narrating with dramatic flair.
9 After he had said this, he was taken up as they were watching,
and a cloud took him out of their sight.
10 While he was going, they were gazing into heaven,
and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them.
11 They said,
“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven?
This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven,
will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven.”
urgently carry out the witnessing commission.
The Ascension of Christ
After commissioning the apostles in verse 8,
Jesus ascended into heaven as they watched
(v. 9).
The idea of Jesus going “into heaven” occurs four times in three verses
(including three times in v. 11).
By ascending into heaven, Jesus declared
that His earthly ministry had accomplished everything the Father had planned.
He had conquered sin and death;
and, in fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, He had crushed the head of the serpent.
Since His ascension, Jesus has taken His place at the Father’s right hand,
interceding for believers and preparing for His return.
The promise of Jesus’s second coming should give us a sense of both urgency and patience.
We should be urgent because millions of people have never heard the name of Jesus.
But we should also be patient because discipleship is not microwavable.
It requires care, attention, and a focus on the gradual maturation of faith.
The urgency of the task is exactly why it is too important to rush.
while the first few verses of Acts 1 emphasized the need for strategic, focused patience
and preparation,
verses 9-11 switch gears
and call the disciples to action.
situations when they have been left speechless.
Briefly talk about those situations and what made them so amazing or startling.
The disciples needed a pair of angels to snap them back into reality.
Highlight the twin messages of the angels:
Jesus was coming back, and the disciples had work to do.
angels, heavenly messengers sent to communicate God’s will and plans to humans.
the angels asked the disciples why they were gazing into heaven since Jesus would one day return in the same way.
All of Jesus’s apostles
We don’t have to be perfect or even popular. We just have to be willing.
When Jesus returns to consummate the kingdom of God and usher in the new heaven and new earth, He will still be fully human and fully God.
Jesus’s humanity is important for a couple of reasons.
First, it affirms what the rest of the Bible teaches to be true.
Jesus’s body is now a “glorified body” (Phil. 3:20-21).
Second, Jesus’s humanity is important
He is the only person to live the way God created all humans to live.
In fact, Jesus is still more fully human now than we are because He is all that we were designed to be-untainted by sin and its disastrous results.