have
a great time
on your birthday.
You're going to have
a great time at Christmas.
And that's the type of promise
that God is talking about
to us as Christians.
That's what the Holy Spirit is.
Jesus is saying,
you know,
the Father has made
this most spectacular promise
to ordinary people
like you and me.
And that spectacular promise
it's the Holy Spirit.
And the Father
is going to send
the Holy Spirit.
I mean,
we get it when we
become Christians
but back then
it's going to be
Pentecost in 10 days
which we'll read about.
And you're going to have
this fantastic thing.
You put your trust in Jesus
and you receive
the promise of the Father.
It's the Holy Spirit.
And the image
of baptism
is an image
of immersion.
It's an image
of cleansing.
It's an image
of purifying.
That's what the Holy Spirit
is going to do with you.
And then he also says
it's going to give you
power to bear witness.
And there's this
wonderful,
wonderful thing.
You know,
we just ordained
Matt yesterday
and I'm not putting
Matt down.
We didn't look at Matt
and say,
he's so unbelievably
persuasive.
Like,
he could go to the Inuit
in the middle
of a blizzard
in January
and sell them
ice blocks.
like,
even though they could
go out and dig their own,
like,
he could just sell anything.
Like,
you know,
he could just sell anything.
He's so persuasive.
He can convince you
that it's pouring rain outside
even though you're
standing there in sunny.
Nothing personal.
Matt's not like that.
And in fact,
actually,
if he was like that,
he probably shouldn't
be ordained.
Because then he's only
going to trust
in his own power.
We have a very simple task.
On one level,
it's very,
very simple,
but it's also very,
very profoundly hard.
Because we know
that identifying yourself,
becoming an out Christian,
is not a way
to become more popular
and win more friends
in Ottawa in 2023.
But it's a very,
very simple thing.
God just says,
will you bear witness
to Jesus?
And I want you
to bear witness
to Jesus.
Look what it says.
It says,
in verse 8,
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 at the ends
of the earth.
In other words,
the true ancient movement
of diversity,
inclusion,
and equity
is this very simple message
of proclamation
to Jesus,
that we are to go
and bear witness
to Jesus
to the ends
of the earth.
All humanity
and its diversity
can be included
when they receive
Jesus as Savior
and Lord.
And why is it equity?
Because as Charles Spurgeon
so brilliantly said,
when you share
and witness
to another person,
you are one penniless beggar
telling another penniless beggar
where to get free bread.
That's all it is.
Don't say,
look at me,
I'm so fantastic.
No,
I'm a penniless beggar.
It's not about me,
it's about him.
He is the bread of life.
He is the river of life.
He is the one
who will quench your thirst.
It begins to be quenched now
and it will go on and on
and on into eternity
and you will be both,
your thirst will be quenched.
And,
and,
you know,
so we're not called
to be brilliant apologists.
If you are,
then praise God.
Brilliant evangelists,
if you are,
praise God.
God,
it's a matter of
God will open doors
and opportunities for you.
You should pray for it.
I should pray for it.
As a church,
we should pray for it
and there'll be opportunities
where we just bear witness
to who Jesus is
and why his life and death
and resurrection
changes everything
and how God loves you
and just,
it's just a matter
of bearing witness.
It could be something
as simple to begin with
that Tuesday
when you go to work
and they say,
oh,
by the way,
what did you do
on the weekend?
And you say,
like,
rather than saying,
oh,
I went to hear a talk,
say,
I went to church.
Like,
it's really important
for me to go
and recharge my batteries
and hear about
God's love for me.
Like,
that's just how
bearing witness
to Jesus begins.
and it's an interesting thing
because it's a team sport.
Like,
you know,
if three days later
somebody comes back
and says,
I have all these
intellectual objections
and you think,
ah,
you're a deer in a headlight.
That's when you just say,
listen,
we have guys like George
and Victor
and lots of other people
in the church
and they'd love to talk to you
about those things.
Like,
why didn't you come?
They'll even probably
pay for the coffee
and you can come
and ask them these questions
and they'd love to talk to you.
You know,
it could be Josiah,
it could be Emma.
There's lots of people
who'd love to talk to you
about those things.
Handle your questions.
We think questions are important.
It's a team sport.
It's a team thing.
You just,
all Jesus is asking,
he said,
we're giving you,
I'm giving you the Holy Spirit,
cleansing you
and to be my witnesses.
And then there's just
one other final thing
very briefly in closing.
It's a whole other,
big books are written on it,
but Luke makes clear
that the resurrection appearances
of Jesus would come to an end,
but in a very significant way.
Let's look at them first.
A guy was asking me,
like,
what happened to Jesus
the other day
and why didn't he keep
doing miracles?
And I said,
well,
we're told he didn't want to hear.
But anyway,
you can hear.
Here's what it says.
Verse 9.
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,
as he went,
behold,
two men stood by them
in white robes.
That's beside the 11.
And said,
men of Galilee,
they're angels,
by the way.
And they said,
men of Galilee,
in other words,
like ordinary dudes.
That's what men of Galilee means.
Like Galilee is like Hicksville.
Okay?
It doesn't say
men of Oxbridge
and Harvard.
No,
it's just,
you know,
dudes from the valley.
You know,
Hicks types.
People who,
like Tim Hortons,
not fancy coffees,
and follow the senators
and stuff like that,
and know how to fix an engine.
Or even if they don't know
how to fix an engine,
know somebody who does,
and they buy them
the Tim Hortons double-double,
why they fix the engine.
And you say,
well done.
So that's why he says,
men of Galilee,
why do you stand
looking into heaven?
This Jesus
who was taken up
from you into heaven,
he will come
in the same way
as you saw him
go into heaven.
And there's just
so much about this,
like there's
this symbolism.
Remember,
I opened my prayer
by saying,
this is on one level
the simplest story
in the world.
You could read this story
to two and a half year old,
and they'll get it.
But you can take
a story like that,
and you know,
you can read some guys,
just Pajot,
and talks about symbolism
and the body
and nature,
and you can have
all these creative types,
and they can just see
all the symbolism
of all of this
and the poetry
and the beauty
and philosophers
and metaphysics,
and they can get it
and science,
all that,
and yet at the same time,
it's just a very,
very simple story.
And my hope is that
you've heard the story,
you believe the story,
and you believe him.
That's my hope.
Let's stand.
Bow our heads in prayer.
Let's stand.
Father,
we live
between the death
and resurrection
and ascension of Jesus
and his coming again.
And we know
from other parts
of the Bible,
we, Father,
don't know
whether Jesus
will return
in five minutes.
We hope he does.
That would be
far better.
than having more church.
We hope he does,
but we also don't know
if he's going to wait
for 500 years.
But we live,
Father,
knowing that he lived,
he loved us,
died loving us,
rose from the dead
loving us,
ascended into heaven,
he loves us,
he is there,
our risen Savior and Lord.
You are sovereign
over all history.
Apple doesn't control history.
Progressives don't control history.
Conservatives don't control history.
Capitalists don't control history.
Socialists and fascists
don't control history.
You control history.
You will bring it
to its proper end.
We live between
his ascension
and his coming again.
And we ask,
Father,
that you have
these simple
but powerful
true stories
of Jesus
and the gospel
take a deep hold
in our heart
and our mind
and our imagination
and how we understand
ourselves
and see the world.
And, Father,
we ask
that the Holy Spirit
would have
a deeper power
and place in our lives
and that you would help
ordinary people like us,
also men of Galilee,
that you would help
ordinary people like us
bear witness to Jesus
as you do
the wonderful work
of conversion.
And we ask these things
in the name of Jesus,
your Son
and our Savior
and all God's people said,
Amen.