Ascension Sunday Worship!
A. Today
is Ascension Sunday. It is the last
Sunday of
Easter. Today, we celebrate Jesus returning to
Heaven! The purpose for which Jesus came
has been completed!
B. The Sacrifice is complete! The
victory has been won; that is what we celebrate throughout Easter!
1. At the end of Good Friday, Satan thought he had
won and Christ
was dead, but that wasn’t the end of the story!
2. Christ made the Ultimate Sacrifice; Satan
didn’t
take
Christ’s life, Christ sacrificed His life.
3. During Easter, we celebrate that the grave
could
not hold him! We celebrate Jesus’
resurrection!
Trans:
On
Ascension Sunday, we celebrate that Christ has gone
back
to the father. The plan is
finished! God has
made
a way for us. What do we do about it?
Prayer
Gen. 22:1-13
I. Let’s back up to a different sacrifice, a previous
sacrifice!
A. God now asked Abraham to sacrifice his only
son.
1. It must have been a nightmare for Abraham!
2. The son they had received in their old age.
3. The son they had prayed for.
4. The son God had promised them!
B. God had asked a lot of Abraham before:
1. God had told him to go into a far off
country;
God would tell Abraham where to stop when
he got there!
2. Abraham trusted in God, and he went!
C. But this time, this was probably the most God
had ever asked of him!
1. Issac was probably more dear to Abraham than
even his
own life!
2. If Abraham could have, he would have probably
died in Issac's place!
3. Abraham surely prayed and struggled with this
command
to be sure that he had heard God right!!
D. Abraham would do as he had been told!
1. He got up "early" the next morning
and loaded up to go!
2. He arrived at the place and built an altar,
placing
the wood carefully in place.
3. Let's imagine how it might have been:
a. Issac realizes there is no animal!
b. Father, "Where is the Sacrifice?"
c. Abraham, "Son, you are the
Sacrifice."
d. As tears flow down his cheeks and Abraham places
Issac upon the altar, preparing to take his life, God intervenes,
"Stop, now I know you are willing to give me
everything!"
e. They embrace and cry with tears of happiness as they notice a ram hung up in the underbrush; God has provided a sacrifice!
f. This
is a tough story for us to take today with the thought of child sacrifice and
all, but I think it is important to realize that God didn=t
require Abraham to go through with it, and there is nowhere recorded in the
Bible where God requires this sacrifice of an earthly father or mother.
1) Perhaps it is there to test Abraham=s
faith.
2) Perhaps
it is there to help us
understand
the extent of another
ADifferent@
sacrifice or should we say an “Ultimate Sacrifice?”
II. God later provided another "Different" sacrifice.
A. This was also a Son. This time it was Jesus Christ (God's
Son)!
1. For 33 yrs, Jesus walked upon the Earth with
all that
humanity needed:
a. Love.
b. Compassion.
c. Kindness.
2. Then He was arrested; His only crime was
Loving the world and offering a better way!
3. God and God's Son walked together just as
Abraham and Issac had.
a. Through the mockery of a trial!
b. Through the beating!
c. Through the desertion of those whom Christ held
dear!
d. Up to Calvary: the place where the sacrifice was
to take place.
e. At Calvary, God turned His back on His only Son because, unlike for Abraham, there was no God to say “no stop!”
f. At this time, Christ was bearing our sins!
g. Tradition says this was the same mountain that
Abraham went up to sacrifice Issac.
1) Let's suppose it was.
2) Once again, an altar was raised!
3) Once again, the father cried as his
only son was placed upon it!
4) But this time there was no higher power to say, "Stop, now I know you are willing to give everything!"
5) God is the higher power, and this time, God
"did" give everything!
6) So we could be forgiven of our sins and given
a new start!
III. Have we really grasped what Good Friday and Easter are really about?
A. Good Friday is when God gave it all!
B. Easter is when we realize the gift!
1. We realize Jesus was God!
2. We realize God did this for us!
3. We realize that for God the grave is not
final!
4. We realize, if God can raise Jesus, God can
raise us too!
5. We realize we can not only have new life in
eternity
but we can also have new life today!
C. During the 50 days that we celebrate as
Easter, Jesus
made
several appearances to his disciples. On
Ascension
Sunday, we celebrate Christ’s ascension back
to
Heaven. On this day, Jesus left the
mission with
his
followers, the church!
Conclusion:
A. God has given us a great gift for Easter!
B. What are we giving in return?
1. A life of complaints?
2. A life of bitterness?
3. A life of rebellion?
4. Or are we also giving our all?
C. We can give our all this morning as we
encounter
Christ
at the table this morning.
1. In
response to Christ leaving the mission to the
Church,
Paul appeals to us:
“I
appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,a by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,
which is your spiritualbworship.[1] “
.
2. That is the acceptable response! That is the
acceptable
sacrifice!
3. God gave it all in Christ, how will you
respond
this
morning?
Prayer of Confession
Service of Communion
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