The Ascension

Renewing Your Mind

Ligonier Ministries

Religion & Spirituality, Reformed, Study, Jesus, Preaching, Christianity, Scripture, Spirit, Bible, Holy, Theology, Christian, God, Teaching

4.8 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If you could bring a question to Jesus, what would you ask? From his sermon series in the book of Acts, today R.C. Sproul discusses a question that Christ’s disciples asked Him before He ascended into heaven. His answer gets to the heart of the church’s mission today.

Get R.C. Sproul’s commentary on the book of Acts for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3984/donate

Live outside the U.S. and Canada? Request the ebook edition of R.C. Sproul’s commentary on Acts for your donation of any amount: https://www.renewingyourmind.org/global

Meet Today’s Teacher:

R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.

Meet the Host:

Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.

Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The mission of the church, the reason we exist is to bear witness to the present reign and rule of Christ, who is at the right hand of God.
0:10.9	If you try to do it in your own parts as if Jesus said you will fail, that's why I'm not going to leave you this earth-shattering task of bearing witness to me throughout the whole world, not just in Jerusalem,
0:23.1	not just in Israel, but to the Gentiles as well. I'm not going to leave that to the flesh.
0:27.9	I'm going to empower you.
0:35.5	Jesus didn't stay in the grave. He is risen, but he also didn't continue what had been his
0:42.3	earthly ministry in Jerusalem or on the shores of Galilee. So why did he ascend? And what is the mission
0:49.1	of God's people today? I'm glad you're joining us for this Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind as we conclude a
0:55.8	thematic series considering the crucifixion of Christ through to his ascension. Our past sermons
1:02.5	were from the Gospel of Luke, but today, R.C. Sprawl will preach on the ascension from the
1:08.0	Book of Acts, and this sermon will conclude this series. So for one day only,
1:12.8	not to be repeated next Sunday, if you'd like Dr. Sproul's line-by-line commentary on Acts,
1:18.5	request it with your donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org before midnight tonight.
1:24.8	And if you'd prefer the e-book edition, where you live outside of the U.S. or Canada,
1:29.0	that offer is available for you at renewingyourmind.org slash global. Well, here's Dr. Sprawl
1:36.0	on the events leading up to and the monumental moment of Christ's ascension.
1:43.3	Well, if we can just exercise our imagination for a moment, and suppose our Lord found it within
1:49.9	his interests to manifest himself visibly to you this morning, that your eyes could behold
1:57.3	him in his resurrected glory, and he spoke to us audibly and invited us each one to ask him one question.
2:10.0	And you had the opportunity now to see him, to hear him, and to speak to him,
2:15.7	what question would you ask? Well, I'm sure each one of us would have a different
2:24.5	question that we would have for Christ if we could see him and hear his voice this morning.
2:30.6	But in the text, we have the record of the last opportunity that the disciples of Jesus had in his presence to ask a question.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 23 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ligonier Ministries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ligonier Ministries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.