May 16 2010
Pastor’s notes
Last Thursday was Ascension Day – the celebration of our Lord’s return to heaven to take His place at the right hand of the Father. By and large the significance of the day has been lost – after all, who wants to celebrate a “departure” – and yet it is the coronation in heaven of our Lord Jesus. In Daniel 7 we read of how the Ancient of Days takes His seat on the throne, and then, one like a son of man comes with the clouds of heaven. He approaches the Ancient of Days and is given authority, glory and sovereign power. All peoples, nations and men of every language worship Him and He is give an everlasting dominion and a kingdom that shall not pass away. The Book of Daniel is an amazingly accurate prophetic book. Hundreds of years before the events, it describes with uncanny accuracy, the rise and fall of the empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome – even with specific detail of the amazing victories and sudden death of Alexander the Great. The coming of the son of man into the throne room of the Ancient of Day (Jesus entering heaven) is described as taking place towards the collapse of the Roman Empire. How good is that!
We so often view the Ascension of Jesus from the perspective of the disciples looking forlornly up into the sky as Jesus rises on the clouds of the air. But what really matters is what happens on the other side, and the significance of that for us on this side of heaven. Jesus, having prepared and commissioned His church, takes His place as Lord of lords and King of kings. He has all authority and power and He expects us, as His people to continue, in the power of the Spirit, the work that He came to do on the earth. We have the task of reaching the nations, of spreading the good news abroad, of declaring God’s kingdom come upon the earth. The first disciples didn’t quite get that at first (and sometimes we, the later disciples, don’t get it either) and so they locked themselves up in the Upper Room for several days. But they did do something very significant – they prayed about what to do next. Ten days later, the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost and the church burst forth with power. Thousands came to faith, they began to pray for people and they were healed. The good news began to spread out from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. Friends, the task is not yet done. Stephen Covey, in his book about the Seven Habits, says that we live within two circles of life. The inner circle is called the Circle of Influence and the outer circle is the Circle of Concern. We can do something about our Circle of Influence but have no control over the outer circle – except to make our inner circle grow bigger ie to extend our Circle of Influence. Some things in the outer circle we cannot influence, like the weather for example, but if we focus our lives into being proactive in the areas where we do have influence, we can also be workers in the Kingdom of God as we share the Good News with those around us, and push our influence into the areas of life which concern (worry) us. I encourage you to take time this week, in the lead up to Pentecost, to pray earnestly for this generation of people for whom we are responsible to share the Good News about Jesus.
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