Tuned To Christ

Text: Luke 24:44-53 Speaker: Pastor Matthew Ude Festival: Ascension Passages: Luke 24:44-53

Luke 24:44-53

My father recently told us the story of his music teacher. She took a tuning fork and struck it, “That’s middle C.” she said, “It was middle C a thousand years ago. It will be middle C a thousand years from now, no matter how flat you sing. So, Ude get in tune with it or don’t sing.” 

If that is true of a musical note which was created by God when he spoke at the beginning of the world, how much truer it is of Jesus Christ who was, and who is, and who will be, world without end amen. Christ does not change, and his word is perfectly in tune with Him. The only question is, are we?

Notice how Jesus emphasizes this in our text: “These are the things that I spoke to you,” and “these are the things that the prophets and Moses and the Psalms spoke to you,” and “these are the things that happened,” and now “these are the things that you will speak.”

It is no wonder that Jesus on Palm Sunday told the pharisees, “if these keep quiet the stones will cry out.” Jesus is the eternal note of God, the voice, and all things even the very stones will get in tune with him, or they will stop singing.

He ascended on high as our epistle reading says, and sat down on the right hand of God. To sit on the right hand of God means that he has received all power and all authority. He is in charge as he always was.  This means he is the note against which all other songs must be tuned. He does not change to suit us, we must change to be in harmony with him.

Singing the right note means hearing the right note. You need to have an ear to hear.

I never did have an ear for music. When I was in college Prof Reim gave us a cassette tape with pieces from various musical compositions on it. We were supposed to learn these pieces and be able to identify them. I remember spending hours listening to that tape. However, I could never even be sure where one piece ended and another began.

You must have an ear that is able to hear the music before you have any chance of singing in tune.

Fortunately for us Christ promises to give us ears that are open to understand his word.

“Behold I send the Promise of My Father upon you.”

The promise of the Holy Spirit is a thing that is given to each and everyone of us. And if there are any that lack understanding of scripture, they need only pray and ask God for an ear to hear, and God will open their hearts to know “the wealth” which is revealed in scripture.

There are too many who make a mockery of God’s word when they say that it is too hard to understand and that no one can be sure what he meant.

There are those who can not correctly hear musical notes no matter how hard they work or listen. Some simply do not have that gift. But there are none that will lack the ability to hear his word if they ask for it.

The problem is not God’s word but our babbling sinful selfishness, which desires to hear only the foolishness we want to hear and the sinfulness that we have already decided is true.

Those who listen to music sometimes put a finger in their ear to drone out the ambient noise and better hear the notes. Similarly, we need to stick a cork in our own thoughts so that we might hear the truth of Christ.

There is no greater lie of Satan than the idea that truth comes from within us, from our feelings, from our hearts, from our reason. The word of God is in tune with Christ, our hearts are not.

Jeremiah 17:9  ⁹ “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked;

But

John 17:17  Your word is truth.

It is our hearts that need to be tuned to Christ and his word not Christ that needs to conform to our hearts.

Having learned that note we too ought to sing it.

What note is this? That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name.

Years ago, I remember someone complaining that “Pastor makes us sing all the worst hymns in the hymnal. They are so dull and boring.” let us be honest there are more than a few hymns in our hymnal that are a burden to sing. Although there are also many that are wonderful.

But that note which Christ teaches us to sing is never burdensome or dull or weary.

Matthew 11:30 ³⁰ “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Psalm 98:1-3 Oh, sing to the LORD a new song! For He has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory.  ² The LORD has made known His salvation; His righteousness He has revealed in the sight of the nations.  ³ He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

What is this new song? It is the glory of his salvation and the wonder of all that he has done for us. Christ became man, lived on this earth, died for our sins, rose again from the dead AND NOW SITS ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD.

Christ ascended on high and sat down on the right hand of God that father. But he did not do it not to rule as a tyrant. But what does our epistle say:

Ephesians 1:22 ²² And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,

His ascension means that he can so order all things for our good. To bring an end to suffering and anger and hatred, to destroy tyrants and fools and the prideful. To deliver us from this world of sorrow into the kingdom of his glory.

He who was dead lives and reigns on high. This is glad tidings of great joy which we delight to sing.

And so, we sang today, “draw us to thee” asking that God would deliver us and teach us to sing his tune. In order that “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations”

Draw us to you, O Lord, that our whole lives might be in tune with you. Amen