The Salvation Army: Australia Southern Territory: Mission Resources Department
Life & Godliness: Ascension Sermon Outline / 1

How to Use This Outline

The emphasis of this outline is on the exegetical material for the chosen passage. The focus of this sermon is on the following issues:

  • At the ascension Jesus gave key ministry gifts to the Church
  • The gifts are for the building up of the Church
  • This is part of God’s total gift package of everything we need for life and godliness

The outline will need to be customised and contextualised by each Corps Officer for the congregation to whom the sermon will be preached:

  • Adding appropriate illustrations that will connect with the specific congregation
  • Modifying language to be appropriate to the socio-cultural setting of the Corps
  • You may also wish to make the application more specific to your context.

PowerPoint slides have been provided for the following:

  1. Title Slide – Introducing the Sermon
  2. Scripture Slide – 2 Peter 1:3 (highlight verse)
  3. Scripture Slide – Acts 1:9 (highlight verse)
  4. Scripture Slide – Ephesians 4:8 (highlight verse)
  5. Scripture Slide – Ephesians 4:11-12(highlight verse)
  6. Scripture Slide – Ephesians 4:16(highlight verse)

Scripture

Acts 1:1-11 (NRSV)

1 In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; 5for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

6So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 9When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Ephesians 4:1-16 (NRSV)

1 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

7But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.”

9(When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) 11The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

The Salvation Army: Australia Southern Territory: Mission Resources Department
Life & Godliness: Ascension Sermon Outline / 1

Sermon Outline

Introduction

  1. God thinks of everything. Salvation is a total package deal. He has not left anything out that we need to live life as He intends or to be the people that He calls us to be. 2 Peter 1:3 tells us, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness”. Over this series we are looking at what we have been given to enable us to live lives of power and holiness. We will look at what we need to do to make full use of the gifts He has given us, so that we can say together with Paul, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10 NRSV).
  2. Today we remember Jesus’ ascension to heaven. Let’s look at the text…

He ascended into Heaven…

  1. Read Acts 1:1-11
  2. If you read some of the earliest creeds of the Church, the ascension of Jesus is included as one of the statements of belief. The Nicene Creed includes the statement “He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father”. Why did the early church see Jesus’ ascension as an important doctrine? What does the ascension teach us? The ascension is Jesus’ enthronement as King over the Kingdom of God. It is the point where God the Father makes Jesus Lord over everything (Acts 2:34-36).
  3. If you have a visual mind, when you hear the story of the ascension you might imagine that Jesus being lifted up and taken away in a cloud was sort of like in the old 1970s TV show ‘Monkey Magic’ where the main character Monkey could whistle in a special way and a cloud would come and carry him to his destination, rather like the way one hails a taxi. But if we look at the background of how the scriptures refer to clouds we can see that the ascension would have looked something more like the following:
  4. When the Lord went before the people of Israel as a pillar of cloud by day (Exodus 13:21), and the pillar would rest upon the tent of meeting when the Lord would speak with Moses (Exodus 33:9)
  5. When Moses went up mountain to receive the law, and the whole mountain was covered in a cloud that both concealed and displayed the presence of Yahweh(Exodus 19:16)
  6. When the cloud filled the temple at its dedication (1 Kings 8:10)
  7. When Jesus was on the mountain of transfiguration a cloud overshadowed them and God spoke from the cloud (Mark 9:7)
  8. So what this tells us is that Jesus’ ascension was his glorification. The cloud both reveals to us that Jesus dwells in the same glory as God the Father, and it also conceals from us the exact method of His departure. This shows us that though He was human, He shares in the divine glory of God, because He is God as well. At the same time it keeps the appropriate distance between God and us, because there are just some things about Him that we can never know, never understand. The cloud “is more of a veil than a means of transport”[1].

He gave gifts to the Church…

  1. So how does this form part of the “everything we need for life and godliness” package? Let’s read some more…
  2. Read Ephesians 4:1-16.
  3. This passage explains a few things about the ascension that are important for us today. Firstly we see that it explains both the descent and the ascent of Jesus:
  4. The descent of Jesus is God the Son becominghuman. He was God from all eternity but he descended and condescended to become a human as well. His descent to “the lower parts of the earth” refers to his experience of the lowest points of human existence including his death. These are things that we celebrate each year at Christmas and Easter.
  5. The ascent of Jesus was “far above all heavens” and “so that he could fill all things”. This tells us that his ascent was an ascent to the same level as God, for no one else is “far above all heavens” other than God. It tells us that He is seated above all other spiritual realities, as it says in Ephesians 1:20-23, God “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all”.
  6. One of the interesting things this passage tells us is that Jesus’ ascension, the position that God has given him over all things is for the Church. What Jesus does in his position now at the right hand of God is for us. And so what is the first thing that we are told that He did after His ascension? What is that first thing He did for the Church? In verse 8 it tells us, “he gave gifts to his people”.Then in verses 11-13 it says that the gifts he gave were certain ministries that are necessary for the life of the Church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.
  7. Why did Jesus do this?In giving these ministry gifts Jesus provided the basic structure for how the Church should function. This passage tells us that these gifts are necessary for building up the body of Christ (which we’ll come back to in a minute), it is through these ministries that we will “all of us come to the unity of the faith… to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (verse 12). This is a collective call, not just for individuals to come to maturity, but for all of us together as the body of Christ to be united and to come to the measure of the full stature of Christ.
  8. Who are these people? What do they do?
  9. Apostles – are entrepreneurs. They start new things. They might be church-planters, or they may start new ministries. They are pioneers, strategists, innovators and visionaries. They often work trans-locally, pioneering new ministries and overseeing their development[2].
    (N.B. In the first century the Apostles were those who established the first churches, they were also those who had travelled with Jesus and seen first-hand the events that we now call the gospel. It is through the witness of those first Apostles that we have all come to know the truth, for without them there would be no New Testament. Their foundational role was once-off, irreplaceable and for all time. Having said that there are still those who have apostolic callings today but they are not on the same level as “the Apostles”.)
  10. Prophets – are questioners. They want to know why things are the way they are, and will question things that don’t conform to God’s plan. They disturb and agitate. They discern spiritual realities and communicate them in an appropriate way to further the mission[3].
  11. Evangelists – are recruiters. They are passionate communicators and great at explaining to people why they should become Christians and why they should join the Church. When evangelists share the gospel, people respond in faith and discipleship[4].
  12. Pastors – are people-persons. They care about people and emphasise the importance of people over the system. They are social cement or glue, keeping the community together. They shepherd the people of God, leading, nurturing, protecting and caring for them[5].
  13. Teachers – are systematisers. They understand how various parts of the gospel work together and teach others the big picture. Teachers communicate the revealed wisdom of God so that the people of God learn how to obey God’s commandments[6].
  1. These ministries may or may not come with an office. They may not come with a title.They are more statements of function than they are of what we would call “formal ministry”. (In fact most of the ministry that goes on in the Church is unprogrammed, it goes unnoticed and unapplauded and is often more effective for its lack of visibility). However, if we look around us in our corps, our division, our territory there are people who are exercising these ministries. In fact the entire church together is called to be apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral and teaching[7].
    Ephesians 4:7 says that “each of us was given grace”, this means that we all have a calling that falls within one of these areas of ministry[8]. We each have a bent towards one of these areas. This is a gift from God which He expects us to use. That gift may or may not come with a job title or a ministry title (usually not), but it is still necessary and valuable.

Conclusion: For the building up of the Body…

  1. How does this contribute to God’s total gift package of everything we need for life and godliness? Well firstly it establishes that our life is one that is lived in the community of the Church. To be a Christian means to be part of the Church. These gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher are useless without the context of the Church. Each of these ministries requiresyou to work with peoplefrom the Church or invite other peopleinto the Church.
  2. Secondly, it gives our lives a function within the Church, “as each part is working properly, [it] promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love” (verse 16). The exercising of these ministries is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body. All of this so that we come to unity of faith, knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.
  3. So this also means, thirdly, that the Church itself is a gift, to each one of us, to help each of us come to unity, to know Jesus, to become mature etc. As we each minister to each other we are part of God’s total salvation gift package of “everything we need for life and godliness”.
  4. Invite people to the Mercy Seat / Response

[1]Kittel, G., Bromiley, G. W., & Friedrich, G. (Eds.). (1964–). Theological dictionary of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

[2]Frost M. & Hirsch A., The shaping of things to come, 2003, pp.169, 174-5.

[3]ibid

[4]ibid

[5]ibid

[6]ibid

[7]Frost M. & Hirsch A., The shaping of things to come, 2003, p.170.

[8]Frost M. & Hirsch A., The shaping of things to come, 2003, p.171.