“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
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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