Pentecostal Preaching, Part 3

The first car I owned was a real clunker. Thankfully, it was of a pedigree that one could spend time tinkering with it to keep it going; and a lot of time was spent tinkering. At one point the gas gauge broke. Gas gauges are not an easy fix. Consequently, I drove without a working gauge, trying to judge when I next needed to fill up by how many miles I had driven. Needless to say, I ran out of gas more than once. At such times one becomes acutely aware of just how difficult it is for a car to do what a car is supposed to do without the requisite fuel in the tank. Having to push a car to the side of the road -- by yourself -- brings it home.

A task has been given to the church, a task that can no more be accomplished without the requisite fuel than a car can take a person from point A to point B without gas in the tank. This is why Jesus told his followers to tarry in Jerusalem after his ascension. He had commissioned them to bear witness to him and they needed to wait until the One who was to be sent, whose job it was was to to bear witness to Jesus (John 15:26), had descended and filled them. In His power they could, and did, carry out the task.

We are in no less need of the Holy Spirit to fulfill our role in making Jesus known than were the first followers of Christ. Persuading people to hand over the reins of their lives to an unseen Savior is not something that will be accomplished using ordinary methods of human persuasion. Mass marketing, appeals to emotions and desires, propaganda, even threat of death, will not bring a soul under the Lordship of Christ. It is only a work of the Spirit, a work of grace, that awakens a spiritually dead soul to life (John 3:3). This is why we need to pray with the early church for fresh fillings of the Spirit that we might speak “the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31). Our Spirit empowered proclamation connecting with people prepared by the Spirit to hear it, is what Jesus envisioned when he commissioned the church to be witnesses for him “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

He Ascended into Heaven

This past Lord’s Day was Ascension Sunday, an aspect of Jesus’ earthly ministry that receives little attention compared to his birth, death, and resurrection. The above title is a phrase from the Apostles’ Creed. The phrase, in the words of Swiss theologian Karl Barth, rounds off “a whole series of perfects: begotten, conceived, born, suffered, crucified, dead, buried, descended, rose again,” and leads into “a new time which is our present time, the time of the Church, the end-time, inaugurated and founded by the work of Jesus Christ.” Therein lies the significance of the ascension. It signals the completion of Christ’s earthly ministry and sets the stage for the work he has been doing through his people ever since.

How is the mission of the church enabled by the ascension? In the first place, it validates the one whom we proclaim. Jesus being taken from their sight in a cloud is a strong echo of previous manifestations of God’s presence. In Scripture, the glory cloud was not an atmospheric phenomenon; it indicated that God was among his people. Secondly, upon his return to heaven, Jesus, as promised, poured out the Holy Spirit upon the waiting church so that it would be empowered to carry the good news to the ends of the earth. Thirdly, Jesus bodily presence in heaven affords the church the great comfort of knowing that our own heavenly future is guaranteed. Seated with him in heavenly places, by reason of our union with Christ, we labor here on earth confident of our own glorification as the King of kings leads us on in God’s victorious plan. Lastly, as we labor our High Priest intercedes for us, providing our justification and facilitating our sanctification.

The significance of the ascension cannot be overstated. It is, in the words of one theologian, “the necessary complement and completion of the resurrection. Christ’s transition to the higher life of glory, begun in the resurrection, was perfected in the ascension.” As such, it is the source of our confidence as we serve in this life the one who possesses a name above all names, as well as a precursor to our own perfection and glorification.