e215 Ascending Toward Ever-Increasing Glory (Like Father, Like Son. Like Us.)

This is Faith to Witness 99 Motivating us to leave the 99 and go find the one. 

John 20:17

After his resurrection, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene: “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

This is what our Savior would say, yes? A divine assurance of inclusion. His unmatched resolve that this is what he died for, this is what salvation looks like. This is what it means to be in his family. That we ascend with him. That we have the same Father. We can commit to living a life of looking up, of ascending. That we do as Jesus did with Mary Magdalene, claim our Heavenly Father for someone else, that this Father we worship, is someone else’s Father too. We do what the apostle John tells us in John 5:19, that Jesus “can do only what he sees his Father doing.” We do only what we see our Savior, our Shepherd doing. We can say to someone who needs to hear it, who may not know it yet: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father…” if you choose Jesus. 

Like Father, like Son. Like us.

Stay with us for the conversation. 

e215 Ascending Toward Ever-Increasing Glory (Like Father, Like Son. Like Us.)

I am grateful for the humility of Jesus. He came to earth to personally show us his Father. 

John 14:9

“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”

I would be overwhelmed with joy if Jesus were standing in my kitchen right now, putting the almond milk away. Turning for a moment to embrace the beautiful light that blesses this space every morning. I can almost see him. 

I’m Kathryn Bise, your host. 

Everything I embrace about our Shepherd, Jesus, was true before he came to earth. Before he shepherded God’s people on this earth, God spoke. God said that he would shepherd his flock, and used this point in Ezekiel’s young life to designate the coming of a shepherd, a Messianic King, through David’s blood line. 

I said that this feels like a point of origin for the 99. The bond I share with our listeners, that we gather around the fire of the 99 to gain strength to go finding. In episode 214 (available on all listening platforms) we read through Ezekiel chapter 34 to hear how God defines a shepherd. To hear how God shepherds. And to hear how God provides a shepherd for eternity. 

That a shepherd acts like a shepherd. (Ezekiel 34:1-2)

That a shepherd is accountable for his sheep.(Ezekiel 34:10)

That a shepherd searches for his sheep. (Ezekiel 34:11)

That the Sovereign Lord will judge the flock and name one Shepherd. God said,

Ezekiel 34:22-23

22 “I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. 23 I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd.” 

That God claims his sheep with a covenant. God said,

Ezekiel 34:25

25 “‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety.”

Like Father, like Son. The Son comes after the Father, is like the Father, and Jesus came to earth with the shepherd’s rod and staff of his Father. 

John 5:19 

“The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

The divine following of the Son after his Father, in all his ways, all his Sovereign Will sets the scene for the power of living within God’s family. Living by what our Shepherd sees his Father doing. Like Father, like Son. Like us. 

Jesus Revealed the Divine Father-Son Relationship

This had me asking a question:  

“How many times did Jesus refer to God as his Father throughout his time on earth?”

I wanted a sense of it. I had to look it up. How many times Jesus referred to his Father in the Gospels and how many times God was called Father in the New Testament. Translations matter here, but here’s a general perspective: Jesus uses the term “Father” or addresses God as Father dozens of times. For example, it appears roughly 65 times across the Synoptic Gospels (that’s Matthew, Mark, Luke) and over 100 to 156 times alone in the Gospel of John. I am not surprised by what the apostle of John brought to us about the relationship between God and his beloved Son. Across all the New Testament God is referred to as Father approximately 245 times by many accounts. This, in comparison to the Old Testament: God is called father only 13 to 30 times, depending on translations. 

Jesus’s relationship with his Father revealed to us how he fulfilled the covenant God made with his people over two thousand years. 

Stop Asking For Proof and Do God’s Work

Jesus showed the people his Father. In 33 years on this earth. The God that dwelled in a cloud, a tabernacle, an ark of the covenant, was now the God standing in front of them. Looking into their eyes, their souls. Healing the flesh. Healing the spirit. 

In the powerful moments shortly before Jesus was arrested, when he was comforting the disciples with his divine assurance, his “let not your heart be troubled” spirit, Philip asked him this:

John 14:8-14 

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Jesus challenges Philip with reality, that he had been in Jesus’ presence for a long time, so how did he not know this? Because everything Jesus does embodies the Will of his Father. He is the Shepherd because his Father is the Shepherd. At some point, we have to stop asking for proof and do what needs to be done because the Father “is doing his work” in us. 

Choose Ascending, Ever-Increasing Glory Over Seeing

I often think about Jesus when he was resurrected, but had not yet ascended. Like the moment when he stood in front of Mary Magdalene as he prepared to ascend to heaven to sit at the right hand of God:

John 20:17

After his resurrection, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene: “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

This is Jesus having passed through death, burial and being resurrected. He is 100% present with Mary in saying that he is ascending to “my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” 

This is what our Savior would say, yes? A divine assurance of inclusion. His unmatched resolve in this moment that this is what he died for, and this is what salvation looks like. This is what it means to be in his family. That we ascend with him. That we have the same Father. What does my life look like if I am ascending to my Father. The Father of Jesus, my Lord and Savior? 

Philip wanted to see the Father. We pray, we appeal to Jesus, to God to show up in ways we can see. We ask for this every day, in moments, across the longness of hours. 

I am prompting us to choose ascending over seeing. What does this mindset shift do?

Hebrews 1:3

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…”

Ours is an exacting God. With an exacting purpose for how we grow spiritually. How we ascend. The apostle Paul writes,

2 Corinthians 3:18

“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

We can commit to living a life of looking up, of ascending. That we do as Jesus did with Mary Magdalene, claim our Heavenly Father for someone else, that this Father we worship, is someone else’s Father too. 

We do what the apostle John tells us in John 5:19, that Jesus “can do only what he sees his Father doing.” We do what we see our Savior, our Shepherd doing.

We can say to someone who needs to hear it, who may not know it yet: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father…” if you choose Jesus. 

Like Father, like Son. Like us.

God’s faith to your witness. Go find the one.