Sunday we will look at, among other words from Holy Scripture, Philippians 1:27-30. Contained there is the idea of our focus as Christians being upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.

A Don Carson quote caught me last week and has stuck with me:

What we must ask one another is this:
What is it in the Christian faith that excites you?
What consumes your time?        What turns you on?

Today there are endless subgroups of confessing Christians who invest enormous quantities of time and energy in one issue or another:

abortion,

pornography,

home schooling,

women’s ordination (for or against),

economic justice,

a certain style of worship,

the defense of a particular Bible version,

AND MUCH MORE.

The list varies from country to country, but not a few countries have a full agenda of urgent, peripheral demands. Not for a moment am I suggesting we should not think about such matters or throw our weight behind some of them. But when such matters devour most of our time and passion, each of us must ask:
In what fashion am I confessing the centrality of the gospel?       –D.Carson

Phil 1:19 Through your prayers, and the supply of the Spirit of Christ.

This verse has really been challenging and inspiring me this week.

Matthew Henry: “Whatever turns to our salvation is by the supply or the aids and assistance of the Spirit of Christ; and prayer is the appointed means of fetching in that supply.”

I’m not sure where you all are in reading through The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW) by CS Lewis*.

The scene where Lucy meets Mr. Tumnus is simply delightful. That he sees her as–in her essence–a human, a “Daughter of Eve” is so inspiring. And that he thinks “wardrobe” and “spare room” are geographical places is realistic, and funny.

*Reading Philippians a dozen times and LWW once are sorta the law of the Medes and Persians this summer.

He began the good work that is our salvation. (Cf Phil 1:6)

“The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?
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The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them;
but, properly understood,
they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy.
The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.” –Lewis

Today especially we celebrate the ascension of Jesus, a date marked out 40 days after his resurrection, when he departed from earth and returned bodily to heaven (Luke 24:50–53, Acts 1:9–11). Three helps in learning/relearning/delighting in the this wondrous part of Christ’s redemptive work.

1.) On first glance, Jesus rising up in the clouds may seem like something out of a Monty Python skit. It’s perhaps a little difficult to understand, maybe even a little bizarre to grasp, and even more difficult to apply. And yet the ascension of Jesus carries with it a full range of implications for our lives, something we discover in today’s episode of the Authors on the Line podcast.

2.) Jim Packer (dude was en fuego when he wrote Concise Theology)

While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. LUKE 24:51

Jesus’ ascension was his Father’s act of withdrawing him from his disciples’ gaze upward (a sign of exaltation) into a cloud (a sign of God’s presence). This was not a form of space travel, but part two (the Resurrection being part one) of Jesus’ return from the depths of death to the height of glory. Jesus foretold the Ascension (John 6:62; 14:2, 12; 16:5, 10, 17, 28; 17:5; 20:17), and Luke described it (Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:6-11). Paul celebrated it and affirmed Christ’s consequent lordship (Eph. 1:20; 4:8-10; Phil. 2:9-11; 1 Tim. 3:16), and the writer of Hebrews applied this truth for encouragement of the fainthearted (Heb. 1:3; 4:14; 9:24). The fact that Jesus Christ is enthroned as master of the universe should be of enormous encouragement to all believers.

The Ascension was from one standpoint the restoration of the glory that the Son had before the Incarnation, from another the glorifying of human nature in a way that had never happened before, and from a third the start of a reign that had not previously been exercised in this form. The Ascension establishes three facts:

1. Christ’s personal ascendancy.     2. Christ’s spiritual omnipresence.     3. Christ’s heavenly ministry.               (Ascension article by Packer)

3.) A prayer