A Neglected Essential from Southern Seminary on Vimeo.

Here is an outline of the whole exposition:

• The Ascension
  • Christ spent 40 days with His disciples before ascending answering their questions & teaching
  • The angels heralded His ascension just as they did His incarnation.
• Descriptive analysis of the passage:
  • He led them out
  • He lift up His hands (and blessed them, perhaps with the Aaronic blessing)
  • He left them
    • He was taken up into heaven in a cloud.
    • He had told his disciples: I am going to prepare a place for you that where I am you may be also.
    • Christ physically went and remains somewhere in the time-space universe.  That verse has to be held in the context of all the revelation of Scripture: Christ was Incarnated, died, buried, and rose again bodily.
    • The cloud here are not meant to make us think of the clouds of the sky but clouds in the Scriptures: The cloud that led the Israelites in the wilderness, the cloud on Sinai, the cloud that filled the Temple, the cloud on the mount of Transfiguration
    • He, as it were, ascended up into the folds of space (CS Lewis) – the realm of the 4^th dimension. This would make a good discussion over coffee!
• The Significance of the Ascension
  • The Ascension declares Mission Complete, the Work of Redemption is Finished.
  • The Ascension declares God’s mighty power.
  • The Ascension marked the return of Jesus to the Father, a return to the glory He had known before.
  • The Ascension inaugurated the giving of the Holy Spirit in a unique and unrepeatable way at Pentecost.
  • The Ascension guarantees our heavenly home.
• What is Jesus doing now that He has ascended?
  • Jesus is now presiding over the universe.
  • Jesus is now ruling His church.
  • Jesus is now with us in our weaknesses.
  • Jesus is now interceding for us.
• How His Disciples Reacted
  • They responded in adoration: “they worshipped him”
  • They responded in exultation: “returned to Jerusalem with great joy”
  • They resulted in preparation: “continually in the Temple”
    • Acts 1:8 – “wait until you be endued with with power from on high”
    • So the text leaves the disciples (in Luke 24:53) waiting, worshipping, and witnessing.
• Conclusion: Isn’t this what we are doing?
  • We are waiting
  • We are worshipping
  • We are witnessing

“Jesus, Thank You” by Sovereign Grace Music, led by Bob Kauflin.

There’s still a lot of money in it, but no Cash.

It’s tired, but never Haggard.

It’s still got twang, but no Waylon.

They’re still dancing in a line, but it’s not all Strait.

- Russell Moore, Tempted and Tried

HT: dougwils.com

But I’m not playing dumb.  I know what I know and I know how much I don’t know.  Thirteen years of public school education and four years of public university education taught me a great deal, like how to add green beans or subtract bricks.  To know that a triangle has three sides.  To know that in formal English you are not supposed to dangle participles.  To know that Pythagoras was a genius.  To know that the Gettysburg Address was a speech given by President Abraham Lincoln after the battle of Gettysburg.  All very important stuff.  In college I learned advanced stuff like the amount of heat transfer between two reservoirs of energy at different temperatures.  And it was great, fantastic, and got me partly where I am.  For instance, I can read now.

But there’s a massive amount that they did not teach and that I did not learn.  And it dawns on me regularly how little I know.  But here’s the joyful opportunity: because there’s so much I don’t know, that means there’s a lot to learn. Does that sound like I’m repeating myself?  But is it not true?  That though it may be painful at times what lies before me is the welcoming challenging of continuing to grow spiritually and intellectually forever. This is a blessing of being made in God’s image but lower than the angels.  And behold it is very good.

Much of what I don’t know or I am learning now has to do with really practical things.  Things such as how to relate to an annoying person or how to say I’m sorry.  Or how to get my budget just right and master household finance.  Or how to nurture my marriage or discipline my kids right.  Or how to do kickbutt project work on the job.

I’ve got a whole list in mind of some of the things finally dawning on me at this stage of life.  It took 30 years but I’m game.  And it’s going to take all my life.

I’ll be writing more in this vein of practical wisdom concerning things like productivity, vocation, and more.  You’ll see a tag called “30 Years” on some of the lessons that are important to me right now.  I hope you find them helpful.

What have you learned lately?  How are you changing?  Don’t bask in your ignorance, instead change, and gear up your mind for some serious work!

But the one area I think most of rarely question is our own assumptions about our lives and the way we live them.  Particularly in the little things. I do not mean to suggest that any of the following things are necessarily wrong but what are they costing us in terms of lost opportunities, wasted resources, and blown time?

Why do I need to pick up that cappuccino that cost me $1.50 and 150 calories?  What’s wrong with the free cup a’ joe in the office?

Is going out to lunch every day really necessary?  What’s wrong with a brown paper bag with a turkey sandwich and an apple? Just add mayo and mustard.

Must I really keep up with every episode of my five favorite shows? Is the lost ten hours a week worth that?

Does a Friday necessarily entail a $40 meal out to town? Must fun always include spending money?

Simple life is good.  There are lots of things I thought I needed that I’m learning I don’t need.  They had a great deal to do with my comforts and pleasures and what I thought I had to have to be happy.  But I’m questioning everything.  It’s all costing me too much in money, time, and real joy. I’m not buying it anymore.  I’m not saying I’m not going pick up the occasional fountain drink or latte or never go out for a $40 meal, but it ain’t gonna be what takes to make me happy.

Simple life is good. Happiness is singing God’s praises on Sunday morning. Happiness is a good book and a homemade cup of tea. Happiness is an evening with my wife and children around the fire. Yes, simple life is good.

There are many others areas of life to question.  Stop asking everybody else the hard questions and ask them of yourself.  You are the only person you can truly work to change.  So question yourself, why do you live that way? Is it reasonable? How much is it costing you financially, physically, intellectually, or spiritually?

And it’s a good way to describe the way you and I waste time.  Yes, you know you do. I do.  I have a lot. But I’m raging against the system and all the energy, attention, and time it sucks from me because I buy into the assumptions of the digital age.

To fritter means to squander or disperse piecemeal; to waste little by little.  You think that checking your email every ten minutes is worth that? Would you check your mailbox every ten minutes? Oh, I need to work on that project, but I better walk out to the box and see if anything came in first.  No, we would not do that. But we do. I’d love to read this great book, but I better see what Suzanne is up to on Facebook. Gee, I’d love to work on my Spanish vocab, but there’s this next level on Angry Birds. I love to smash those green pigs.

You will never get there from here. If your goal or resolution for 2011 is not bringing about present change today you will make the same resolution in 2012. Goals are WORTHLESS if they are merely wishes for the future but do not initiate present ACTION. This means that if you are going to get there from here you must stop frittering time away. It cannot be saved. It cannot be purchased in chunks for future usage. It’s gone like spilled milk.

You will never get there from here. “There” may be a weight loss of 50 pounds, the learning of a new language (wouldn’t it be cool to read the Gospel of Mark in Greek), or establishing a neighborhood monthly potluck. I don’t where there is for you. But I can tell you that if you were to chart your time and we find that your priorities last week were to play xBox nightly, to stay current on Primetime, to leave your inbox open to the whole world, or surf Facebook, it ain’t gonna happen.

I’m not trying to spread negative vibes or be defeatist but winning at life means facing reality. I’ve got more to say about this and mostly because I was an addicted fritterer myself, but no more, if I can help it. Life’s too short.

Oh, and I’m gonna be sharing more with on thoughts like this. It took me over thirty years to learn some dumb lesson like this and I don’t want you to make the same mistake. Beating every version of Call of Duty was not worth it. Not really. Trust me. Fun, but not that fun. Not now anyways.

Where and how are your shredding your time?  Stop taking your time and tearing it into small pieces and throwing it out the window. Now. Do something about it.

- N.D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, 112.

And one other thing: a lot of people aren’t as impressed by what is in the Bible as they say they are.  They really do pick and choose.  So just because you wanna say stupid don’t expect the defense of “but it’s used in the Bible” to be that helpful for most stodgy pew warmers.  You will make some parents mad.  They will believe you are irreverent.   And you might be, I’m not telling you what to say, I’m just saying, you know, that the word is there in the Good Book.

I’m going to try to write 2-3 posts per week.  And I don’t care how many read or do not read.  The point is to work on writing and writing takes practice, much practice.  Lots of practice.  And it’s like walking or riding a bike.  You only get going by trying to get on your legs or stay on the bike.  So I write.

I used to worry about who might read my stuff and what they might think.  Who indeed might consume content that I generate?  Egads, tis a fearsome thought!  But to the wind with that.  You can’t run forever.  You can’t hide in the corner.  Nope.  So here I go.

I shall write about many things.  Anything that interests me.  Not that this is about me, its about the ideas, the books, the things worth writing about.  And that’s perhaps the biggest reason to do this at all.  Writing helps me think.  Writing pushes the thoughts out into expression where they can be shown to be real and powerful, useful and examined.  Thoughts that stay bouncing around the brain are fine but don’t do much until they escape the skull and hit the page, or the airwaves, or the RSS feed.  And that’s when they become helpful, useful, or dangerous and provocative.

So here I go (again).

God was with Nehemiah, but someone still had to put mortar between the bricks.  It’s the ole’ “Praise God and pass the ammunition” slogan.  Or like the farmer who was exhorted by the preacher, “God gave you those fields!” to which he responded, “you should have seen them when He had ‘em.”  God may give the increase, but someone must plant.

This is not to take the glory from God, nothing happens apart from His action, but it is to recognize a simple and practical truth: we really are responsible for action which influence things on planet earth particularly in our own lives.  We must strive, we must fight, we must work, we must till, labor, seed, sow, plant, and harvest.

So shoulder some responsibility and see, where do you need to help yourself?

“Some of the most foolish misreading of biblical stories I have encountered have come from a misguided assumption that we are intended to approve of the behavior of biblical heroes in virtually every episode in which they figure.  One of the distinctive features of the Bible is how deeply flawed its heroes and heroines are.  The Bible portrays most of its protagonists as Cromwell wished to be painted—warts and all.” – Leland Ryken, How to Read the Bible as Literature, p. 77

Amen.  Jacob’s having two wives is not biblical support for polygamy and Jephthah’s keeping of his vow by sacrificing his daughter is not commendable.  Jacob was a deceiver who got deceived and Jephthah was a fool who did not know the things that God did not take delight in.  Other examples abound, but alas, I must read on.

“When God blesses us, He almost always does it through other people.  The ability to read God’s Word is an inexpressibly precious blessing, but reading is an ability that did not spring fully formed in our young minds.  It required the vocation of teachers.  God protects us through the cop on the beat and the whole panoply of the legal system.  He gives us beauty and meaning through artists.  He lets us travel through the ministry of auto workers, mechanics, road crews, and airline employees.  He keeps us clean through the work of garbage collectors, plumbers, sanitation workers, and the sometimes undocumented aliens who clean our hotel rooms.  He brings people to salvation through pastors and through anyone else who proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost.  The fast-food worker, the inventor; the clerical assistant, the scientist; the accountant, the musician–they all have high callings, used by God to bless and serve HIs people and His creation.”

Gene Veith, God at Work, - p.14-15

“When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, observed Luther, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread.  And He does give us our daily bread.  He does it by means of the farmer who planted and harvested the grain, the baker who made the flour into bread, the person who prepared our meal.  We might today add the truck drivers who hauled the produce, the factor workers in the food processing plant, the warehouse men, the wholesale distributors, the stock boys, the lady at the checkout counter.  Also playing their part are the bankers, futures investors, advertisers, lawyers, agricultural scientists, mechanical engineers, and every other player in the nation’s economic system.  All these were instrumental in enabling you to eat your morning bagel.

…God has chosen to work through human beings, who in their different capacities and according to their different talents, serve each other.  This is the doctrine of vocation.”

- Gene Veith, God at Work, p. 13-14

by Lt. Col. John McCrae (1872-1918)

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

For the history of In Flanders Field: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields.