Two Journeys

Parents of little children have an important responsibility to evangelize and disciple them from the first moment and bring them to Jesus.

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In 1 Corinthians 7:17-40, Paul commands marriage and singleness, encouraging people to focus on undivided devotion to the Lord.

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In chapter 8 of the Book of Romans, the main topic is the power of indwelling sin and the final triumph for those in Christ.

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Christ’s glorious ascension to heaven is Almighty God’s final vindication of his incarnate Son on earth in his earthly mission.

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Christ’s glorious ascension to heaven is Almighty God’s final vindication of his incarnate Son on earth in his earthly mission.

It’s Resurrection Sunday, in case you didn't know. All over the world, Christians are assembling to celebrate the resurrection of Christ from the dead, Christ's resurrection, the greatest moment in human history. The greatest moment in human history, for it addresses, indeed conquers, all of our greatest enemies, and it feeds all of our greatest hopes. Our greatest enemies have been vanquished by Christ's death on the cross, and by His resurrection victory, death itself, what the scripture calls the last or the final enemy, an enemy that remains undefeated except by Christ, and will continue to do so. It does not matter how much brilliance is shown even in this region by pharmaceutical researchers or medical procedure researchers, death will still stand over all of their efforts. We know that death comes unexpectedly to anyone in any walk of life. It does not matter, their socioeconomic background, their age, their apparent health, death stands overall as the final enemy, but Christ has defeated death on our behalf.

We have also the terrors of God's judgment, His written record against us for our sins that Colossians tells us stood opposed to us, and that Christ has completely addressed those by His bloodshed on the cross. That long record of our sins, through faith in Christ, will not triumph over us and condemn us to hell. Then, there's Satan, the accuser who would stand before God and accuse us accurately of those very sins I just mentioned. He has been destroyed. He has been defeated by Christ, as the author of Hebrews tells us. All of our enemies have been addressed, and all of our greatest hopes are wrapped up in Christ's resurrection body. 

The best is yet to come, brothers and sisters. It doesn't matter how high a high you achieve today, emotionally. All of us are less than we should, because for us in Christ, our best things are all yet to come. We are being brought to a world in which there will be no more death, mourn, crying, or pain. Jesus made this one promise in John 14:19, which is why we Christians celebrate, "Because I live, you also will live." Hallelujah. He gives us the spoils of His victory. We should celebrate. It's right for us to be filled with hope and to sing praise. In the book of Revelation, they sang praise. Revelation 5:12, "Worthy is the lamb who is slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise." That's heavenly worship, hymns of praise sung by the angels and by the saints in heaven. Here on earth, we have hymns, focused, many of which we sung today. My favorite is Charles Wesley's “Christ The Lord is Risen Today”:

“Christ The Lord is risen today, hallelujah. Sons of men and angels say, ‘Hallelujah.’ Raise your joys and triumphs high. Hallelujah, sing ye heaven’s and earth’s reply, hallelujah. Love's redeeming work is done. Fought the fight, the battle won. Death in vain forbids Him rise.” Isn't that good? Death tried, but failed. Christ has opened paradise. So, it is right that we should celebrate Christ's awesome resurrection victory.

So, why in the world am I preaching today on Christ's ascension? Some of you know it's because I've been here 25 years and I've run out of ideas. The internet never forgets, so I can't do the old stuff. And no, that's not it. It was just that the Holy Spirit pressed this theme on my heart. I saw the logical extension of the exaltation of the Father in reference to the Son. There is theological richness in this topic, the Ascension of Christ. All of my friends around me in ministry, they told me they've never heard a sermon on it. Actually, I haven't thought much about it. It's just maybe a theological detail that people don't think much about. They generally skip it, but they shouldn't. I hope that after today's sermon you'll see how rich and powerful this concept is, this final, visible, powerful, exaltation, vindication of the Son by the Father.

The Father's vindication of the Son is completed in His ascension to heaven. It's absolutely needed because the death of Christ on the cross was a picture of humiliation, of total rejection by His own people, of in some sense complete rejection by God himself. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The cross and agonizing death, the cruelest form of torturous death that the vicious people like the Romans could devise and utilize. The victim was held up to utter scorn and humiliation, then died slowly in exquisite pain, surrounded by onlooking mockers and haters. But infinitely worse than the human shame and physical pain was the spiritual dimension. Anyone who hung on a tree was under the curse of God. Since Jesus was bearing our sins for us in our place, He was completely cursed, infinitely cursed, bearing the white-hot wrath of God as our substitute. That's why Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

His enemies on looking, thought He was dying for His own sins of the blasphemer. Isaiah predicted that that's what they would think. Isaiah 53:4, "We considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted." But Isaiah also in that same passage told us why, Jesus died in our place as our substitute. “He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him. And by His wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to His own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

But that truth, that message, could only be established in history if God accepted the sacrifice of Jesus. He proved it by the vindication of His Son, that His bloody sacrifice was acceptable to God on our behalf. The only possible way that could be was by His resurrection victory, His resurrection from the dead. But I believe, as you study the ascension, that resurrection victory, God thought it insufficient for the total vindication of His Son. There was more vindication yet to come. God intended to exalt Jesus to the highest place, completing His return journey, as He descended from heaven to earth and then went from earth back up to heaven. From heaven to earth, choosing to accept a human body, being born of a woman, entering the womb of a woman, and from the manger then to a life of humble self-denying sacrificial service to everyone and to God, day after day, perfectly living out the two great commandments, to love God with all of His heart, to love His neighbors himself, a life of humble servanthood. Then, to the cross, that ignominious, scandalous, ugly, shameful death on the cross. So, we see down, down, down, traced out in Philippians 2, that dissent from heaven to even to death on a cross, and then the reverse journey, then God raising Him up, up, and even higher up in His resurrection and ascension and seating Him on His throne in heaven.

This is the very thing that Jesus had demanded of His father in His prayer in John 17:5, "And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." That's what He asked for. It's what He deserved. "Give me my glory back." The fact that it was the Father doing this to Jesus, ascending Him, is clear from the consistent passive voice used in scripture concerning the ascension. Luke 24:51, "And it came to pass that while He blessed them, He was parted from them and was carried up into heaven." The passive voice means action was enacted on him, a force came on him. The ascension was something done to Jesus by the Father. Again, Acts 1:9, our text this morning, "After He said this, He was taken up before their very eyes. And a cloud hid Him from their sight." All the other references to the ascension, they're all passive. It's something that was done to Jesus. And by who? By God the Father. God did it to vindicate His son. It is immeasurably more significant and important than we think it is. Why do I say that? Luke wrote two books in the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. He ends the Gospel of Luke with it and begins the book of Acts with it. The ending of the Gospel of Luke, "When He had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He left them, and was taken up into heaven. And they worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they stayed continually at the temple praising God," the end of the Gospel of Luke.  Then, again in Acts 1:1-12, the reading you heard this morning, that’s how He begins. The story of the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria and the beginning of the journey to the ends of the earth, which is continued to this present day. It starts with the ascension, so it must be significant. Without the ascension, the mission of Jesus would've been incomplete.

Jesus descended from heaven to earth to bring us to God. To bring us to God, that's why He came. And He Himself must precede and ascend back into heaven to open the way for us. "I'm going there to prepare a place for you," as He prays in John 17:24, "Father, I want those whom you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you love me from the creation of the world." He wants us to see His glory. So, by faith this morning we're going to try to do that. We're going to try to see the glory of Christ descended. Someday we'll see it with our own eyes, or as Charles Wesley put it in the next stands of that beautiful Easter hymn, "Soar, we now where Christ has led, following our exalted head. Made like Him, like Him, we rise. Ours, the cross, the grave, the skies." That's what today's message is about.

Let's talk about the facts of Christ's ascension to heaven. The timing, when did it happen? Jesus' ascension happened 40 days after His resurrection. During that period, Jesus poured scripture into His disciples. Remember the two disciples on the road to Emaus? He opens up the scripture and their hearts are burning within them while He opens the scriptures to them. Later in that same chapter, Luke 24, Jesus went to the disciples in the upper room and gave them more doctrinal instruction from the Old Testament. "Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me and the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Then, He opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures." He is doing this over a period of 40 days, a 40-day seminary, wouldn't you like to enroll in that? The greatest teacher in history with 40 days of concentrated work in the prophets and the law of Moses and the Psalms.

Where was the ascension? Luke tells us that it was on the Mount of Olives near Bethany. The language used is “a Sabbath day walk from Jerusalem.” That's 2,000 cubits. 2,000 cubits or about six tenths of a mile, that might be a little more helpful. Really close there to Jerusalem, but on the Mount of Olives.

What happened? What was the ascension? Jesus, having assembled them there, gives them one more version of the Great Commission. All four gospels have a different version of the sending out of the disciples to the ends of the earth with the message of the gospel. Acts 1:8, is the last time, "You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth." Those are His last words to the church. Having done that, Luke's Gospel tells us He extended His hands and blessed them. Then in Acts 1:9, "After He said this, He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid Him from their sight." He seemed to have floated higher and higher, defying gravity. He's not defying it. He invented it. He's in charge of it, like the walking on water, same thing there. He can do what He wants with gravity because He rules over it. So, He ascends higher and higher., and the apostles are standing there gawking up, just looking like this for a while. Long after the event was over, I think, they're still looking, so, then God dispatches two angels. Would you loved to be the angels, like, "Pick me, pick me. I want to go there and tell these guys. Get moving.” “They were looking intently into the sky as He was going when, suddenly, two men dressed in white stood beside them, "Men of Galilee," they said, ‘Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven,’ note the passive voice again, "has been taken from you into heaven” will return in the same way you've seen Him go into heaven."

Let me say a note about that, the Second Coming. They said Jesus would be coming back "in the same way you've seen Him go." And amazingly, to the same place. How do I know that? The prophecy in Zechariah 14, I'm not going to go into that. We'll take another half hour to go into Zechariah. But trust me, Zechariah 14 is about the Second Coming and about the final battle that the Lord fights as a conquering king against the enemies of His people. He comes back, Zechariah 14:4, "On that day, His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem." He's coming back to that same place. God loves those kinds of details. So, He leaves from one spot and comes back to that same spot. Beautifully, at His Second Coming, He's going to send out His angels, and they'll gather His elect from the four winds, from one of the heavens to the other. We get to do our own version of what Jesus does in the ascension, we get to rise from the earth and meet Him in the clouds. Tell me you're not looking forward to that. Of course, you'll need some help, an angel will have to pick you up. They're going to lift you up as the rapture passage in I Thessalonians teaches in verse 16-17, "For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with a voice of the archangel with the trumpet call of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will be with the Lord forever." That's our future.

Now, as I was preparing for my sermon on the Ascension, of course, I needed to consult Wikipedia. I've got to go there and find out what they know about the Ascension. Not much. So, I went there, and I found that some, supposedly, Christian theologians find the Ascension an embarrassment. They're actually embarrassed by it, because I think it represents an archaic, even mythological, cosmology, a structure of the universe that science has now disproved, similar to the flat earth or the earth being the center of the solar system and the sun revolving. We know that's not true. Science has moved beyond that, so, it's a little bit of an embarrassment. Let me tell you something. I'm embarrassed about people who are embarrassed about the Bible. God knows cosmology very well. He invented it. He didn't weave a mythological cosmology into the Bible. The Bible doesn't assert anywhere that the earth is flat. It doesn't say anything about the earth being the center of the solar system, except in the language of sunrise and sunset, which we still use post-Copernicus. We have no problem with that. Neither does it say that heaven is up there like some border you cross, and you're now in a different place, so that now that we've had space flight and gone on the moon, we've disproved the Bible. Famously, when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in 1961, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier and an atheist, mocked the idea of a heaven above the earth, saying, "Why are you clinging to God? Here, Gagarin flew into space. He didn't encounter God. So, it's not up there.” They don't understand that the realms, the heavenly realms that I'm about to unfold for you, that the Bible clearly teaches, that one of them is physical, but then is with spiritual dimensions that go beyond our comprehension. The Bible cannot so easily be disproved. Paul himself speaks of being caught up to the third heaven. So, as the first and the second and the third, first being perhaps sky, second outer space, and third the heavenly realms. That's just a simple arrangement we'll go into a little more detail in a moment. Actually, why not right now?

Let's talk about the stages of the ascension. I love documentaries about the Apollo space program. I've watched so many of them over and over. I geek out on that kind of thing. Saturn V rocket, all of the technology that those folks did with slide rules and pencils and paper and they made it work incredibly. These guys were geniuses. Just the achievement, it's remarkable. You think about the Saturn V rocket, it was a rocket in stages. First stage, second stage, that's how they decided to do it, it's remarkable.

I want you to picture then the ascension of Jesus in similar four stages, four stages of His ascension. The first stage, from earth through the sky, physically, until a cloud hid Him from their sight, like the Saturn V rocket moving up through the atmosphere. Some of you, I'm sure, have flown a kite. What's the highest you've ever gotten a kite up there? I had it so high I almost couldn't see it. It was way up there, and it was pulling hard. It was a windy day. It was near the beach. You picture that as a kite ascends higher and higher, it’s just like that. These guys are out there looking up, watching Him go, physical, going up higher and higher. Now, for the next three stages of His journey, you have to have eyes of faith. It's a different way to look. NASA had to invent different television cameras from the launch site so they could track the rocket as it went. It's something you can't just leave to a human camera worker. They were able to follow the predictable trajectory of the rocket.

In the same way, you need eyes of faith to be able to see the next three stages. If you don't have faith, you can't see it. You have to be able to see by faith based on the Word of God, the next phases or stages of His ascension. The author of Hebrews even gives us His language. Hebrews 2:9, "We see Jesus now crowned with glory and honor at the right hand of God." How do we see him? Only by faith, eyes of faith. The second stage of the ascension. Jesus passed through the heavenly realms. He moved through it. He's passing through the heavenly realms, He's beyond the physical. Now, He's in the heavenly realms. The language is “He passes through”, Hebrews 4:14. "Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God. Let us hold fast our confession." The spiritual realms are observing Jesus as He moves through.

The third stage is more of a destination. The author of Hebrews tells us, "He entered the heavenly temple, the heavenly holy of holies, and presented once for all His bloodshed on the cross as our priest," Hebrews 9:11-12, "When Christ came as the high priest of the good things that are already here, He went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not manmade," that is to say not a part of this creation. "He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves, but He entered the most holy placed once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption."

We're told in the Old Testament that both the tabernacle of Moses and the temple of Solomon were built according to a pattern and a vision shown to Moses and to David that then David handed off to His son, Solomon. That pattern, the author of Hebrews tells us, was a shadow, an earthly type or shadow of the real temple in heaven. Does that make sense? The tabernacle and the temple are both shadowing representations of the real tabernacle or temple in heaven, the real Holy of Holies. Jesus entered there in the heavenly realms.

The fourth stage of His ascension is above every created realm; it’s not a created realm. It's a place where only God can dwell, above everything, where creatures cannot go. Ephesians 4:8-10, "When He ascended on high, He led captives in His training, gave gifts to men.” What does “He ascended” mean except that He also descended to the lower earthly regions? “He who descended is the very one who," listen to this, "ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe." That's a powerful image, “higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe.” Again, the author of Hebrews has the same kind of conception. Hebrews 7:26, "Such a high priest meets our need, one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens." That's a realm we creatures cannot enter, where only the creator God can be. Or, again, as Solomon prayed at the dedication of the temple, "But will God really dwell on earth or heaven. Even the highest heavens cannot contain you? How much less this temple I have built?"

The heavenly realms are a spiritual location where angels dwell and disembodied spirits, saints who have died, dwell in that heavenly realm. Jesus passed through all of that and ended up above it. He crossed that infinite gap that no creature can cross to sit at the right hand of Almighty God. Hebrews 1:3, "After the son had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven." And then, again, Hebrews 8:1, "We do have such a high priest who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven." Then, Hebrews 10:12, "When this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God."

That's three times the author tells us that it's a very important concept. It comes, we're told, from Psalm 1:10, at an invitation from God, Almighty God. Psalm 1:10, "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit in my right hand until I make your enemies a foot stool for your feet.'" That's the invitation that God gave to His son, "Sit at my right hand." That's the truth of the ascension in its four stages.

Let's talk about the spiritual significance of Christ's ascension to heaven. What is the point? I think the point of all of this spatial language, this up language, God isn't up, down, left, right. God is a spirit. But He uses that up language to give us a sense of our smallest in His exaltation. We are low, He is high, high above us. His exaltation, His glorious exaltation, He's high above everything. That's the language that Paul uses beautifully in Philippians 2:9 through 11, "Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and earth and under the earth, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." That's the name Lord God, that's the name that's above everything. And that's the highest place that the Father exalted Jesus to. God wanted all His people to see Jesus's glory for all time and bow the knee to him. That's why.

And what of the manner of this ascension. This four-stage ascension, I believe, was accompanied with much angelic celebration, don't you think? Don't you think the angels celebrated, sang their own songs? We have so many hallelujahs and triumphs in the book of Revelation. They're constantly celebrating. Events on earth, even minor events of judgment and different things, the angels in the book of Revelation are celebrating. How much more this when Christ ascended? And so, we have Psalm 47:5-8, “God has ascended amid shouts of joy, the Lord amid the sounding of trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises. Sing praises to our king, sing praises. For God is the king of all the earth. Sing to Him a psalm of praise. God reigns over the nations. God is seated on His holy throne." Now, that's triumph, and the angels are good at that. Psalm 68 captures it, which Paul quotes in Ephesians 4, "The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands. The Lord has come from Sinai into His sanctuary. When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train. You receive gifts from men, even from the rebellious that you, oh, Lord God might dwell there."

Imagine the victory train. He's ascending, leading captives in His train, like a general, a conquering general, riding through the streets of the capital city. They're all cheering wildly, and behind Him are trudging His enemies in chains. He's defeated our foes. He's defeated Satan and demons. As Colossians 2:15 says, "Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross." There's this victory train going through the heavenly realms with all the angels celebrating Christ's triumph.

This is also, I believe, the spiritual fulfillment of the high priest's physical climb. Much of the symbol of the temple and all of its activities were symbolic of Christ. The temple itself was located in the city of David, Jerusalem, Mount Zion. It was up high. Jerusalem is 2,575 feet above sea level. Most of the Jews, three times a year, when they would assemble, but especially the time of the Day of Atonement, they would come from all the localities and towns and villages, and they would assemble, and they would ascend. Three times a year, the Jewish men were commanded to come. But in this case, the place that God had chosen, the one place for them to assemble was very high up. They're going up and they're ascending. As they go up, they would sing Psalms. They're called the Psalms of Ascent. You can look in your Bible, Psalm 120 to Psalm 134. What does that mean, “psalms of ascent”? It's the Jews going up higher and higher to Mount Zion. They're ascending. They're going up, and they're singing praise songs. Then, when they get there, the Temple Mount itself is up high, high in the city. The glorious temple of Jesus, one of the most spectacular structures of the ancient world, was designed to use elevation height to make a spiritual point. The court of the Gentiles was the lowest part of the temple complex, where Gentile, anybody, could go. Fifteen steps separated from the court of women, so-called, where all Jewish people could go, men and women. But no Gentiles could go there. 15 steps up to get to that. Then, another 15 steps led to the next level where Jewish men could go. And then, another three steps led up to the holy place where only the priests could go, and where they would offer those normal sacrifices day after day.

The highest of all was the Holy of Holies, the Most Holy Place. Another 15 steps led up to that, where only the high priests could go once a year, the Day of Atonement, where they would offer the blood for the sins of the people. From the lowest place of the temple complex, the Court of the Gentiles, to the highest place in the temple complex, the Holy of Holies, was a journey of almost 50 feet. Four floors, going higher and higher and higher and higher, that's quite a journey. That ascent, that physical ascent made once a year by the high priest, pictures this ascent that Jesus makes, moving higher and higher and presenting His blood. Hebrews 9:11, 12, "When Christ came as the high priest of the good things that are already here, He went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not manmade, that is to say not a part of this creation. He did not enter by the means of blood, of goats and calves, but He entered the most holy place once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.”

When He ascended, what does He go to do? Here I want to zero our minds on the three offices of the Old Testament, prophet, priest, and king. All three of them find their consummation at the end of His ascension. They're fulfilled, perfected, at the end of His ascension journey. Prophet, priest, and king, I'm going to reverse the order. I'm going to start with priest, as we've already seen. Jesus moved through the spiritual realms into a heavenly temple where He does His work for us as our high priest.

The work of a priest mostly focuses on dealing with our sins. We are a sinful people. We're sinful people, and we need a priest. We need a sacrifice. We need atoning sacrifice. Jesus is our great high priest. Hebrew 7:26 says, "Such a high priest meets our need. One who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens." What is the priestly work Jesus does after His ascension? There are three. First, He made a perfect final offering for our sin, once for all, completely effective in taking away the guilt of our sins. “He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered himself. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves. But He entered the most holy place once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption."

He also made an opening, a living way for you and I to come into the presence of God. Priests are, in the Latin word, “pontifex”, a bridge-builder, a mediator between God and man. He has made a way, as our mediator, for us to come into the presence of God. That's what a priest does. Hebrews 10 says, "Therefore, brothers, we have confidence into the most holy place by the blood of Jesus." In the Old Testament, there was a curtain separating the holy place from the most holy place. No one but the high priest could go into that most holy place on pain of death. We were not welcome. The old covenant central message is, “this far, you may come and no further.” You can't go up on Mount Sinai, or you'll die. Moses at the burning bush, the first words he heard from the burning bush was, "Do not come any closer." It's the first thing you ever heard from God at that burning bush, "Do not come any closer." But with Jesus, we have exactly the opposite. He has opened a way for us to come into the presence of God. “Since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way open for us through the curtain, that is His body. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our heart sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” [Hebrews 10: 21-22]

And then, thirdly, as our priest, He makes intercession for us. Hebrew 7:24-25, "Because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore, He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them." Our salvation's not done yet. We're not saved to the uttermost or saved completely yet. We are in the process of working out our salvation with fear and trembling. Jesus is at the right hand of God, praying for you and for me. How is He praying? Just like with Simon Peter, as you heard earlier, "Simon, Simon Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat. But I've prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail." And it won't. If you're a true child of God today, your faith is never going to fail. Because you're so great? No, but because Jesus is at the right hand of God, praying to God for you that your faith won't fail. And it won't. So, that's the priestly ministry Jesus is doing on your behalf.

Secondly, prophet. Jesus consummates or perfects His ministry as the prophet by His ascension to heaven. A prophet was called upon to proclaim the word of God to the people of God, "Thus says the Lord." Jesus is the perfection and the completion of all prophecy. Hebrews 1:1 and 2, "In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, He has spoken to us through His son." Jesus is the perfection of the prophetic office. However, when His time on earth was done, He still had more to say to His people. He had many more things to tell them. The ongoing prophetic work done by the outpoured Holy Spirit on the church through the apostles, the entire New Testament hadn't been written yet when the ascension happened. It came as a direct result of His ascension as a pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the church. That's how we have the 27 books of the New Testament and all the theology we have of the cross.

Jesus said in a great understatement, "I have much to say to you more than you can now bear. I have more things to say. As a prophet I have more things to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when He, the spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own. He will speak only what He hears. And He will tell you what is yet to come. Listen, He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. He's going to finish my prophetic ministry to the church. The Holy Spirit will."

So, Jesus directly tied the outpouring of the spirit of God to His ascension. John 16:7, "I tell you the truth. It is for your benefit that I'm going away. Unless I go away, the counselor will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you." Jesus told His disciples after His resurrection to wait for the outpouring of the Spirit. "Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit." Jesus ascended to heaven to receive the gift of the Spirit, and when He received it, He poured it out on the church, poured it out on His apostles. He's been pouring it out ever since.

In the great Pentecost sermon, Peter preached these words, Acts 2, "God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see in here." The Ascension completes Jesus' prophetic office through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. By the Spirit, we, the church, are now enabled to do the work. As I said, the Spirit continues to be outpoured on the church, as Ephesians 4 says, "But to each one of us, grace has been given as Christ apportioned it."

That is why it says, "When He ascended on high, He led captive in His train and gave gifts to men.” What does “He ascended mean”, except that He also descended to the lower earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended, higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe. “It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure, the fullness of Christ." The outpouring of the Spirit, the spiritual gifts, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, and then the people doing the works of service, all of that, the completion of Jesus's prophetic ministry. It happens with the Ascension.

Central to that is our task of taking the gospel to the people we know. "You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be witnesses, my witnesses, to the end of the earth and to the end of time." We have a prophetic role to play in our time. We have to tell the people around us who are perishing, the truth. That's a prophetic role. We do that by the power of the spirit of Christ.

Then, finally, king. Jesus ascends to heaven to complete His work as priest and prophet and, especially, to reign as king. He was invited by God to do this. "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet,'" Psalm 110:2, the next verse, "The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion. You'll rule in the midst of your enemies." It's as a king that He sits down on the throne. Psalm 2, "God decrees that His only begotten the son will be king." The psalmist asks, "Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot a vain against Christ, the anointed one? God laughs at their feeble plots, and then He rebukes them in His rage, saying, 'I have installed my king on Zion, my holy hill.' I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to me, 'You are my son. Today, I've become your father. Ask of me, and I'll make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You'll rule them with an iron scepter. You'll dash them to pieces like pottery.'" He is reigning at the right hand of God.

Ephesians 1, "God raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present Israel and the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way." In His ascension, God raised Jesus infinitely above all rulers, authorities, powers, demonic powers, angelic powers, human powers. He's infinitely above them, reigning.

Christ's ascension then established, He says, "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me." As a king, He protects His people, He provides for them, He rules over them, and He builds up their nation. That's what kings do, and that's what Jesus is doing at the right hand of God.

What is our faith-filled response to this? First of all, just the best thing you can do today is repent and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. The exaltation of Jesus is so that we will believe in Him, that we will trust in Him, and our sins be forgiven. Could there be a greater tragedy than one of you listening to this message and walking out of this place lost, walking out of this place with your sins not forgiven? Why would that be? Simple faith, trusting in Him, the exalted Christ, that His bloodshed on the cross is sufficient for you and is the only answer for you. Trust in him.

Then, for all of us who long ago trusted in Jesus, join in the worldwide celebration today of the ascension, the resurrection, ascension of Christ. Stand in awe of it. Picture yourself. If you've been there, what would you think? You think no one is like this. Surely, this is the son of God, with infinite power, even over gravity. Delight in His office is perfected in heaven. Delight in the fact that He's at the right hand of God praying for you, that your faith won't fail, and it won't. That He has, once and for all, presented His blood for forgiveness of your sins, and they are forgiven. And that He has filtering your temptations and will not let your temptations go beyond what you can bear.

For Him as a prophet, drink in the word of God. You probably never thought about the ascension this much and probably never will again, I don't know that. But it's deep and rich and powerful. Meditate, drink in the truth of God's Word through Jesus, the prophet, who speaks to us.

Then, finally, as king, realize you are completely protected. He fights for you. He will not let anyone touch you. He will not let anyone tempt you beyond what you can bear. He will feed you from His table. He will invite you into His heavenly glory. He is your king. Worship him.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for this time of celebration that we've had today. We thank you for the beauty of the truths in the Bible. We pray that, as we go throughout this day, as we celebrate with family, and then throughout the week, that you would enable us to speak the beauty and the truth of the gospel to those who need to hear it so much. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

 "Behold the Lamb!" by the proclamation of the word of God, vivid images of Christ crucified come into our minds.

Today, Good Friday, as I mentioned in my prayer, Christians all over the world take time to meditate on, to reflect on the sufferings of Christ on the cross. It's a sober reflection. It's a deep reflection. It's a convicting reflection. It brings pain to us as sinners but also hope. It brings pain in that we see what our sins cost Jesus, but it also brings hope and we see how completely Jesus' blood has atoned for our sins. So our brief meditation this afternoon will focus on the phrase, behold the lamb. Five passages in the New Testament have that phrase, behold the lamb. The lamb of God is Jesus Christ slaughtered for our sins. The word behold is a bit archaic. We still know what it means, but we don't use it very often. For this reason, some modern translations omit it. They don't use it. They drop it out entirely perhaps, or they'll translate it with the word look.

But I think that the word behold is a deeper kind of gazing, deeper kind of looking than just the word look. It's more intensive, certainly behold is a form of looking, but it's looking at something that is in some sense suddenly, perhaps even stunningly revealed to us. Something maybe we have not expected, we didn't see coming. The revelation of which stops us in our tracks. I think that's appropriate that we would stop in our tracks today. That we would freeze, that we would cease all normal activity and we would behold the lamb.

How do we do that? How do we behold the lamb? Jesus Christ On the cross? The author of Hebrews tells us that he died once for all. A unique moment in time, never to be repeated. We cannot physically go anywhere on planet earth to behold the lamb, but the Apostle Paul speaks powerfully to the Galatians in Galatians 3:1. He says, "Before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified." Galatians lived in Asia Minor. They weren't in Palestine when Jesus died. So clearly, Paul means before the eyes of their hearts, before their faith through the proclamation of the gospel. Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. So by the proclamation of the word of God, vivid images of Christ crucified come flooding into our minds and our hearts. As the author to Hebrews puts it as seeing him who is invisible.

So we are going to behold the lamb by the ministry of the word of God and by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our minds and hearts. As I looked at the five times the New Testament combines these words, behold the lamb. I see three ways for us to behold the lamb now. First of all, behold the lamb in prophecy. Secondly, behold the lamb in agony. And third, behold the lamb in victory.

First, let us behold the lamb in prophecy. The first two times in the New Testament, this phrase is used as you just heard in the reading. It was by John the Baptist as he was carrying on his ministry. And he was baptizing, huge crowds were coming to him and one special day Jesus came to be baptized by John. And John pointed twice at Jesus on consecutive days, John 1:29, "Behold the lamb of God." He said, "Who takes away the sin of the world." And then “the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, ‘Behold the lamb of God.’" Now John the Baptist was the forerunner to Jesus. He was sent by God the Father to prepare the way for Jesus and also to reveal him as Savior to Israel. This is clearly the work of a prophet. John was in some sense the final Old Testament prophet whose words and whose ministry prepared Israel for the coming Messiah. As Jesus himself said in Matthew 11:13, "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John." So in some sense, John culminates that work of prophecy paving the way for Jesus. Now, the phrase that John used those two consecutive days is powerful. "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

Now there can be little doubt as we meditate on this, that this directly connects with the prophetic animal sacrificial system that God established whose entire purpose was to prepare the world for Jesus' bloody sacrificial death on the cross for our sins. Now, what precise prophetic image John had in mind from the old covenant's animal sacrifices? We cannot know for sure. Most likely it was the Passover lamb because Jesus would die at the Passover to fulfill that prophetic image. So this Good Friday service, it lines up with Passover. It's being held during the same time as Passover because we Christians believe that Jesus is our Passover lamb. First Corinthians 5:7, "Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed." This powerful image of course comes from the final night that Israel spent as slaves in Egypt. That dreadful night of the 10th and final plague of Pharaoh and on all Egypt. The plague on the firstborn. The angel of the Lord went throughout all of Egypt to kill all the firstborn in any house.

The only remedy, the only refuge was the sacrifice of the Passover lamb. A lamb without blemish or defect, taken in by each Israelite home. It was sacrificed at twilight. Its blood was applied, painted by the branch of hyssop plant on the doorposts and lentils of each house in which the Jewish people lived. The Lord had been very clear. It was when he saw the blood, when the blood was shed and applied. And when the angel of the Lord saw that shed blood, only then would he pass over that house and not slaughter the firstborn in that house. The blood shed atone for the sins of the people and not a single bone of the lamb was to be broken, just its blood poured out because it was the blood that made atonement for their lives. Of course, the concept of animal sacrifice goes back much further than that night, much further than Passover.

For centuries before Moses, God had commanded Abraham, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love and offer him as a sacrifice on one of the mountains I will show you about." Abraham obeyed and when he took his son on a three-day journey to the place and they went up the mountain together and when they arrived, Isaac said to his father, "Abraham, behold the wood and the fire." But where is the lamb for the sacrifice? To some degree, Isaac's question kind of sums up the old covenant. Where is the lamb? Waiting for the lamb, it hasn't come yet. And John the Baptist statement, “Behold the lamb”, sums up the New Testament.

And so Isaac said, "Where's the lamb?" And Abraham said, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burn offering, my son." Abraham was stopped at the last possible moment by the angel of the Lord saying, "Now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld from me, your son, your only son." Abraham at that moment lifted his eyes and saw a ram in the thicket caught by his horns and he sacrificed that animal in the place of his son. God knew even then who would be the lamb that he would provide for himself, Jesus Christ. But every animal sacrifice there had ever been up to that point and from that point on was a prophecy of Christ as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Acted out prophecy.

But there's two types of prophecy. There's that typological acted out prophecy of which animals sacrifice the clearest example, but then there's verbally predictive prophecy. And that you heard read by Mike tonight from Isaiah 52:53, which clearly explains the purpose of animal sacrifice, substitutionary atonement. And God spoke most clearly there in that prophetic passage about the lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? The word revealed is powerful, just as it said in the verse right before that what they had not heard about, they will see. How will they see these kings of the earth or the nations of the earth?

They will see the same way you are right now by the proclamation of the word. That's how they'll see. And the arm of the Lord is revealed by the preaching of the prophetic message fulfilled by Christ. But it only happens as God reveals to your hearts, by the spirit, reveals Jesus to you. Only then will you see. Only then will you be able to behold the lamb. So to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Has he been revealed to you, to your faith. Now Isaiah makes it clear that Jesus would be slaughtered in such a way that he would be repulsive to the human eye.

Isaiah 52:14-15, "Just as there are many who appalled at him, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness. So in that way, will he sprinkle many nations, sprinkle them with atoning blood." Isaiah 53:2-3, "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and familiar with suffering like one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not." Isaiah especially makes it plain though why the lamb of God was slaughtered and what that phrase means, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away sins of the world." And that is the principle of substitutionary atonement. That's the essence of all animal sacrifice. That all sin deserves a death penalty and the death penalty can be paid by a substitute.

And the essence of that point is that guilt can be transferred from us to the substitute. Isaiah 53 makes it plainer than any other passage in the entire Bible including in the New Testament. Listen to these words again. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed. We all are like sheep gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on him. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Listen to this. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. Behold the lamb, he was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before it shears his silence so he did not open his mouth. There is the lamb of God, Jesus, our substitute who suffered and died in our place to take away our sins and not ours only, but the sins of the whole world. So behold the lamb in prophecy. Second, behold the lamb in agony.

We need to consider the record of Jesus actually dying in our place on the cross. That is the power of Good Friday. The tone, the feel for me of Good Friday is one of sober-minded reflection and even a renewed grief over my sins. Just as the tone for Easter Sunday is celebration, victory, triumph. We'll have some of that victory tonight even, but it's reasonable for us to grieve still over our sins because we're still in danger. Won't be grieving in heaven, but it's reasonable for us to have an ongoing work of repentance now and that's what Good Friday is good for for me, to reflect on what my salvation cost Jesus. It's an opportunity to gaze with eyes of faith, to behold, with eyes of faith and wonder, reverence and yes, grief to see the cost of our salvation. Jesus' death was because of our sins, because of my sins, Galatians 2:20, Christ love me and gave himself for me, make it personal. Because of my sins, he went through that.

I grew up in the Roman Catholic faith and when I was a boy, I served as an altar boy. And this time of year, specifically Good Friday, I participated in something called the stations of the cross. In my Catholic Church there were stained-glass windows that depicted various aspects of the final hours of Jesus' life leading right up to the cross. And we would go from position to position and meditate on the various scenes that were depicted in the stained-glass windows. But I think it's far more powerful and effective to do it from scripture and to gaze at the historical accounts that we have in the gospels of Jesus's actual death. And so that's what we're doing now.

Listen to Mark's account, Mark 15:15-39,

"Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged and handed him over to be crucified. The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace that is a praetorium and called together the whole company of soldiers and there they put a purple robe on him and twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him and they began to call out to him, 'Hail king of the Jews.' Again and again. They struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. Now a certain man from Cyrene, Simon the fall of Alexander and Rufus was passing by on his way in from the country and they forced him to carry the cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull.There they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him. Dividing his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. It was the third hour when they crucified him. The written notice of the charge against him read, 'The King of the Jews.' They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, 'So you who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days? Come down from the cross and save yourself.' In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. 'He saved others they said, but he can't save himself. Let this Christ, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.' Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. At the sixth hour, darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour and at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ Which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' When some of those standing near heard this, they said, 'Listen, he's calling Elijah.' One man ran and filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick and offered it to Jesus to drink. 'Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down.' he said. With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who stood there in front of Jesus heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, 'Surely, surely this man was the son of God.'"

Well, let's understand the physical agonies. When Pilate had Jesus scourged, that involved a wooden handle with long straps of leather embedded with bits of bone or metal to tear the flesh from the body. The victim would be tied to a post, his hands held high over his head and his feet suspended off the ground so that the body would be taut. As the scourge tore into his back, the muscles would be lacerated, veins severed, internal organs might even be exposed. The scourging was so awful that it took two soldiers physically to do it. Scourging often proved fatal. Along with the scourging, Jesus was subjected to additional mockery. The Roman soldiers frequently played this kind of game. They engaged in the game of mockery in which they would take some hapless stooge and dress them up in a purple robe like an emperor, and then mockingly revere him. And here they do it to Jesus, adding the painful indignity of the crown of thorns, which they took rods and smashed down into his brow, beating him in the head with rods.

After all this bloody horror, Jesus was led away to be crucified. Carrying his own cross. Crucifixion was the cruelest form of execution ever devised specifically because it was so slow and painful in addition to being utterly debasing and dehumanizing. Now Jewish law required that Jesus die outside the city gates, rejected by his people. So he was paraded before the eyes of the scornful population who heaped abuse on him as he went. He was forced to carry a heavy beam on his shoulders and at some point weakened by the trauma and the blood loss. He was physically unable to continue and they forced this man, Simon, to help carry the cross. When they reached Golgotha, they forced the victim onto his back and nailed him to the cross beam as it lay on the ground. Nails would've measured five to seven inches long, more resembling modern railroad spikes.

They were driven through his wrists rather than through the palms so that they could support the whole body weight as the victim slumped in the agony. The victim's feet would be crossed over and a single spike would be driven through them both at once. The nails would tear through the nerves and the wrists and the feet causing overwhelming jolts of pain again and again. This would only increase as the cross was slowly raised and until it was vertical and dropped into place with a thud that sent more shocks of pain through the entire body, but the wounds from the nails were not sufficient to cause immediate death or even unconsciousness. Now, it was intended to be a slow, agonizing death, not a quick kill. The victim would then be hanging, suspended on the cross with his diaphragm constricted.

Death would eventually come by suffocation. In order to stay alive, the victim was forced to push up with his feet to breathe. I can scarcely imagine the agony the victim felt at this effort. He would then slump back down to relieve the pain in his wrists and feet, but soon he would need to breathe again and he'd have to push back up. As he grew fatigued, he would experience muscle spasms and the pain would make every breath a living nightmare. There would be a grotesque dance of death like this until finally the victim had no strength left. Carbon dioxide would build up in his bloodstream and he would finally suffocate to death. Occasionally to hasten death, the soldiers would take a large mallet and then shatter the bones of the victim's legs, ending the man's life very quickly. But this could not happen to Jesus, for not a single bone was to be broken to fulfill the Passover lamb prophecy.

Also, Jesus made it plain. John 10:18, "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the authority to lay it down and I have the authority to take it back up again. This command I received from my father." So in some sense the crucifixion didn't kill him in that sense. But at the right time when Jesus, knowing that all the scriptures had been fulfilled, simply gave up his spirit by a control that he alone possessed. As it says in John 19:30, "When he had received the drink, Jesus said, 'It is finished.' And with that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." The only man in history with that kind of absolute control over his spirit as it was housed in his body. He laid down his life for us. Yet he was fully man and the crucifixion did truly kill him.

It was the direct cause of his agonies and his death. Thus, we behold the lamb in agony. May this forever give us an appropriate sense of the cost of our sins to our savior. It was no light thing for him to lay down his life for us and for our sins.

Thirdly, behold the lamb in victory, victory. And for this, I go to the passage in Revelation 5 where we have that expression, Behold and lamb. Listen to what it says. Revelation 4 has a picture of Almighty God seated on the throne of the universe. Ruling the universe, Almighty God. And 24 elders around concentric circles and heaven and order and the power of almighty God. Now Revelation 5:1-14,

"Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a scroll with writing on both sides and seal with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll.' But no one in heaven or earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside.

I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, 'Do not weep. Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, his triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.' Then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain standing in the center of the throne. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he took it, all of heaven erupted in worship. Cascading worship on Jesus because of his victory, because he has triumphed and they sang a new song. 'You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals because you are slain and with your blood, you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priest to serve our God and they will reign on the earth.'

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands and 10,000 times 10,000. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders and in a loud voice they sang, 'Worthy is the lamb who is slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.' Then I heard every creature in heaven and an earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them singing to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever."

That is the victory of the lamb. So behold the lamb and victory. I know this translation said behold the lion. So I kind of cheated a little bit, but the next verse did mention the lamb, so I just kind of moved it. But first behold the lion, but then it says, behold the lion has triumphed. I cheated on that one too and changed it to victory. But behold the lamb's triumph, behold his victory. And how did he triumph? He triumphed by dying like a lamb. I looked and I saw a lamb as if it had been slain. And what is his victory? His victory is winning his people by his blood to eternal life, to eternal glory, to eternal joy and worship. For the joy that was set before him, that's the victory. And he purchased people, you and me, by his blood. That's the victory. Later in Revelation, we have two other passages with behold and lamb.

Revelation 7:9-10. "After this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb. Clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb.'" That's the harvest. And then Revelation 14 focuses on the Jewish people, the 12 tribes, 12,000 sealed, perfect number, 144,000. [Revelation 14:1-3] "Then I looked and behold on Mountain Zion stood the lamb and with them 144,000 who had his name and his father's name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder, the voice I heard was like the sound of a harpist playing on their harps. And they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders." These represent the redeemed from the Jews first and also from the Gentiles for all eternity, that is the victory. So behold the lamb in the victory.

Well this afternoon, now evening, we have stood together under the word of God, beholding the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who takes away the sins of the world. We behold the lamb in prophecy because everything Jesus did on the cross was clearly planned and predicted in the mind of God before the foundation of the world, and then unfolded over centuries of Jewish history in the Old Testament. Behold the Lamb in prophecy. We behold the lamb in agony because it's vital for us sinners who are still sinners and still wrestle with sin and still in danger from the world of flesh and the devil. To have an ongoing work of repentance in which going again and again to Christ crucified and seeing the cost that was paid for us and making it personal, saying that Jesus loved me and gave himself for me is vital. And thirdly, we behold the lamb in victory because God raised him from the dead and we're going to celebrate that on Sunday. And we have glimpses in Revelation 5, and Revelation 7, and Revelation 14 of the victory that Jesus won by his blood.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the brief time we've had today to gather together, to sing, to pray, to hear your word, and to behold the lamb who takes away the sins of the world. Father, I pray that everyone here in this room would repent and trust in Christ for the salvation of their souls, that there will be no one here lost. And I pray that all of us who have found forgiveness in Christ would, by faith, by the ministry of the word, continually behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In Jesus' name, amen.

"Behold the Lamb!" by the proclamation of the word of God, vivid images of Christ crucified come into our minds.

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In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul instructs the Corinthians on the importance of marriage as a guard against sexual immorality.

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The power of Christ in Christian marriage allows husband and wife to reject divorce categorically and to defeat it with God’s vision of oneness in marriage.

This morning I'm going to preach on the same topic as I did last week. I'm going to be working through Matthew 19 more than Mark 10. On December 21st, 1988, a timer activated bomb exploded on PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 individuals on board and 11 individuals on the ground. Since the massive Boeing 747 airplane had reached an altitude of 31,000 feet, the explosion created what some called the largest crime scene in history. The wreck had spread over more than 1,200 square miles. Investigators painstakingly collected the fragments in order to determine the cause of the explosion. Eventually, these amazingly skilled people identified trace amounts of explosives to help confirm that this incident was not an accident, but indeed caused by an act of terrorism deliberately planned and executed with murderous intent. The stunning level of meticulous and far-reaching collection of fragments from an explosion, and the subsequent analysis of these fragments to deduce the cause and then bring to justice to criminals was unprecedented at the time and has never been equaled since.

As I was reading about this effort, my mind went to the phrase, “the largest crime scene in history.” Sometime ago I began to meditate on the theology of original sin in Adam, the effect of Adam's sin in the world and on every generation that followed. A particular passage in Ephesians 1:9-10 has come to my mind as being very significant in understanding not just sin but redemption and the work of Christ in redemption. It gave me an image years ago of sin having had the effect on the universe like a fragmentation grenade, a phrase I used years ago. It came from Ephesians 1:9-10, “God made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” Think about that. God's ultimate purpose, which He will fulfill at the end of all things, is to gather, to bring together all things in heaven and on earth, to bring them all together and make them perfectly one in Christ.

This was a powerful insight in helping understand the effect that sin has had on the universe visible and invisible, how it has blown apart things that are meant to be together. What God has done with his work of redemption through the cross of Jesus Christ and through his resurrection, He will bring all things in the universe together into perfect oneness. Isn't that something to look forward to, brother and sisters? He will reverse the explosive effects of sin which ripped apart things that were meant to be together.

In light of that concept of sin as the ultimate fragmentation grenade or explosive device, I came to realize that this suffering planet Earth and actually all of human history itself is the largest crime scene in history and the Lockerbie explosion, just a subset of that larger crime scene. We see the effects of that explosion, that divisiveness of sin all over the world, everywhere we look in disunity, fragmentation, brokenness in all human relationships. But especially I want to zero in this morning on the topic of marriage and divorce. My purpose is to point with great hope to the power of Christ in marriage, to reject as we did last week, divorce categorically as Jesus does, and to defeat it with God's vision of oneness. I want to zero in on that concept of oneness in marriage today. 

Let's do some review from last week on Jesus’ view of marriage and divorce. The Pharisees came to Jesus with a vicious test asking, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife, in Matthew 19:3, for any and every cause, any and every reason, whatever reason He wants?

Walking through Jesus's answer from Matthew 19, haven't you read as we said last time in Jesus' mind, that the answer for all marital issues, all marital problems is in the Bible? The Bible is sufficient, completely sufficient to define marriage, to heal it, to empower it, make it fruitful. Haven't you read that Jesus went back to God's original intention in marriage, asserting that the paradigm God set up at the beginning of human history is permanent for all of human history?

In the account you heard in Mark, Jesus begins right away with “What did Moses command you?” They went barking up the wrong tree. Moses permitted a divorce. Jesus was saying, “No, I'm talking about Moses, I’m talking about earlier than that. I'm talking about Genesis 1 and 2. What did Moses command you?” That was Jesus' mindset. The paradigm at the beginning, the creator said, is good for all time. I said last week, God made marriage originally and God makes marriages specifically, God is active in bringing a couple together. God made the ultimate, the original paradigm and lays it on all cultures, all marriage for all time. We'll never change on that.

Haven't you read that in the beginning the creator made them male and female, God spoke through biology and He spoke also through scripture. The nature of things, the reality, the significance of gender will never go away. Jesus is not confused about it. We shouldn't be confused either. One man, one woman, covenant union for life, that's marriage. He said for this reason, “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh” [Genesis 2:24]. God said it. It doesn't matter that Moses wrote it ultimately. What matters is God said this is the paradigm He gave us. A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, “cleave” in the KJV very famously, like they're glued together, a picture of oneness. The two will become one flesh, the adding of the word “flesh” clearly implying that the sexual union that is unique to the marriage relationship, the one flesh union through which children are procreated.

But then Jesus doubles down, He circles back on that saying, so they are no longer two but one in case you missed it, he adds that extra phrase; they are no longer two but one. That is the foundational truth. The two become one is the reason why divorce is wrong. Then his final legal binding pronouncement, therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. That's the ruling by the judge of all the earth. John 5, “all judgment has been entrusted to the Son.” He is the judge of all human beings and this is his verdict on this matter. This is his command, his prohibition. Let man not separate. So no, it is not lawful. No, it is not right for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason.

Then in Matthew 19, the question, why then did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away? Jesus replied that Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard, but it was not this way from the beginning. He walks through the Moses statement and law concerning divorce. Then the clear prohibition [Matthew 19:9], “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for marital unfaithfulness, “porneia”, and marries another woman commits adultery.” In Mark 10:11-12, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her and if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

So not dealing with the exception clause, which I dealt with last week, in general, divorce is forbidden. I ended last week with an illustration from that photographer turned family minister, Reb Bradley. You remember how he had photographed their wedding and some of you maybe weren't here last week, but this photographer had photographed a wedding, but later in his ministry he saw this man who said, "I think you photographed our wedding." "Yeah, I remember. How's it going?" The man said, "I think we're going to get a divorce." Then there was this awkward pause; but it's important, you need to know when to do an awkward pause. Crickets. "You can't," he said, "I beg your pardon." "You heard me? You can't. I was there as a photographer, but I was also there as a witness and I heard what you said and this is the very thing you promised you wouldn't do and I'm holding you to it." He said, "What do you want me to do?" "Work it out." I didn't tell you the rest of the story. He met with the couple and they did work it out and they didn't get a divorce, a happy ending. Now this is my effort to help you all work it out. That's what this sermon is. It's like, okay pastor, we can't get a divorce, so help us, help us to work it out. That's what we're going to do. There are a lot of approaches I could take on this sermon today. I've already walked through what I did last week. This is meant to be helpful to marriages.

First of all, I'm very aware that not everyone I'm talking to is married right now. I'm aware that some were married. You're either divorced in the past or are a widow/widower. I understand that. Others of you will be married in the future, but you're not married now. Others of you, I am very aware, have the gift of singleness, but I am coming from the basic concept of us as a local church we should care about each other. We should care about others who are not in the exact condition we're in. We should care about their situations. I would hope that every member of this church and indeed every visitor would care about the health of the marriages in this church and marriage in general, so I'm going forward in that conception.

What I'm going to do, I decided I'm going to stay in my lane here on this because I could go anywhere. There are hundreds of sermons I could preach on marriage, lot of different passages I could go to, but I want to stick to Matthew 19 and Mark 10, and stick to two issues. Above all, above all, oneness. That's going to be my answer, that we would understand it. What is attacking oneness? Jesus said hardness of heart. I'm going to start with hardness of heart to try to understand it and how it creates divorce and then go from that to a discussion of oneness. Then I'm going to speak toward a more perfect oneness that can happen, toward more perfect oneness in marriage.

Let's start with the problem. The problem is hardness of heart. Jesus said, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.” What does this mean? “Hardness of heart”, biblically, the phrase refers to resistance or rebellion against the Word of God, a resistance to a rebellion against the Word of God. That's hardness of heart. The first time we see the phrase famously is with the condition of Pharaoh. You remember at the time of the Exodus [Exodus 5], God commanded Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.” That's hardness of heart right there.

Later in Exodus 7:13-14, “so Pharaoh's heart became hard and he would not listen to them just as the Lord had said.” So hardness of heart means I'm not listening to what God is saying. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh's heart is unyielding”, so it's an unyieldedness to God. You're not yielding to God. Pharaoh refuses to let the people go, so hardness of heart is rebellion against God. Sadly, tragically, it was later clearly displayed in the people of Israel themselves again and again and again this hardness of heart toward God. So much so that David writing centuries later in Psalm 95:7-10 said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Mariba, as you did that day at Masa in the desert where your father's tested and tried me though they had seen what I did. For forty years I was angry with that generation and I said, they are a people whose hearts go astray and they have not known my ways.” 

That's hardness of heart, going astray from God, not knowing his ways. A hard heart then is one that is stubborn toward God. It's not soft, it's not yielded, it's not obedient. I believe biblically a synonym for a hard heart in the case of Israel was “stiff neck”. Again and again you see that that statement, they are a “stiff neck” people. [Exodus 32:9]. The Lord said it to Moses, and they are a stiff neck people. I think it's a synonym, it's just a different image for the same thing. It means to be rebellious, not soft, not yielded to God. You're fighting him, pushing back. The author of the Hebrews picks up on Psalm 95 and applies it to all Christians for all time. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” It's a fundamental command to all people apart from marriage on any topic. If you hear God speak to you from his Word, don't harden your hearts as they did in the rebellion. It comes from Romans 8:7, “the mind of the flesh is hostile to God.” It does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. That is a hostility toward God that does not submit to God and to his law. The hardness aspect implies that God wants softness when it comes to his Word, a yieldedness, compliance, obedience.

Divorce comes about when people harden their hearts toward God above all. They will not obey his rules. They break rules within the marriage, such as adultery. They'll break God's law within the marriage and destroy it, or in their relationships with each other and divorce comes as a result. But beyond that vertical nature of hardness of heart, there's a hardness of a heart that happens horizontally within the marriage, the couple. A hard heart horizontally is one that's not moved with compassion or love toward the circumstances of another. We are supposed to love our neighbor as ourself. Martin Luther said, "Your nearest neighbor is your wife.” Hardness of heart 95% of the time in the Bible is vertical, but there are sometimes that it's used horizontally as in Zechariah 7:9-12, “this is what the Lord Almighty says, administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other. But they refuse to pay attention stubbornly, they turn their backs and stop their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit.” So even those verses, though there's a horizontal aspect, it's really vertical, but it plays out horizontally. They are oppressing or closing up their hearts toward the needs of others, as in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Remember the priest sees the man bleeding by the side of the road and just walks on by. The Levite, sees the man bleeding by the side of the road and just walks on by. They have hard hearts.

Now, Christian marriage is based on love, a genuine affection that the two have for each other; an attraction of the two hearts together. They're drawn in tenderness and affection toward one another. That means they have compassion toward one another and a commitment toward the issues of each other's lives. Rejoicing when your spouse rejoices, mourning when your spouse mourns; what happens to your spouse happens to you. You share everything. Your hearts are bound together. But when hardness of heart comes in, the couple is no longer sensitive toward the feelings of the other.

Divorces can often display a tragic, a terrifying viciousness between two people who used to love each other, and God likens divorce to violence. He actually likens it directly to violence. It's a form of violence. Malachi 2:16, “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel. “I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment, says the Lord Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.” It's a violent thing to say to someone that you used to love, "I don't love you anymore. I don't want to live my life with you anymore." It rips that person apart. You can imagine the cleaving, the gluing together. There's no way to get those two pieces of wood that are glued together, apart cleanly. It doesn't come apart cleanly. It's incredibly damaging.

To combat divorce, we have to start with this topic of hardness of heart. How do we solve that? Is that not the question of all of redemptive history? How do we solve this problem of hardness of heart? There is one and only one answer. And that is Jesus Christ, his saving work on the cross and the empty tomb. It is sufficient. It is sufficient. I would just say to you couples and indeed to everyone who hears me? Begin with letting your heart be convicted of your own sin. Be broken about your own sin. In Luke 18:13, the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me a sinner.” How can you say that to God in truth and then be hard in your heart toward your spouse? 

Start there and then think of the demeanor that Jesus zeroes in on it, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. What kind of demeanor is seen in a saved person? What does it look like to be saved? He says, “blessed are the spiritual beggars, poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Someone who knows they have nothing to offer for their own souls, “blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.” There's a grieving over our sins, blessed are the meek. There's a basic humility to someone that is being saved by the spirit through faith in Christ. They are meek toward others for they'll inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for a righteousness.” They don't have and they still know they don't have it. We want perfect righteousness. We're hungry and thirsty for it, “for they will be filled.” “Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy.” You walk through those beatitudes. Do you not see the power that has to solve whatever problem you're having with your spouse? Then let your heart be soft toward Christ. We're in Holy Week this week. Picture him screaming in agony while He's being flagellated by the Romans. Omnipotent God in the flesh could have stopped that flagellation, but He was laying down his life for us sinners. By his stripes, we are healed and you need to say, my sin did that to Jesus. Look at him suffering there on the cross. Look at him. See him with eyes of faith before your eyes. Christ Jesus was portrayed as crucified. See him bleeding, crying out, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Why? Because He's our substitute, He's the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Zechariah 12:10, “They will look on me, the one they appease and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and grieve bitterly for me as one grieves for a firstborn son.” You're grieving for Jesus's suffering on your behalf.

Then understand the good news of the gospel is not just justification by faith alone as the thief on the cross, but it's also a transformation of your basic nature, your core nature by the grace of God as described in Ezekiel 36:26-27, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and I'll give you a heart of flesh and I'll put my spirit in you and I'll move you. Follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” That's salvation. That's the remedy to the hardness of heart. God takes out that heart of stone and gives you a living heart that can respond to his laws and his rules, and you see them as beautiful and delightful and the Spirit moves you to do them.

Then repent of the specific sins that are damaging your marriage. Start with pride, just a thought. Start with pride. “God, show me how I have been prideful toward my spouse.” Go from that quickly to sinful anger. They're linked. Almost all anger in marriage is based on pride. Go to lust. How have you violated your marital commitments in that area? Selfishness, coldness, worldliness, arguments, complaining, thanklessness, all manner of sins that damage the marriage bond. Repent of them, name them and then let God do a deep work in you to soften your own heart first and then save your marriage next.

Now let's talk about the solution, oneness. The foundation of Jesus's conception of marriage and his prohibition against divorce is oneness. The two will become one flesh, so they're no longer two but one. “Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.” How can we understand the mystery, this mystery of oneness? It is a much deeper, broader, more significant topic than we ever could have imagined; this oneness. The whole goal, as I've said of God's work in redemption [Ephesians 1], the mystery of his will. He made known to us the mystery of his will. So now we know it. We understand what God's doing in the universe. According to his good pleasure, He's pleased to do this. It brings God pleasure to do this, which He purposed in Christ, not apart from Christ; it couldn't be done apart from Christ but in Christ only. To be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment. It's not happened yet. We can see just by current events we're not there yet, but when the times will have reached their fulfillment to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ, that's his purpose. Oneness.

The ultimate picture pattern of oneness is God himself, the Trinity. We're going into the glowing core of Christian theology. The deepest mystery of our faith, the doctrine of the Trinity. The Doctrine of the Trinity means that we believe there is one God and only one God who has eternally existed as three distinct persons, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is one in essence and three in person. So three truths. Number one, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct persons. Each of those persons is fully God and there is only one God. That's the doctrine of the Trinity, but it's mysterious. The mystery is the oneness, not the three. The threeness is not mysterious. Cultures all over the world are polytheistic. It's not hard for us to imagine three gods or a pantheon of God's. Mystery is Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” There is one God and only one God. Then Jesus elucidates. It was in the incarnation that then we started to expand and could more fully understand the doctrine of the Trinity because of Jesus' claims about himself. He said in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one. Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father, but I'm not the father.” Or as prayer in John 17, which is vital to my whole presentation to you right now, John 17:11, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me so that they may be one as we are one.” Again later in that same prayer, John 17:20-21, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one father just as you are in me and I am in you.”

So bringing it to marriage, all unity in a Christian marriage is based on the unity of the Trinity. It's a picture of the unity of the Trinity, separate persons, but one as the Father and the Son are one. But what does that mean? Different centers of personality of being, but a shared essence. I want to commend to you Philippians 2:1-11, as the best kind of descriptive passages to explain how I conceive the oneness of the Father and the Son and the Spirit. We don't have time to walk through it. I just want to commend to you Philippians 2:1-11, but especially starting at Philippians 2:2 where he's commending this for the Philippian church.

I want you to think about the Trinity in this sense, having the same mind, having the same love, being one in spirit, one in mind. It's one translation of Philippians 2:2. The Father, the Son and the Spirit have the same mind. There's a factual kind of scientific aspect to the oneness that they think the same way about every topic. They understand everything the same way. They have the same facts and agree that those are the facts. There is not the slightest shadow of a shade of disagreement between the Father, Son and the Spirit about any topic, ever. They're of one mind with each other and they have the same love. It's not just an intellectual, but there's an affection side like a magnet attracted. That's what love is. Their hearts are attracted to the same things or repulsed from the same things to the same degree. They love each other with the same love. There's no unrequited love within the Trinity. They love the same things. They love righteousness, they hate wickedness. They love the people of God. They love the plans that they have, they have that same affection, the same love, and they are of the same spirit and most translate that in sense of the same purpose or direction or plan. They know what they're about, they're going in the same direction. They agree. They agreed before the foundation of the world about redemptive history. They agreed about every aspect of redemptive history, Father, Son, and Spirit. That is the unity that Christian couples should strive for.

You may ask, is that even possible here on earth? No, not perfectly, but it is the goal. That's what we're striving for in Christian unity. Unity here is in a local church that's Philippians, but in marriage it also applies. How do you do that? He goes negative to say what is it that damages the unity of the Christian fellowship? Now we're going to go over into marriage? “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interest but also the interests of others.” Can I just say, husbands and wives, if you did that, you wouldn't have any problems. But like, "Pastor, that's hard." You're going right at your pride at that point. Pride is the greatest enemy to harmonious marriage. So don't do anything out of selfish ambition or vain glory vaunting yourself. But in humility, consider your spouse better than you. Consider them at a higher level than you. In that sense, you're going to honor them ahead of yourself and consider your spouse's needs like you consider your own. Husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. So that's similar. The idea is we're I'm going to consider your needs the way I consider my own. Then he gives us this beautiful example of Christ as the ultimate picture of humility. Have this mind in you which is also in Christ Jesus. Let me pause and say, Corinthians tells us we have the mind of Christ. In conversion you've been given through the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ, use it. Think like Jesus, “who being in very nature, did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped but made himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross.” Spouses that have that kind of servant attitude will have rich, full unity in marriage.

Paul, commonly urged this of Christians; he does it again and again. Philippians 4:2 is an interesting case study. “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of one mind with each other or agree with each other in the Lord.” Then he asks maybe a pastor, one of the elder there, Sysagist or loyal yokefellow, “help these women”. Help them what? Help them agree. I picture the three of them in a room and they're not coming out till they all agree. Is that even feasible? Doesn't matter whether it's feasible, Paul's saying, “Do it. Get in the room, two ladies and agree with each other, and pastor help him.”

It's almost like Reb Bradley and the couple. We're not coming out till we agree. That's amazing. Think alike [First Corinthians 1:10]. He does that with the Corinthian church. “I appeal to you brothers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” That's to the faction-ridden divided church of Corinth. A married couple can do this. A married couple can be of one mind together and to agree with each other.

Again, Second Corinthians 13:11, “Finally, brothers, goodbye. Aim for perfection. Listen to my appeal. Be of one mind, live in peace and the God of love and peace will be with you.” That's sounds like you could say that to a married couple. Think of the beautiful example of the early churchman. Now think of it in terms of a Christian marriage, a Christian family, [Acts 4:32], “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.” How beautiful is that? Or again, Romans 15:5-6, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, that's a beautiful marriage.

He's talking to a church there, but it could be done in a Christian marriage. You're praising Jesus together for his death and his resurrection. That's a picture of what oneness in marriage can look like. I think that's what the Lord meant, what our Lord meant when He said so they are no longer two but one. Sounds good. Why is it so hard? I'm going through this on Wednesday nights. Those of you that are with us on Wednesday nights know exactly where I'm at, I'm at Roman 7. That's why it's hard. Listen to this Roman 7:15-17, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do. I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.” Let me pause. You may be saying, “I just can't do it. We just can't do it.” As it is, Paul says, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. Because of indwelling sin we can't do this, it seems. Later in that same chapter, “I find this law at work when I want to do good evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.” It's like there's this law in my flesh that makes it hard for me to be a good husband. I want to be loving. I want to be kind. I want to listen. I want to be humble. I want to think that my wife has better ideas than I do. I'm sure she wants all the same thing too. Knowing, I mean, that she would think that I have good ideas too. But you know what happens? As soon as something comes up, we immediately bump into our prideful sin nature and it rises up. It's hard. Everything in the Christian life is made hard by this. But I would say perhaps, especially marriage. You may say this sounds kind of hopeless. You're giving us this beautiful pure picture, but it just cannot be. Paul says, “What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Let me tell you something. If you're a Christian, you have been rescued. If you're a Christian, you are being rescued. If you're a Christian, someday you will be finally rescued from this body of sin and death. In heaven, we will all be in Christ perfectly one as the Father and the Son. Ponder that, think about that. That's where we're heading. We're heading to a world of perfect unity. Why is that? Because Jesus prayed for it, and Jesus isn't just anybody. He prayed for it. I'll say it again, John 17:22-23, “I have given them the glory you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. I in them, and you in me. May they be brought to complete perfect unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” In heaven, we will be as one, as the Father and Son are one. We're going to agree about everything. And you wives are saying right now, "Finally, he'll see it the right way." It's going to happen, ladies. It's going to happen. He's finally going to see it the right way and so will you. Perfect oneness. You know what that means? You Christian couples, you're heading toward a world of super marriage in heaven without actually having a one flesh union. One flesh union won't be needed anymore, you will not be married. We'd be like the angels in heaven, but you'll have a superior unity in Christ than you ever had here on earth.

That's something to look forward to, isn't it? Why? Because Jesus prayed for it. It says in First John 5, “This is the confidence we have. If we ask anything according to God's will, He hears us. And we know that if He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we ask of him.” That's true of Jesus. Does Jesus ask according to the will of God? Friends, that's an easy theology question. Do you think that Jesus asks God for things that God wants to give Jesus? Yes. Jesus bats a thousand on his prayer request. That means everything He prays for in John 17, He's going to get. This is Jesus interceding at the right hand of God that will end up as one, as the Father and Son are one and we will.

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective [James 5:16]. Is Jesus a righteous man? Oh, perfectly righteous. Does He pray according to the will of the Father? Yes, He does. He's going to get it. So we're going to be one. His prayer in John 17 is us being brought to complete unity to let the onlooking world see it and want to come to Christ. The more that husbands and wives in this world can work out a beautiful unity, a heavenly unity, the better it'll be for their children who watch them, their friends who know them, the church who knows them, the better it is for everybody. So that we can be one in Christ. 

How to move toward oneness? Draw close to Christ. John 15, “I am the vine you are the branches.” If you remain in Jesus, if his words remain in you, you saturate yourself in his word. Ask whatever you wish. Pray together. You have an issue that's dividing you, could be finances, could be parenting, could be where to go on vacation, could be in-law issues, it could be whether to buy that house or not. It could be job related issues. All kinds of manners of things big and small. Draw together, pray together. Let his word abide in you, dwell in you richly. Search the scriptures to see what God's Word says about that topic. And let the Lord draw you together and not let the issue divide you.

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind [Romans 12:2], then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Let that be the pattern. Ask God for wisdom. And if you're struggling in your marriage, I would just commend James 4:8-10, “Come near to God and He'll come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts you double minded; grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.” Hold hands together, confess your sins to each other. Freely give forgiveness to each other because you've been forgiven 10,000 talents. And then communicate, listen to each other. Talk about the issue, work it through. Ask God for wisdom. Search the scriptures and walk together in oneness.

There's like three or four other pages of stuff, but we don't have time. We're going to turn now to a time of the Lord's Supper. This is a beautiful picture of our heavenly unity that we're going to have. I'm going to close the sermon time and pray.

 Father, we thank you for the truths you've given us today for oneness in marriage, concerning hardness of heart and oneness. I pray that you take these lessons and press them on deeply into our hearts. And now as we turn to celebration of the Lord's Supper, be with us in the center of this time. In Jesus name, Amen.

The power of Christ in Christian marriage allows husband and wife to reject divorce and replace it with God’s vision of oneness in marriage.

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