Where is Jesus?

Text: Acts 1:6-11
Focus: The Power of the Holy Spirit
Function: To get people excited about the Great Commission.
Form: expository

Intro:

Two brothers, about 8 and 10 years old, were exceedingly mischievous. Whatever went wrong in the neighborhood, it usually turned out they had a hand in it.
Their parents were at their wits' end trying to control them, so hearing about a priest nearby who worked with delinquent boys, the mother suggested to the father that they ask the priest to talk with the boys.
The father replied, "Sure, do that before I kill them!"
The mother went to the priest and made her request. He agreed, but said he wanted to see the younger boy first and alone. So the mother sent him to the priest.
The priest sat the boy down across a huge, impressive desk he sat behind. For about five minutes they just sat and stared at each other. Finally, the priest pointed his forefinger at the boy and asked, "Son, do you know where God is?"
The boy’s mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open.
Again, louder, the priest pointed at the boy and asked, "Where is God?"
Again the boy looked all around but said nothing. A third time, in a louder, firmer voice, the priest leaned far across the desk and put his forefinger almost to the boy's nose, and asked, "Where is God?"
The boy panicked and ran all the way home. Finding his older brother, he dragged him upstairs to their room and into the closet, where they usually plotted their mischief.
He finally said, "We are in BIIIIG trouble."
The older boy asked, "What do you mean, BIIIIG trouble?"
His brother replied, "God is missing and they think we had something to do with it!"

Today, we celebrate the ascension of Jesus.

The disciples stood there looking into heaven wondering where Jesus went, and the angels asked: “Why are you wondering… …He will return the same way He left.”

(SHOW) Where is Jesus?

After the miracle of His death and resurrection, He appears to the apostles over a 40 day period. Jesus gathers with them on the mountain and gives them final instructions before He miraculously rises into the clouds.

I wish I was there to witness this scene. To have seen the Lord rise, with the promise from the angels that just as mysteriously as He ascended into heaven, He would return to earth.

The disciples just stood there watching, wondering where He was, until the angel explained it to them.

Where is Jesus?

A lot of people asked that question.

That was a question that the Chief Priests who killed Him kept asking.

Where is Jesus? That was a question answered by Jesus to the faithful, even those who doubted like Thomas. It was answered by His appearances.

Where was Jesus? That has been a question asked many times by people who have been going through difficult circumstances.

People ask: Where was He when a child died? Where was He a loved one was stricken ill? Where was He when people suffered unjustly?

The question is still asked: “Where is Jesus?” Where is He when we have doubts and we want to see something miraculous to prove that He is real? Why doesn’t He just keep on appearing on the face of the earth to prove who He is?

Most often, this is a sincere question. I mean, if He would just show up once in a while and reveal Himself, so many more people would believe in him.

(SHOW) Jesus is right where He needs to be. Trust Him.

I heard a great testimony last weekend from one of our team members. He was raised in a Church with the tradition of a lot of liturgy, ceremony, procedures and etc.

He was a good kid, but something wasn’t connecting with him, so he connected with the bottle instead.

When he became angrier and angrier, he and his wife fell farther and farther apart.
Instead of considering how to respond, he reacted.

His wife divorced him, but they stayed in the same house. His daughter and wife watched TV upstairs, and he possessed the big easy chair downstairs.

A simple thing happened; his daughter innocently lost her flip-flop. He found it, and he was so angry as he was yelling at her about being responsible he got angrier and angrier until he raised up the flip-flop to strike his daughter with, in rage.

Right then, he saw a look of terror in his daughter’s eyes. He threw the flip-flop down, stormed out of the house and made up his mind to kill himself.
He decided he couldn’t trust himself anymore.
He was getting ready to do this deed when Jesus literally spoke to him. The Lord said to him in an audible voice, “you have a purpose.”

His life changed. God set him free. The peace of Christ entered him and now almost 2 years later, his family is back together.

He was set free because he discovered that he has a purpose.

(SHOW) God’s has a purpose for all of us.

I don’t know where Jesus was in the middle of his previous problems. I am pretty sure his wife called out to Jesus when he was abusing her verbally. I can picture her crying in her spirit: “Jesus, help me!”

You all have heard the poem footprints in the sand about a man who gets to look back on his life and he sees two people walking side by side and understands that those footprints represent him and Jesus.

But during the hard places of his life, he sees only one set of prints. Initially he is upset until God tells him those were the times that God was carrying him.

In this scripture, Jesus is promising us that He will be with us; He’ll be in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, giving us a purpose in life.

Just as Jesus mysteriously went up into heaven, (SHOW) He lives inside of us.

He is in our heart, but to experience in a deep personal way, we need to connect with His heart as well.

What is the heart of Christ?

Look at the first verse from our text. (SHOW) Acts 1:6: So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’

They asked Him. It wasn’t just one disciple who had this question. They all asked Him. These guys thought they had signed on to be part of the new political regime that would defeat the Roman enslavement of their people. They still were having a hard time connecting in their hearts to the heart of Jesus.

Jesus is patient with them in His response. He tells them of something much more wonderful, much more powerful than a human kingdom.

They are going to receive Holy Ghost POWER.

(SHOW) You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you and you will be my witnessed to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and unto the ends of the earth.

The whole world is the heart of Christ. He cares for the whole world and His Spirit will give us the power to be His witnesses worldwide.

(SHOW) The word for “witnesses” is MARTYR.

When we see it from this perspective, it changes everything.

I had everything changed for me in that sense last weekend.
When we choose to trust Jesus, we refer to it as giving “our life” to Christ.

It isn’t a simple call. We have always had a statement here that before a person decides to be a believer, they should “count well the cost.”
Dietrich Bonhoffer has a classic Christian book titled “The Cost of Discipleship.”

In it, he details the incredible act of self-less love and suffering the Jesus endured to purchase our salvation. He tells us that grace is more plentiful than we can imagine, but it isn’t cheap. It isn’t something to take advantage of. It cost God more than any one of us would be willing to pay.

The author of the book went on to be martyred for his principles as he stood against Hitler’s Nazi regime.

Living as Christians in our culture can seem easy compared to what believers have to face in other countries.

There were many Arab converts to Christianity at the Bible College I attended. These men, after accepting Christ were disowned by their family, beaten and some of them were even killed by their own family.
It is hard for us to consider what that would be like, since we enjoy the principle of religious freedom here in the United States of America.
A prisoner who was sitting at the table with me last weekend had to face that kind of cost.
Explain story: A gang member told us he had wanted to trust Christ, but if he did, they would kill him. By the end of the weekend, he chose Christ over everything else.

(show) The Power of the Holy Spirit is real; He can even be felt by us.

I understand this statement. I want to try to explain how it works.

When the disciples walking with Jesus to the city of Emmaus, they described the way they felt in their encounter with Christ and said, “weren’t our hearts burning inside us when we were talking with Him?”

There is a real presence there.

Have you ever felt it when someone was praying for you?

On Saturday, we were discussing a problem with some of the prisoners and were seeking a solution. All of a sudden, this really clear solution to the problem became obvious to me.

This clear solution to the problem felt like the disciples described, my heart was burning inside me. When we prayed about it, it seemed very clear to us.

Someone said to me, “wow, you really have a lot of wisdom there.”

I was quick to say, “No I don’t! I don’t know where that came from except that I know that this weekend there are a lot of people praying for us.”

I have to thank you for your support. I felt like we were together in the prison.

The team was amazed at how many of you signed up to keep us in prayer last weekend.

We were there in that prison. We were there with the power of the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t me who lead that gang-leader to Christ, it was us through this promise of the Holy Spirit.

We prayed over the cookies. We supported the outreach.

(SHOW) God sends His Spirit into us in order for us to GO out into the world and fulfill His purpose.

How many times have we heard people say, “Well, we have to take care of our own first?”

But the command was “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to all the world.”

None of those escape our responsibility. They started close to him, in their town, then to their county, then their state, their country and into all the world.

That is our mission field as well.

Do you want to sense the moving and power of God at work?

Do you remember the days when things were exciting here at Church?

Do people wonder what has happened to that sense of blessing?

The power of the Spirit was given in order to give us strength to do outreach.

If we decide that we are big enough, we don’t want anyone else with us, we have finished our work and it is someone else’s turn, then we have decided to stop the flow of the Holy Spirit.

(SHOW) The Holy Spirit is given to those who share the heart of Christ to heal the world through the gospel of Jesus.