Thursday, December 13, 2012

WHERE ARE YOU? (Part One)



“Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens.” (Ephesians 1:3 HCSB)

Where are you?

Do you remember when God asked Adam that question?  After Adam and Eve sinned, they tried to hide—such was the overwhelming sense of guilt and shame.  Before, when God came calling, they were thrilled to be with Him, but then were terrified at the thought, so they plunged into the bushes when the Holy One arrived in Eden.

Of course, an all-knowing God was not asking the question because He needed information—He knew where they were, what they had done—indeed, that they were going to do it before He told them not to do it.  What God wanted was a confession—for them to recognize what they had done and their need of repentance—to turn from their folly and come back to God.

Lost—that’s where they were.  From a life of incredible purpose and direction, they had fallen into such a sad spiritual condition.  Thankfully, God did not abandon them.  He came seeking and finding.

If you are saved, you are no longer lost.  We should know where we are, but I am not sure we do.  Where are you?

Now, I’m not talking about the geographical location of your body.  It is true that we don’t know that sometimes.  All of us have taken a wrong turn in our car, and needed directions.  A map is helpful; GPS is wonderful.  That is illustrative of the vital spiritual principle we are discussing today.

If you are a child of God, then you ought to know where you are.  We have a roadmap called the Bible.  It is our spiritual GPS—God’s Positional Standard—where He sees us to be.  Paul wrote Ephesians to help us understand where we are.  This is the theme: “Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens.” (Ephesians 1:3 HCSB)

Where are you, as a believer in Christ?  You are, “in Christ”—a vital union with Him, so that His life is your life, and where He is, you are.  That is, we are, “in the heavens” and being there, we have all the resources of the limitless Lord to draw upon—blessed with all blessings!  Just read through Ephesians and underline the words, “in Christ” and “in Him” or similar expressions and you will find them to be the thread woven throughout the whole fabric of this Epistle to the Ephesians.

This is our position in Christ, and we need to take God at His Word and live according to this reality.  Right now, right here—wherever your body is located, this is where you—the new you, born into the family of God—are located.  Based on this, the Holy Spirit assures us that we are to live as those sitting down, stepping out and standing up.

Where are you?

IN CHRIST, WE ARE SITTING DOWN.

“Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens…” (Eph.2:6)

Confess it—it is true!  You are with Christ, seated in the heavens, together with Him.  We who were in the graveyard of sin, “dead in trespasses,” have been raised to new life by Him who is, “the Resurrection and the Life,” through belief in Him. 

Where were we?  As a sinner, “you were in your trespasses and sins” (2:1), living in a realm where “you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient.  We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.” (2:2-3)

“But God” (2:4) would not leave us there.  He came calling as He did to Adam and Eve—and when we responded by faith to this gracious call, here is what happened, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!   Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens, so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through [His] kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift — not from works, so that no one can boast.  For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.”  (2:4-10)

When Jesus died on the cross, we died with Him—so that we are dead to sin, dead to the world, dead to the law.  We who were alienated from God—hiding in the shrubbery like Adam—have now been brought back to Him through the blood that was shed by Christ.

“So then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh — called ‘the uncircumcised’ by those called ‘the circumcised,’ [which is done] in the flesh by human hands.   At that time you were without the Messiah, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah.  For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In His flesh, He made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that He might create in Himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.  [He did this so] that He might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross and put the hostility to death by it.  When [the Messiah] came, He proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.  For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.  So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone.  The whole building, being put together by Him, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord.  You also are being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.” (2:11-22)

Adam and Eve tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves—and that will never work.  God killed an animal and covered them with its skin—He shed blood to cover them.  Was it the blood of a lamb?  Ultimately, that blood of the Lamb of God—the Lord Jesus—is what atones for our sin (the word atonement means, “a covering’).

So, we are brought back to God.  His Spirit comes to indwell us and we are in the Spirit.  Our union with God is complete.

When Christ was crucified we died with Him, and when He arose, we were raised with Him! (2:5). Now we have eternal life.  We are a new creation in Christ.  What we were in sin, is dead and buried, and what we are in Christ is fully alive, abundantly, triumphantly alive in Him!  All God had mapped out for us (2:10), He has led us to be—and that designed from before the world began (1:4-14).

So, where is Jesus today?  Forty days after His resurrection, He ascended to heaven.  He took His seat there.  “He demonstrated this [power] in the Messiah by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavens  far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age but also in the one to come.  And He put everything under His feet and appointed Him as head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of the One who fills all things in every way.” (1:20-23)

Where are you?  Where Jesus is—sitting down in the heavens!  Irrespective of where your body is located, and where you “feel” like you are, by faith confess the fact that spiritually you are in Christ and He is seated in this exalted position and you are there too!

It isn’t a matter of trying to ascend to a higher standard of living—pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, clawing our way to the top.  That will never work.  It isn’t trying, but trusting in the finished work of Christ.  That’s how we are saved!  You didn’t see Jesus die on the cross, but you believe it.  You were told He died for you, and you trust that.  No matter how you feel, or that you are now 2,000 years after the fact in another time and place, you can only be saved if you have faith in Him and His work.  You weren’t there the day the stone was rolled away, and you didn’t see Him with human eyes, raised from the dead.  Neither have you felt the wounds in His glorified body, as Thomas did, but you believe and have confessed the reality of His resurrection.  That is the only way of salvation.  It is all by faith.

So, if you can believe that, why don’t you now believe that when He ascended to glory, you ascended with Him and that now you are seated with Christ in the heavens?  It is just as much a Scriptural truth as any other part of the Gospel message, and likewise has profound implications!

The question often comes to us, “How are you doing?”  The response given frequently is, “Well, I’m doing alright, under the circumstances.”

Under the circumstances!  What in the world are you doing “under” the circumstances?  God has seated you above the circumstances—and all else.  You are in Christ, and God has “put everything under His feet,” and that means that there is nothing over your head that is under His feet!

Rather than bringing the Scripture down to the level of our experience, we need to raise our experience to the level of Scripture.  Based on who we are in Christ, and where we are in our union with Him, we can live out each day this new life we have.  Who we are shapes what we do—being directs behaving.

Believing we are sitting down with Christ, leads us to know IN CHRIST, WE ARE STEPPING OUT.  There is another prominent description of our position—not only seated in the heavens, but walking together in fellowship with Christ.

We have already alluded to this—and now Paul shares the practical application,

Therefore I, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, accepting one another in love, diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds [us].  There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to one hope at your calling — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of the Messiah’s gift. For it says:
When He ascended on high,
He took prisoners into captivity;
He gave gifts to people.

But what does ‘He ascended’ mean except that He descended to the lower parts of the earth?  The One who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.”  (4:1-10)

Is your head now spinning like a top?  Are you finding it difficult to get your mind around this—beginning to see that you have settled for far less in your Christian life than God’s intended purpose for you?

That’s why I’m here.  God has gifted leaders in the church to help us know the truth that sets us free to be all He wants us to be.   “And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, [growing] into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.  But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head — Christ.  From Him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.” (4:11-16)

Along with this information from the Scripture, we need the illumination of the Spirit to shine the light into our hearts and enable us to believe it and behave accordingly (4:17ff).  No wonder Paul prays this:

“This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.  [I pray] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.  [I pray] that the perception of your mind may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His vast strength.” (1:15-19)

And this:

For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. [I pray] that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man through His Spirit, and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith.  [I pray] that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth [of God’s love], and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us — to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

That is my prayer for you today.  Will you join me in that prayer?

Where was Paul?  On his knees—in wonder and worship at who we are in Christ.  That ought to be true of us all.  Amen?

Forever and ever, “Amen!”

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