2026 05 17 - Being Called to Serve? Bet on it! - Popp

Grace, peace and mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus ascended. Now what? I'm actually going to take today's first reading and add in six verses from what was considered Thursday's reading. We had an Ascension Day service to talk more about this, but I thought a lot about the apostles in this transition. They were to watch and learn, to observe and shadow.

Doing the grunt work, maybe kind of an intern, student, teaching apprentice type thing, training status. I mean, Jesus did send them out by twos at one point. They did a lot of watching. I assume it was unpaid. They were taking care of food and shelter maybe, but tough living for those years, three years following Jesus.

So how do we know if they're ready? Did they know if they were ready based on their response after his death? Even though he told them over and over? Hydra would bet. We don't think so.

How are they going to carry on with that?

We're going to talk a little bit about that today. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah. Yeah. Thursday was ascension today, seventh Sunday of Easter, the official seventh Sunday of Easter.

You know, we're going to keep going. He is risen. Let's look at what Peter and the apostles did just before and after Jesus went to sit at the right hand of God. I want to read to you again, like I mentioned, verses 6 to 11 from that Acts 1. So when they had come together, they asked him, lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth. When he had said these things as they were looking on, he was lifted up and the cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why are you still standing looking into heaven? This Jesus, whom was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

This is this ascension, right? Jesus ascends left the apostles.

A lot of artists tried to depict what it looked like. I just picked a couple of these pictures wearing some different things. Some have it a little lighter, a little darker daytime.

We don't know what it looked like. He certainly tells them, hey, the Holy Spirit's coming. We know that day is coming. We're going to celebrate that next Sunday in Pentecost. But where are they going to go?

I think it's interesting again, and we're going to talk about this in a little bit. This idea of verse 8 basically lining out what their ministry will look like. Let's look at those apostles. In Luke 24, they worshiped in the temple. These are the last four verses of Luke 24.

He led them out as far as Bethany, lifted up his hands, he blessed them. And while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And. And we're continually in the Temple blessing God.

Pop quiz. Who wrote the book of Luke? Okay. Who wrote the book of Acts? Same guy.

Yeah, yeah. Here in Luke, he talks about how when Jesus went up, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple.

Luke, in Acts 1, they went away to the upper room. It was the first three verses that our head elder read. They returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which was near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying. Peter and John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, son of Alpha, Simon, Zealot, Judas, Sons and all with one accord were devouting themselves, devoting themselves to prayer together with the women, Mary, Mother Jesus and his brothers.

Can both things be true?

Of course, of course. Two very different books. And it's actually explained. Luke explains this book in those first two verses of Acts. He just basically tells Theodophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day that he was taken up, after he was given the commandments, commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles.

So we know the Gospels are the life of Jesus.

Acts is how the Church started. I admit I used the book of Acts for church history there for a while, only because the book they gave me when I was teaching in Davenport was like a college textbook for seventh graders. You want to talk church history, read Acts. We're at the start right now, how the Church started.

And it's their time. Like I said, the disciples have been training for years just for this moment.

And we only know what was in the Gospels. As far as their training goes, as far as what they did.

It's time. And it was time for Peter to ascend too. Now, I know we talked about Jesus ascension, Peter's ascension. Not the same thing, not the same kind of ascend here, but it was time for him to take leadership. It's time for him to take over the first order of business is replacing Judas.

First question is, did they have to?

I don't know if you've ever been a part of a tight knit group. Maybe it was a team, maybe it was at work, maybe it was in a choir or a band. But when somebody that's been there with you since the start leaves, it leaves a hole and it hurts.

Here they go to replace him. Now it does say in our CPH study Bible that they needed 12 apostles because the apostles were to confront the 12 tribes of Israel. I don't think that was quite literal at this point.

But regardless, this is what they did. They went to replace Judas. My question first is at what point did Judas turn to the dark side? This idea of Judas the apostle who was trusted, trusted so much, he took care of the money. I've heard many times biblical scholars talk about how it obviously wasn't Judas set apart from the beginning.

Because when Jesus says someone will betray me, they don't all kind of giggle and turn and look at Judas.

They didn't know.

So I looked at this whole thing. At what point did Judas turn to the dark side? Well, Jesus chose. Judas talks about that in both Luke 6 and Mark 3. But Jesus knew early.

Listen to these two verses. Jesus answered them, did I not choose you, the 12, and yet one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he one of the 12 was going to betray him. Now you might say, well, John wrote that years later he knew. And that's true.

But again, these are Jesus words. Earlier on, this was the plan. We get a little insight when Judas pushes back when, when Mary is preparing Jesus for burial with the expensive anointing, the broken glass. I've done studies of that where it talked about the glass did not have a nice screw on top. It was in, it was in this glass that when you broke it you had to use it.

There was no keeping it safe, right? And it was expensive and she was using it for his hair and his feet.

Of course we know what was to come. She was preparing him for burial. But we know Judas pushed back there questioning the money. And really, let's be honest with that. If I was in charge of the money and we were trying to feed all these people all the time and trying to take care of the needs of everybody, I might have been upset too that she broke that expensive glass and put on Jesus feet and hair, right?

What was his desire? And of course we know Satan enters Judas.

He's the one that sets up to Betray him to get paid for it. Of course. Our reading today, our first reading gets a little in detail about what happens to Judas.

How do we come back from that? They've got to fill it. I called it a tough leadership decision. Right? I love this comic strip.

Jeff Larson. Before Matthias is chosen, the beginning, the disciple. There were several elimination rounds using a new sophisticated high tech selection technique.

Love rock, paper, scissors, right? Certainly we look at casting lots. We heard about the soldiers casting last for Jesus clothes. Now we hear about the apostles. This was not some degenerate gamblers game here.

They were seeking God's will.

We don't always understand exactly how this would be here at Grace Only because usually when somebody's going to run for position, nobody else wants to oppose them because that means there's going to be a winner and a loser and none of us want to see a loser.

We just had five people run for three positions at an athletic directors meeting. And it was the most tense meeting I've ever been at. Everybody was apologizing, right? We don't know what the circumstances were, but we know the lot was Cassimathias. My question is for us today, I thought is there a casting lot situation here?

Well, no. We need to rely on the power of prayer. Actually scripture is very clear about that. When we seek out this idea of God's will, We need to be in prayer. And I put this picture in here only because does it look like they are in prayer seeking God's will, trusted in his answer?

No, fortunately we pray too much like this. We pray far too much. Looking to see what the answer is going to be or what God's going to do or what's going to happen. By the way, that was supposed to be just all right, God, are you doing it my way? Not trying to see what other people are doing?

The power of prayer leading us, guiding us, sustaining us real quick here. We're going to get through this last part. It started with 120 already 3000 by the next Sunday we're going to talk about that. At Pentecost. Just imagine we're averaging about 200 a Sunday worship.

Imagine if in 10 days we had 3,000.

Be a little tough, right? Fire chief would not be happy with this, but they saw rapid growth. We're getting into that. Number one, Pentecost is coming next week.

It's incredible as the Holy Spirit comes upon them. They were told, they were told, they were told, they were told today Jesus said the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you. We're going to talk about that Great Commission work where we see and that's really going to come up in two weeks in Trinity Sunday, baptized in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That is what we're called to do, right? I forgot my note here.

Wear red. Next week we're gonna bring the reds back out. Alright? Sharon's gonna make sure we have red flowers. Put your red on.

Next week we're gonna celebrate Pentecost. This idea of the Great Commission work, right, what Jesus left the apostles to continue, is it any different than what he asked us to do today?

Is the work he asked the apostles to do different than what we are supposed to be doing? That's why we're going to look more at the Great Commission. And really, if that scares you a little bit, the Holy Spirit is with us. Mark 16:20 and they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. I don't know about you guys, but it is amazing when God ends up answering my prayers, especially in the way.

I don't like it. And it works out so great. It helps us. Trust the Lord, trust the Holy Spirit. It really is one of those things where if you have a fear at any time when it comes to sharing Jesus or loving somebody in the name of the Lord, Good.

Trust the Lord. You know what to say. Good. If you think you know what to say, don't be surprised. You get tongue tied.

Because the Lord gets his way. We trust in the Lord. And frankly it looks a little bit like this where if one of you had a question and I'm standing here and God is standing there, which one of us are going to go to? Way to laugh. I agree though.

Yeah. Hopefully the Holy Spirit is coming through in our words that we're trusting in God to give us the direction and the words as we do his will. And that's where preparing to sow seeds is so important. Right? The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

How can we share the love of Christ with others? How many of you see yourselves in one of those pictures? And I don't mean the person in the hospital bed, right? Not too many people out there are going into a pastoral work or teaching or a chaplaincy or standing on the street corner sharing Jesus. Please don't do that.

There's so many better ways. Because here's what I want you to see. Here's where I see us sharing the love of God. You want to do it real well. Don't open your mouth.

Then we don't have to worry about saying something stupid, right? Just love. Just love and share others. It really comes down to how we help Allowing the Holy Spirit to come walk alongside us. It has been one of my favorite parts the last two years, working with Dave Timmerman, because Dave's constantly pushing back on me.

Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? Is that the best use of your time? How are we enlarging the family of God? How are we reaching the lost and the hurting?

This made me look at people a whole different way, from weird and frustrated or angry to sad lost people who don't know the Lord. While the apostles watched Jesus ascend before carrying on his work Great Commission work, we continue to live as followers of Christ, relying on the Holy Spirit to guide us as we wait for Jesus to come back the way he left. More on the Holy Spirit next week as we focus on Pentecost. Be in prayer this week. Allow the Holy Spirit to talk to you, through you and with you.

And let us look at the power of the Holy Spirit next week. To God be the glory. Amen.