Week 5
Read Acts 1:8-11
Study Questions:QUESTIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL THOUGHT AND SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION
What Believers Believe, Week Five: Jesus and Judgment
Before jumping into this week’s questions, please take some time to read slowly and carefully through Acts 1:8-11, Romans 8:33-34, and II Peter 3:3-14.
As you begin your discussion time with your group, please take a moment to read or recite together the following words of the Apostles’ Creed:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead. On the third day, He rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven, where He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Read Acts 1:8-11 out loud in your group. The bodily ascension of Jesus Christ was another of those biblical events to which the apostles were eyewitnesses. Before their very eyes, they saw the Lord translated out of this world. It wasn’t something they heard in a story or saw in a dream – it happened right in front of them and they saw it with their own eyes.
According to Acts 1:10-11a, what was their initial reaction to this miraculous event?
You can certainly imagine why the disciples stood there gawking. And yet, according to the angels that appeared to them, that was the wrong response. When the angels asked the disciples, “Why do you stand here looking into the sky?” they weren’t really looking for an answer. It was a rhetorical question meant to urge them to get going.
Reread Acts 1:11.
What is the promise given by the angels?
The Scriptures refer many times to the bodily ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ to the right hand of the Father, and this bodily ascension of Jesus is directly tied to His bodily return. In part, therefore, the ascension of Jesus means the fullness of your salvation is yet to come. It’s important that believers understand this reality, so they don’t find themselves frustrated as they continue to encounter the effects of the Fall. For the time being, you must still deal with temptation, sin, disappointment, hardship, disease, and death.
Many years ago, a NASA engineer named Edgar Whisenant created a huge stir by widely publishing eighty-eight reasons he believed the Lord was going to return in 1988, and I distinctly remember many people being deeply afraid as the projected date drew nearer. As a young man, I also distinctly remember actually praying that Jesus would not come back until I’d had the chance to get my driver’s license.
Do you really look forward to the Lord’s return? Have you ever viewed that day as something fearful or unwanted? Why or why not?
Read: Romans 8:33-34
Study Questions Read Romans 8:33-34. Jesus isn’t seated because He’s tired, and He’s not sitting down on the job. In fact, according to the Bible, Jesus is active even now while He’s seated with the Father.
According to this passage of Scripture, what is Jesus doing right now at the Father’s right hand? How does that make you feel? I love it when I know people are praying for me, but how much greater is it to know the Lord Jesus is interceding for you!
Read Hebrews 8:1-2. This intercession is part of Christ’s high priestly ministry. The priests’ job in the Old Testament was to stand before God on behalf of the people; and what those priests did imperfectly, the Lord Jesus does flawlessly. Once each year, as part of his intercessory ministry, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies and sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat as an act of Atonement for the people’s sins. Since the ascension of Christ, Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, has maintained a non-stop presence at the actual throne of God – a constant, uninterrupted reminder to the Father that the sins of every true Christian are covered and forgiven. In other words, Christ intercedes for you not merely with His prayers, but also with His whole being.
Read Hebrews 7:25. What words stand out to you in this verse?
Read Hebrews 10:12-14. Then read v. 14, again. Notice the wording: “by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
If, in coming to the Lord, He has made you perfect, what does it mean that you’re still being made holy? Doesn’t it have to be one or the other? How can you reconcile these competing verb tenses?
In terms of justification, your legal standing before God, when you trust in Christ, His record is imputed to your account; and you are declared right in God’s eyes. From there, however, you must seek to walk out what you have been given by grace, a process known as sanctification.
Read: 2 Peter 3:3-14
Study Questions:Read II Peter 3:3-4, 8-9.
Jesus’ final words in the book of Revelation are, “Yes, I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:20); but that was nearly 2000 years ago. How does Peter explain this delay?
For those who love and serve Jesus, His promised return is highly anticipated as the culmination of everything they’ve built their lives on and everything they’ve been hoping for. For those who do not love and serve Him, that day will be a day of reckoning. Those who, in this life, have sought the presence and glory of God, will enter a new life where God’s presence and glory is all there is – a life completely and forever free of sin and the consequences of sin. And those who, in this life, refused to live for God – those who ignored or rejected Him – will enter a new life where God’s presence and glory are completely absent, a life of darkness and despair, a life with no hope or love or joy, a life with no beauty or kindness or peace.
How is that new life for followers of Christ described in I Thessalonians 4:17b? in Matthew 25:34? in II Peter 1:11? in Revelation 21:3-5?
How is that new life for those who refused to follow Christ described in II Thessalonians 1:9? in Matthew 22:13? in Matthew 25:41? in Romans 2:8? in Jude 13?
Read Revelation 19:11-16.
What strikes you about this representation of the coming Christ? Is the imagery shocking to you in any way?