Ephesians 1:15-23 - "Surpassing Greatness"

Think of some great things.  Great feats.  Great accomplishments.  Today we are blasting past the extreme limits of true greatness, and on into the uber/hyper.

"For this reason...", Paul says.  Why?  For what reason?  “You also believed…” [v13]  And I heard that you believed, Paul says.  Which is one reason why we think Paul is writing more of a circular letter, to people he doesn’t know.  He doesn’t know them, but he knows they are following Christ.

But how does he know this?  Because I heard that you believed, he says - that you have faith in the Lord Jesus - AND that you love the saints.  This is the proof of the pudding.  You want to know if somebody believes, has really put their trust in Jesus?  Look for love for all the saints.  It’s not about attendance.  Showing up at a building once a week.  It’s about putting your faith into action for the benefit of other believers.  Love for one another is the litmus test of our faith.  Love surpasses greatness.  And Paul is thinking of love in community, love focused towards a local assembly.  If you are a believer in Christ, He has given you gifts which He expects you to use on behalf of building up the church - and we will unpack this in chapter 4.  For now, Paul simply says, all the saints.  All the saints.  Each one of us needs to take a good look in the mirror of our own faith and ask, how am I doing at loving all the saints?  Even those who are hard to love?  Is there real care and concern for the people of God?  It’s not about attendance.  It’s not about a program.  It’s not about service.  It’s about the people.  It’s not even about gifts - the gifts are given to benefit the people.  And what we’re after is not numbers.  It’s not having a slicker program so that we can attract more people.  It’s not more people.  It’s more love.  And I’m not saying that we don’t strive for excellence in our programs and the like.  And it’s not that we don’t want more people to be following Christ.  Of course we want that.  That’s what the Lord wants as well.  He wants people to be following Christ, by all means, yes.  But the goal of all we are doing is not filling seats.  The goal is love.  Paul knows they believe, not because they say they believe, or cuz they go to church, but because they love.  The greatest of these is love.  Surpassing, uber greatness.  Loving God with all our heart.  Loving one another, as well as our neighbors.  To the praise of His glory.

But because you are believers, Paul says, I am praying for you.  In fact, once I understood that you believed, I have not ceased to pray for you.  Giving thanks for you.  Mentioning you, remembering you in my prayers.  Paul is praying for them.  Giving thanks for them.  And asking God to do something.  Let’s not miss Paul’s priority of prayer.  Look at verse 16.  Think about how we could describe Paul’s prayer life.  These are people who Paul hasn’t even met.  And he’s praying for them.  Praying for them a lot!  Of all the things we can do for someone, surely one of the best things - if not THE best - we can do for someone - is pray.  That person you’re angry with?  You need to be praying for them.  [Prayer —> Love ; Prayer ≠ Anger]

Note Who he is praying to.  To Whom.  To God the Father.  The Father of glory [think about THAT for a moment].  Prayer surpasses greatness, because God surpasses greatness.

But look at what Paul is asking.  Wisdom and revelation in knowing God.  For the eyes of their hearts to be enlightened.  This is how we know that Paul knows that these things about which he is writing are truly unfathomable.  They are really hard to understand.  Mind-blowing.  So Paul is asking God to help these believers know what?  Know Him, the surpassingly great unfathomable God.  Know the hope of God’s calling.  Know the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance.  And know how great His power is toward us who believe.  Shining the light on these things.  We’re talking about clarity.  The root of the word “enlighten” here gives us the word for sound/voice as well as the word for light - both of which are vital to understanding.  Have you ever tried watching a movie or tv show with the sound off?  Or have you ever tried walking in the dark?  Turn on the sound, turn on the light - that’s what Paul has in mind as he is praying here.  Lord - turn up the sound and turn up the lights in the hearts of your people.

But I think the operative phrase here is, ‘knowledge of Him”.  Full knowledge - that’s the word in the Greek.  Full knowledge of our heavenly Father, this glorious Father of glory.  This One Who made all things and Who works all things and Who fills all in all things.  The surpassing value, the surpassing greatness of knowing Him, Paul says in Philippians.  Better by far and then some than anything else.  Paul himself had chosen to take everything in life and subjugate it to the greater goal of knowing the Lord, this God of glory.  Breathtaking goodness.  And how does one go about getting to know someone?  How do we get to know someone?  Spend time with them.  Watch them in action.  Communicate with them - talk to them, listen to them, back and forth.  It takes time, and you’ve got to be intentional.  You’ve got to deliberately set aside time to spend with them.  Because life moves pretty fast.  And the busy-ness of living tends to create and perpetuate separation in relationships, rather than connection.  Full knowledge of Him, Paul says.  Wisdom and revelation - which means obviously God plays a huge part in this relationship.  He is the source of wisdom.  He needs to reveal to us what He is like, what He wants, what He is doing.  Open our eyes to surpassing greatness.

Colossians 1:9   For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding…

But we need to be intentional, we need to do what we can to put ourselves in positions to be able to get glimpses of glory.  We need to turn aside… 

Exodus 3:1-4   Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, “I MUST TURN ASIDE now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”

I wonder, how long had that bush been burning there on that mountain of God?  The one which later is called Sinai?  I wonder how many times Moses might have simply hurried past the place, nose to the grindstone, nose in his business, working real hard, busy, busy, busy.  The busy-ness of life, just tryin to make a livin’ and doin the best I can, right?

I wonder if the key ingredient here was Moses’ finally turning aside?  So often I think we can miss out on glimpses of glory, surpassing greatness, cuz we’re in such a hurry to take care of our own business?  So distracted and bothered with our preparations?  Just like Martha?  The Lord of the universe had shown up, was seated in her living room, and she was missing it!

Sometimes He shows up in our living room.  Sometimes we’ve got to turn aside, put ourselves out there.  Literally.  We’ve got to plan to actually put ourselves in the way of trying to get a glimpse of God’s glory.  Like Zaccheus - Jesus was walking by.  And he made sure he got to a place where he had the chance to get a glimpse of glory, the Prince of Glory walking by…

It was some years ago, after studying through this passage, that I decided our family needed to be more intentional about pursuing glimpses of glory.  Glimpses of glory in this life - which will enlighten our heart as to the incomparable glory to be found in the next.  Where are you looking for glimpses of glory?  We like to go to the beach to get our vacation on.  And to be sure, there is great fun and beauty to be enjoyed at the beach.  But I had us begin going to the tops of mountains.  We’ve gone to the bottom of Niagara Falls.  The point is, there is breathtaking beauty and awesome power to behold in this life which gives us an inkling of what is waiting for us in the next.  Where are we looking?  Are we even looking?  Full knowledge of Him.  Glimpses of glory, of surpassing greatness.  Where are we looking?

Obviously God’s Word is the best place to start.  God’s concrete, inerrant revelation about Himself to His people.  Spending time with Him in His Word.  Taking/making the time to immerse ourselves in it.  With a pen and paper - or some means of notetaking.  Write down what you see, what He shows you about Himself.  Keep a journal - the original selfie.  The God of glory, surpassing greatness could show up in your [living] room this very day… Don't forget to include spending time with God's people, those who know Him.  Family time.  Know Him.

Know the hope of His calling.  It is living, constant and sure.  Indescribable!  God has called us into His forever family, into a relationship with Him.  And there is nothing in this world or anywhere that can even come close.  Nothing, no thing, no one can compare.  Incomparable.  Unfathomable.  We have no idea how wonderful.  How glorious.  How surpassingly great.  So much better than anything we could ever hope for in this life.  He is better.  Paul wants these believers - and us - to get a better understanding of what it will be like to finally be home.  For most of us, yes we hope to go to heaven.  We desire and expect to be there when we put our trust in Jesus.  But we really have no idea how surpassingly great it is actually going to be.  Talk about getting your money’s worth.  Have you ever been disappointed with how something turned out?  A new movie?  Or a concert?  A new restaurant?  A new toy or smartphone?  You hoped it would be great, but it let you down. Well, no chance of that happening here…

Our hope is not like the hope of the world - uncertain, temporary, false, dead, destined to disappoint.  Our hope is certain, it is real, it is alive and abiding, and it is a game-changer.  It - heaven - will be magnificent, stunning beyond belief, truly unimaginable - which is why we need God to reveal how awesome and sure our hope is.  If we could only get a real glimpse of this - mind blown.  Because again, our hope, this hope of heaven, is Him.  He is our hope.  He is heaven, our heavenly Treasure.  He is the Magnificent One, unimaginably stunning beyond belief.  For the God of glory to reveal to us what is the hope of His calling is to reveal to us Himself.  Because our hope of heaven is to be with Him, forever, in the very presence of glorious Glory.  He is the the destination, the home for our hearts.  Surpassing greatness.

But wait - there’s more!  Paul wants us to know what are the glorious riches of His inheritance in the saints.  We’ve already looked at this.  God adopting us into His family, becoming His heirs - there is no earthly equivalent.  Nothing which can even come close.  Anything you could ever hope to inherit in this life - it could get lost, stolen, broken, scratched, breathed on wrong.  And no matter how large the earthly inheritance, it could never ever fill the gaping hole in our hearts.  The infinite abyss.  But what do the saints in heaven inherit?  

Our inheritance in heaven in Christ is inexhaustible, infinite, eternal and eternally satisfying, and it is so not because of where we will be or what we get but rather Who we get.  We get the God of glory.  HE is inexhaustible, eternal, and He alone is so eternally satisfying, breathtakingly good - we have no idea.  We just don’t get it - we can’t really this side of heaven.  God, turn up the lights.  Turn up the sound.  It has nothing to do with us or how special we are.  It is all about God.  Which is exactly why Paul is praying for this.  Getting a real good glimpse of the untold glory that is this God Who is calling us into His presence forever will rock our world.  Surpassing greatness.  Know Him.  Know hope.  Know true riches.

AND know the surpassing greatness of God’s great power.  So how great is that, exactly?  How much power are we talking about?  Try coming up with an adjective to describe it.  Limitless. Inexhaustible.  Unfathomable.  Almighty.  The mighty muscle of God’s omnipotence.  It is the same power which created and sustains the universe, this One Who made everything out of nothing and for Whom no thing is impossible.  The Greek word is where we get our word dynamite.  Dynamite.  Explosive.  We’re talking about the same explosive Power that flung out and fuels a billion trillion stars in each of which a hundred million nuclear bombs are exploding every second of every day - that same Power lives and works in and through you and me, surpassingly great, so far beyond anything on earth, defying explanation and description.  Paul has seen this power at work in and through his own life, power to work miracles, power to heal, to overcome, to serve, to forgive, to persevere, power unleashed through prayer.  And God is directing this mind-blowing power toward us who believe.  IN us. He lives inside us.  Which is why Paul is praying now.  Prayer in fact is that slender nerve which moves the mighty muscle of God’s omnipotence.  Surpassing greatness.

Paul says it is the same power God worked in Christ when He raised Him up out of the grave.  Now, how much power was that?  How much power is required to take something that is dead, and make it alive?  We’re not talking resuscitation, where someone’s heart has stopped beating for like a minute.  We’re talking dead-as-a-doornail dead.  Polly-the-parrot-pushing-up-the-daisies dead.  This is resurrection.

And God not only raised Jesus up out of the grave, He seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlies.  [the same place where all our spiritual blessings are found - because they are in Christ!]  And no power, not any authority even comes close to Jesus.  Far above.  Far above, Paul says.  There is no one higher, no one greater, no one ever.  No one who has ever lived or ever will live, is greater than Jesus.  God put all things in subjection under His feet.  And He is now the head of the church.  Surpassing greatness.

Which has a couple of implications for us.  Jesus said, if you ask anything in My Name, what?

John 14:12-14 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”

Jesus’ language concerning prayer is always limitless.  In His name… But second, He said, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Me, so go therefore and…” do what?

Matthew 28.18-19 

Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…”

Greater works.  Answered prayer.  Disciple all the nations.  Love.  This is not just about a little dose of Jesus, just enough to get me some fire insurance and make me happy.  There is so much more to this life than just a little dab’ll do ya, 18 in of pew once a week, and rubbing my Jesus lamp every once in a while when I’m in a pinch.  We’re talking about the fate of billions of lost souls, people who God so loves.  Blessing the nations.  Eternity.  The glory of the King of kings, making Him supremely famous to the ends of the earth - starting in my own heart.  Famous in MY heart.  The stakes are so much higher than just me and Jesus, me and my stuff.

Paul says, Jesus is the head of the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all.  Together, we are the fullness of Jesus.  All that Jesus wants to pour out in the world - His love, His blessings, His grace, His goodness, His power - He has filled us up with that.  And His intent is for us to overflow that to our Jerusalem.  To our Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.  We are repositories, yes, AND we are conduits.  He wants to so fill us up that we become channels of His surpassing greatness to all those around.  You and I are God’s conduits, this week.  And we will see this unpacked in ch 4, but suffice it to say - two are 200% better than one.  Paul says the church, the assembly of believers, is the fullness of Jesus.  What we do in unison, in unity, in love - striving together for the sake of the Gospel - has a far greater impact than our collective individual efforts.  Both in our own lives and in the mission.  Surpassing greatness...

Ephesians 1:8-14 - Unfathomable IV

God has a VERY GOOD plan, one which started out with blessing us with every spiritual blessing, and will result in the praise of His glory.  And we have talked about question of choice, the tension that exists between God’s choice and man’s choice and who chooses who.  In today’s section we see both.  There is a distinct emphasis on God’s choice throughout: HIS will, HIS kind intention, HIS purpose, predestined according to HIS purpose, Who works ALL things after the counsel of HIS will.  Paul also says, we (choose to) listen, and we believe - we also have a choice.  God doesn’t force us to believe.  But we get the clear sense here in this passage that God’s ways are not only unfathomable (who can fully understand them?) - and inscrutable (who can rightly criticize them?) - but they are also inevitable.  Inexorable.  History marches on - to the beat of God’s drum.  The sound of inevitability.  Somehow, God works ALL things.  After the counsel of His will.  To the praise of His glory.  We don't understand.  But we can (choose to) trust it.  Or not...

And God’s plan (God Himself!) is indeed a mystery.  Especially to those who are giving Him the heisman in their hearts.  To them the very notion of God - some eternal being or higher power.  You can hear it when some folks talk about Him, esp when they try to talk to Him.  They don’t know Him.  They don’t understand Him.  He is a mystery.  A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

I still remember the day when I believed.  When I put my trust in Christ and what He did for me on the cross.  My freshman year at Virginia Tech.  And out of nowhere I am praying now not just to some strange far-off deity, but to Someone I know.  He had become my heavenly Father in the truest sense.  My prayers were no longer just bouncing off the ceiling.  They were being heard and listened to!  There was relationship.  First-hand knowledge.  In my heart

And Paul tells us here that God has made known to us, to believers, the mystery of His will.  With ALL wisdom and insight.  Wisdom is the ability to apply what you know.  It is taking head knowledge and putting it to use.  We may have head knowledge.  We may know things about God.  But what difference does it make in my life and in the world?  What Paul is saying is that, God has told us everything we need to know - and He’s given us the ability to understand it and put it to good use.  So that’s good news.  But this can still all be so mysterious.  And I think part of it is because our tendency is to depersonalize our heavenly Father.  Even in the church.  Even the language here shows it.  Look at how the translators have put it.

"The mystery of His will", "according to His kind intention"...  This makes Him sound so impersonal.  There are two words here which I think are poorly translated.  Will, and kind intention.  Paul used the word for kind intention back in verse 5 as well.  It actually means good pleasure.  God’s good pleasure.  It’s a much warmer idea.  And then the word for God’s will is better translated as want, or desire.  For some reason, the Greek word here - thelema - when it is used with people it is usually translated as want or desire.  Joseph, when he found out that Mary was pregnant, didn’t WANT to disgrace her by publicly rejecting her.  But when this word is used for God, it is pretty much always rendered as “will”.  The will of God.  "The will of God."  Which by itself sounds much more mysterious, doesn’t it?  Other-worldly.  The will of God.  The kind intention of His will.  It sounds more detached.  More impersonal.  Much better I think to think of it as "the good pleasure of His desire".  He has made known to us the mystery of what He wants, according to His good pleasure.  Our God has a heart!

But the thelema of God.  This will of God.  That can certainly feel like a subject of mystery for many people, even believers.  And the Greek word is describing what a person wants.  The wants of God.  What does God want?  At a certain level, this is not rocket science.  

What is the great commandment?  And the second which is like it?  And the new one?  Love (Him), love (our neighbor), love (one another).  He wants a whole lotta love.  And Paul is telling us here that it was also God’s good pleasure to redeem us with the blood of His Son, because He wanted us to know Him.  He wants us!  To be part of His family!

But still, even we as God’s people can be at a loss sometimes to understand what God is doing in our lives and in the world.  God’s purpose, His plan.  We can struggle with the problem of evil, brokenness.  Things like hurricanes.  And illness.  And mosquitoes.  And mishaps.  And while we know everything we NEED to know, we don’t know everything.

Isaiah 55:7-9

”Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.  For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.  ”For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

The Hebrew word for ways is derekh.  Ways are the paths trodden down by your feet.  Collectively, ways comprise a journey.  Metaphorically, ways are the choices we make and the life that we live.  And we are reminded that when it comes to life’s choices, our ways are not God’s ways…  His thoughts are not our thoughts.  Not always.  His desires are not our desires.  His choices aren’t always what we would choose.  So high above, they are so much higher than ours.  His life and ways are to ours as to that of a flea. 

Sometimes even as God’s children we can feel as though the ways of God are actually hidden from us.  It can be hard to know what He wants.  Hard sometimes to embrace His ways.  But from the very beginning, God has endeavored to make His ways known to His people…

1Kings 2:3 

“Keep the charge of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn…”

Everything we NEED to know.  Sadly, even God’s people quickly turn away from His way…

Deuteronomy 9:16 “And I saw that you had indeed sinned against the LORD your God. You had made for yourselves a molten calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way which the LORD had commanded you."

Turning aside from God’s way leads to blindness…

Deuteronomy 28:29 

“…and you will grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you.”

But God’s plan, His purpose even back then was to one day remove the blindness, remove the veil, and to send a light to shine in the darkness.  To show us the way.  His way.

Isaiah 42:16  

“I will lead the blind by a way they do not know, in paths they do not know I will guide them. I will make darkness into light before them and rugged places into plains.  These are the things I will do, and I will not leave them undone.”

Jesus.  “The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light…” (Mt 4.16)  “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” (Jn 1.4)  “A Light of revelation to the nations, and the glory of Your people, Israel.” (Lk 2.32)  “I am the Light of the world, Jesus said, he who follows Me, who walks in My ways, will not walk in darkness but will have the Light of life.” (Jn 8.12)

The early church was called a sect, referred to as what?  "The Way"...  And so now it is said of those Who follow this One Who is the Light, in the ways of Him Who IS THE Way, that we have the mind of Christ!

1Corinthians 2:16    For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.”

But for those who don’t know Christ, there is this darkness, a blinding blindfold, this veil which covers their heart…

2Cor. 3:13-16 

…[we] are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

The veil, this mystery of Who God is and what He wants IS TAKEN AWAY when a person turns to Christ in their heart.  He has made known to us the mystery of what He wants, His grand purpose - which is what?  Verse 10 - The summing up of ALL things in Christ.  In the fullness of time.  All peoples turning to Christ in their hearts.  All of creation being subjected to Him.  Every nation.  To the ends of the earth!  He is both the Way AND the Destination!

This word for time here doesn’t refer to clock time.  It refers to a season of opportunity, a 

divinely appointed time.  A season, for the Good News!  For blessing and glory!

Galatians 4:4   But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law…

The hourglass is filling up, moving towards a great day when everything will be summed up in Jesus Christ.  The great march of history, from the very beginning of time on down through the ages runs through that hill far away, where once stood an old rugged cross and will one day soon once again welcome the only begotten Son of God, only this time He will come riding a white horse, our coming King, and all things will be subjected to Him, to Jesus.  Every knee will bow to Him.  And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  Those who bow their knee to Him in this life will enter the glory of His presence forever.  Those who choose to walk in darkness in this life, who fail to bow their knee until that day in the fullness of time?  In that day it will be too late for them.  Jesus said it would be better to gouge out your eye or cut off your hand in this life than to enter eternity without Him.  If either of those would somehow keep you from trusting in Him in this life.  Because God is summing up all things in Christ.  To the praise of His glory.  All things in Christ.  And if you are in Christ in the here and now, then you are good to go!

Because In Christ, Paul says, we have obtained an inheritance.  An inheritance.  We become heirs of God.  Literally.  Heirs are family, for one.  But for God’s people, their inheritance was tied to their derekh, to those places where their feet had trodden.  To their ways.

Joshua 14:9   “So Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden will be an inheritance to you and to your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God fully.’”

Here’s the thing - when our derekhs, when our ways become God’s ways, when our paths intersect and merge with His, HE becomes the land on which our feet tread.  He becomes our inheritance.  That was always God’s plan for His people.  That He would be their portion.  Their refuge.  Their rock.  That He would be theirs, and they would be His.  A people for His own possession.  A people who walk in His ways.  A people after His own heart.  We think it would be nice to inherit some estate, valuable property.  Oh no.  More excellent, better by far to inherit Him.

1Peter 2:9   But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…

That’s what Paul is saying in verse 14 - the redemption of God’s possession - to the praise of His glory.  God has chosen us, He has purchased us - with the blood of His Son.  He gets us - because He wants us.  And we get Him.  The company of the redeemed.  Those who have trusted in Christ, who are merging their heart and their ways with Him.  God's adopted sons and daughters.  His forever.  With Him forever.  In His presence… In His presence forever.  Excellent!

And as part of His eternal plan, God has given us a way we can know for sure that we are in 

Christ, that we have been saved and will one day be in His presence forever.  A pledge, a 

promise of our inheritance.  And that is by the Holy Spirit He has given to us.

Paul says that when we believed we were sealed with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of promise.  A seal can indicate both identity (from the King) and security (i.e. "don’t open this").  It’s what Pilate did to Jesus’s tomb - put his seal on it.  The Holy Spirit ID’s us as belonging to the King, and He locks us in as such.  He is the pledge, He is the guarantee of our inheritance!  The sure sign that we are in Christ and that we’ll be in His presence forever!  And God promised this…

Isaiah 44.3-5

“‘For I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring and My blessing on your descendants; and they will spring up among the grass like poplars by streams of water.’ This one will say, ‘I am the LORD’S’…”

John 7:37-39

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

We don’t get the full presence just yet.  We’re not face to face with the shekinah glory just yet.  For now, we get the partial presence.  Christ in you, His Spirit, the hope of glory.  We don’t see it all just yet.  We don’t get a full frontal view just yet.  Just the backside.  But even the backside of God’s glory is way more than enough to crank up the work of transformation.  It’s way more than enough to give us the power we need to love the Lord and one another and our city and the nations.   Everything we need.  Living water, streams in the desert, power to live a life that gives glimpses of how good God really is.  And we are assured that what we have believed, we will receive.  The Holy Spirit of promise in our hearts assures us that God’s promise is true, that one day we will see Him and be with Him forever.  Our inheritance.  Guaranteed.  He will never leave us.  No longer do we need to pray like David, “take not Your Holy Spirit from me.”  This is a new covenant.  A better promise.

John 14:16 

“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever…”

And this Helper is integral to the fulfillment of God’s plan, the ultimate praise of His glory.  You listened, Paul says.  To who?  Witnesses.  Those who first hoped in Christ, before you.  Christ-followers who had also been sealed with the Spirit of promise.  When the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will receive what?  To be My what?  You are going to tell others what you know about Me.  God’s Spirit is given not only as a guarantee of our inheritance but as a catalyst to the spread of the Good News.  A catalyst.  The necessary power for the spread of God’s blessings.  To our neighbors, our city.  To those not like us.  To those who maybe don’t like us.  To the ends of the earth.  To all the families of the earth.  To the praise of His glory.  God has blessed His people with His Spirit - so that we can know - and so that we can tell what we know...!

Ephesians 1:5-8a - Unfathomable III

Last week we talked about how God is determined that all those who would believe in His Son should spend eternity with Him, adopted into His family forever.  That He has actually predetermined this.

Have you tried to wrap your mind around this idea of predestination, of God’s choice vs man’s choice?  We are wired to understand, yes, but sometimes our response only needs to be that of awe and wonder.  Worship.

Is. 55:9 

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts."

God’s ways are SO much higher than ours.  How much higher is that, exactly?  Exactly…

-[v4] Now since heaven is a perfect place, and our heavenly Father is perfect, it is appropriate that part of His choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world is for us to be perfect, i.e. holy and blameless. IN Christ! Let’s chew on that for a minute.  Holy.  That which is worthy of worship, before which one would stand in awe, which is not to be profaned, containing not one bit of moral spot or stain or imperfection, thus also blameless.  Completely without blame.  There is nothing that anyone can point out in your life, no wrongdoing or misstep or unwholesome word or impure thought even.  Nothing.  Nada.  Thoroughly unblemished.  This side of heaven it is aspirational (1Pet 1.15), a state yet-to-be fully realized and yet gradually being manifested in me as I walk in step with the Spirit of Christ Who lives in me.  And one day, when fully revealed in glory, will be something so inconceivably awesome that it would potentially inspire worship.  To quote C.S. Lewis: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations... There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”  To be sure, God has chosen us to be an everlasting splendour...  [boom]

-And this is before Him.  In His presence, face-to-face, no pretense or veneer of religiosity, fully and finally unmasked - and unashamed, the way we were and were always meant to be.  We will stand before our Master and Maker and He will look at us and He will say, ‘Well done! Rejoice and celebrate with Me, now and forever!’  Yes, what a day that will be, when the pure and perfect thrice-holy God welcomes us into His sacred presence and embraces us with a huge daddy-hug which only our Abba-Father in heaven can give only to those He has washed whiter-than-snow, forever perfect and spotless in His sight.  No longer and never again any need for hiding or covering up or pretending or apologizing.  No fig leaves, and no fear.  Only basking in the warmth and glow of His pure holy light, His amazing grace and everlasting love and acceptance.  We will indeed stand before Him and see Him face-to-face as He really is - and we will be like Him, exactly as He always designed us to be.  Forever holy and blameless.  Everlasting splendor.  Mind. Blown.

Think about that.  Holy and blameless before Him.  Holy and blameless - like Him.  Way back before the beginning, God’s design was for us to be like Him.  And His vision for us was for those who believe in Christ to be able to stand faultless before His throne in eternity.  Not a single spot or blemish.  Unashamed.  Let me ask you - do you feel holy and blameless this morning?  If you died tonite, and you went and stood before the Eternal Holy God, how would you feel?  Would you maybe be shrinking back under the weight of the guilt of the things you’ve thought and said and done and haven’t done?  We’re all in that same predicament!  But let me ask you - this massive cleanup project that is my life (and yours) - whose responsibility is that?  The message here is not, you do more, you try harder.  No this is precisely why the Father sent the Son - to pay the penalty for all those things which separate us from Him, and to make us like Him.  Jesus takes away all those things of which we are ashamed.  His image - that was the intent originally.  To be like Him.  Holy and blameless.  Moral perfection.  Everlasting splendor.  And this is what God is working in Christ.  He gives us the power every day to walk in His footsteps.  Sons and daughters of the thrice-holy God who increasingly resemble Him.  And one day, you and I and all those who believe in Christ are going to be able to stand before the Lord in eternity without even a single tinge of guilt.  Even today!  In His eyes, I’ve done everything right - IF I’m in Christ. [boom]

But that's not the end.  It doesn’t stop there.  Paul says, verse 6, this is all to the praise of the glory of His grace - which He graced on us; abundant riches of His grace which He lavished on us, abundantly poured out.  How much grace?  All of it…

-And so here is the motive, the why, the why behind this massive cleanup project, behind why our Heavenly Father would do all this to make us holy and blameless and bring us into His family - and the ultimate why behind why Almighty God ultimately does all that He does.  For His glory.  To increase the knowledge and celebration of His glory.  Paul will refer to this why again in verse 12 and we will come back to it there, but here Paul is seizing on one facet of God’s glory, and that is His grace.

-Grace.  Grace.  God’s grace.  Wonderful, amazing grace.  Marvelous.  Matchless.  Glorious, breathtakingly good, how sweet that word does sound to those who have received it.  Grace goes where no man can tread, where you would least expect, going after the despised and the wretched, the least and the rejected, to the helpless and the hopeless and the least of these, to all those who have no hope of rescuing themselves.  Which happens to include pretty much everyone who is honest and humble enough to admit it.  This is God’s great favor, so rich, so free, undeserved and unearned - the sublime supreme game-changer.  No longer must I labor for a lifetime (or even one day!) to curry favor with the Divine.  Never again need I work to try and gain right standing before my Maker.  Grace does what I cannot do, what I can never hope to do even on my best day.  Grace reaches down and rescues me from the most dire of straits.  Grace is the Heavenly Father reaching down towards the struggling child - and a disobedient one at that - and saying, ‘Here, I got this.’  Grace secures our salvation and provides our daily bread, grace pours out God’s blessings when we have done absolutely nothing to deserve them.  In fact, we deserve to be punished for our transgressions.

Isaiah 53:5-6  

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; 

The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; 

But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.

A gift we don’t deserve - when in fact we deserve something else entirely.  That’s grace.  God’s riches at Christ’s expense.  He paid it.  We receive no dash of favor, no blessing of His that we ever deserve - it is all by grace, and one day, when I do stand faultless before the throne, holy and blameless face-to-face with my Maker, the One thrice-holy, it will be abundantly clear to all that only by the grace of God am I there.  And then the chorus of praise, the cheers will erupt!  (or rather continue, as those have been going on for quite some time now...)  Cheers not for me, of course, but for the glorious grace of God.  To the praise of the glory of His grace.  That’s what Paul is talking about.  Blessed be God…!

-And to be sure, this saving grace is found only in the Beloved, God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Whom He loves and Whom He sent into the world to save the world, to save sinners, to save a wretch like me...  And for those who choke on calling themselves a wretch, if that word gets stuck in throat of your soul like some horrid oversized pill, it probably means you are sadly in no place to receive this grace.  Not yet.  Which means you are on your own, and good luck with that.

-So Paul’s giving us the why, and next he gives us the how.  Practically speaking, here’s what needed to happen in order for us to be able to stand in the presence of God as sons and daughters without stain or blemish.  v 7.  Yet another unfathomable blessing.  Redemption.

In Christ, we have redemption.  Release.  To be set free from some kind of bondage or enslavement.  And to be sure, without Christ we are slaves to both sin and death, unable to escape either on our own.  We were born to die and born into slavery to sin as surely as sparks fly upward, the common destiny and shared predicament of fallen man, originally designed to live forever in paradise, but now no more than a vapor, just a few fleeting years and then to the grave.  Death gradually and relentlessly consumes every man.  And while he lives - unable to NOT sin, completely unable to avoid rebelling against his Creator, freely choosing to do so at every turn.  Separated from the God Who loves him and doomed to pay the penalty for his sins - his lot is indeed hopeless.  That of a slave.  

[story of slavery/freedom] - Mr. Burwell came to the cabin, with a letter in his hand. He was a kind master in some things, and as gently as possible informed my parents that they must part; for in two hours my father must join his master at Dinwiddie, and go with him to the West, where he had determined to make his future home. I can remember the scene as if it were but yesterday; - how my father cried out against the cruel separation; his last kiss; his wild straining of my mother to his bosom; the solemn prayer to Heaven; the tears and sobs - the fearful anguish of broken hearts. The last kiss, the last good-by; and he, my father, was gone, gone forever.  My father and mother never met again in this world.

Slavery.  Your life is not your own.  Withering injustice, sweltering summer of our discontent; destitute of the milk of human kindness.

He who has been tortured remains tortured…. He who has suffered torment can no longer find his place in the world. Faith in humanity — cracked by the first slap across the face, then demolished by torture — can never be recovered. -Primo Levi

Hopelessness at the hands of a cruel master.  This is why the Good News is so good!  There is another Master, and He has purchased your release from sin.  Freedom is just a heartbeat away...  Freedom from sin and death, from separation and condemnation - that's redemption!  Release.  It was secured in that one last heartbeat of the Savior Whose blood poured out and Who in that final breath declared, ‘It is finished’.  It is a heartbeat away for each one of us, who can in that very second pass from eternal death into the eternal freedom of the children of God simply by trusting in what Christ did on the Cross.  Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty…

-Redemption.  But how did God accomplish that?  What WAS the price for our freedom?  The blood of His Son.  Through His blood.  God had a plan, a plan to expiate sin, to fully pay for it and completely remove it, this great spiritual Berlin Wall, that which separated man from his Maker since that fateful day in paradise many eons ago.  The foundational truth about sin is that there is no forgiveness for it without the shedding of blood.  That would be the great price of our freedom from the penalty and power of sin.  And to prepare His people for the day when He would provide the payment for sin, God gave us pictures.  Like when He killed an animal, shedding its blood, to clothe Adam and Eve after their tragic choice to commence disobedience.  Or when He asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son but then provided a ram to take his place.  Or when He instituted the covenant with Moses where His people every year would kill an unblemished lamb whose blood would symbolically cover their sins for one year.  All just pictures, these, this shedding of blood - precursors to the Lamb of God, the perfect Son of God Who was inconceivably both fully man and fully God and Whose perfect, precious blood bled out to cover all the multiplied sins of mankind.  Let’s not rush past this monumental truth like a hurried sip of grape juice rushing past the lips on a Sunday morning.  Oh how amazing, that crimson flood, the blood which so freely flowed out of that beating heart for me - yes, how can it be, that You, My God, should die for me?  And how does crimson blood make something white as snow anyway?  Unfathomable.

-Through this precious blood we can have forgiveness of sins.  Which means, they are gone.  Simply gone.  They have been sent away as far as the east is from the west… 

Psalm 103:12  

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

In other words, my sins are completely gone, never to return.  Every single one of them, past present and future.  That horrible thing I did?  Gone.  All of them.  That really big thing I haven’t even done yet?  It’s gone too.  Covered over and completely washed away.  That is forgiveness.  There is no trace, no memory of them whatsoever.  They are buried in the deepest ocean, never again to surface.  Obliterated.  If they are not gone, they are not forgiven.  But the God-Who-sees and Who saw all I ever would and would not do long before He ever sent His Son to shed His blood to cover my sins, now no longer sees even the faintest trace of imperfection in me.  Every last one - gone.  forever.  He doesn’t hold them against me anymore when I am in Christ.  No more.  That’s how we get to “holy and blameless” - not by do-more-try-harder.  Forgiveness.  God lets them go.  I need to let them go too...  Let go of the guilt, the shame, that feeling of being dirty in God’s eyes or unworthy of His love.  That’s how we forgive someone else too - we let it go.  Real gone.  In truth, not one of us deserves even one drop of Christ’s precious blood, so unworthy - and yet we were worth so much to God that He did send His only Son for each one of us.  And now we are free.  Clean.  Completely forgiven in Christ.  Yes - mind blown once again.

-And all this, according to the riches of His grace.  Just how rich is God’s grace?  How much undeserved favor does He possess?  How much has He put at our disposal in order to wash our sins whiter than snow and completely erase every last one of our trespasses?  Vast riches, untold and unimaginable, unfathomable.  An inexhaustible supply, neverending, overflowing and flowing freely from the veins of Calvary.  Way more than enough to provide forgiveness and freedom for a few billion souls.  Paul says God lavished His grace on us, He abounded and overflowed it onto us - He covered us over and slathered it on extra thick and gave us way more than we would ever need.  We’re swimming in grace, and it’s way over our heads.  All this grace poured out for us, and the level hasn’t even dipped a bit...!  How much grace might you or I need today?  There’s still an infinite supply to cover anything and everything we need, and then some… [boom]

All this - to the praise of the glory of His grace.  To the praise of His glory.  God gets the credit, the glory, the praise.  Blessed be the God Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing - in Christ.  To the praise of His glory.  We’re right back where we started...