I've been looking forward to
getting to this portion of Scripture for a while now. I think we may
camp out here for a while. This was the Apostle Paul's prayer
for the Ephesian believers. Let's begin reading in verse
17. That the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. the eyes of
your understanding be enlightened that you may know what is the
hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to us were to believe according to the working of his
mighty power. which he wrought in Christ when
he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right
hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and
power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and
hath put all things under his feet. and gave him to be the
head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness
of him that filleth all in all. Now these three what's compromise
the joy that God has set before every believer as we walk through
this earth. The hope of His calling. Christ
in you is the hope of glory. And glory is the hope of that
calling. Our hope is that one day we will
be saved into our inheritance to see Christ face to face, to
live with Him and to worship Him forever. The riches of the
glory of His inheritance in the saints includes God Himself being
glorified before all powers and principalities when He makes
His people perfectly conformed to Christ. He'll manifest His
great glory, the riches of His glory. And that's His inheritance
in the saints. That's a hope set before us to
see God glorified that way. and then the exceeding greatness
of His power to us who believe. This is the power that He's already
worked toward us. the power he's now working toward
us and the power he shall work toward us when he raises us from
the dead to be with Christ forever. The more God enlightens our eyes,
the eyes of our own standing to behold this joy that's set
before us, the more we're going to grow in faith and more we'll
grow in assurance that God has saved us, that he is saving us
and that he shall save us. And the more it'll make us willing
to be conformable to Christ's death. That is, it'll make us
willing to lay down our lives for the cause of Christ that
God might be glorified and all His people be called so that
one day we'll all be gathered around that throne of grace together. That's what seeing this joy will
do. This was the joy that was set
before Christ Jesus when He walked this earth. The Scripture says,
who for the joy that was set before Him, for the joy that
was set before Him. He endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of the throne
of God. Did Christ live in this world
when He walked this earth serving God? Did He live like He had
His affections set on this world? Did he live like the possessions
and the riches and the things of this world was the end all
be all of his life and that this is what he had his heart set
on? Absolutely not. He lived his life looking forward
to that hope of glory. When he would be raised up with
the Father, he looked forward to God being glorified, the riches
of His glory, to His inheritance in the saints. He looked forward
to that exceeding greatness of His power. by which God would
raise Him and He would be with His brethren forever. And so,
for the joy set before Him, it made Him willing to endure, not
just death, but the death of the cross. And it made Him willing
to give up His life, to lay down His life, and now He's with God.
He's entered into that glory and is set down on the right
hand of the Majesty on high. There was two other men in Scripture,
though not to the extent that Christ saw that glory, but two
other men saw that glory set before them more fully than anybody
else in Scripture. One was Moses. Moses saw God
face to face. God spoke with him like a man
speaks to his friend. And he showed him his glory.
And Moses saw this joy set before him unlike anybody else in Scripture. And the second was the Apostle
Paul. He was called up to the third heaven and said, I saw
things that weren't lawful for me to even utter. And both of
these men seeing these things more fully than any of their
other brethren, it made them more willing than anybody else
we see in Scripture to lay down their lives in conformity to
Christ's death. That's what this joy did for
them. When Moses' brethren sinned, and they made the golden calf.
Exodus 32, 31 says, Moses returned unto the Lord and said, Oh, this
people have sinned a great sin and made them gods of gold. Yet
now, if thou wilt forgive their sin, and if not, blot me, I pray
thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. That's amazing. The joy that was set before him,
the joy of seeing God glorified and seeing these brethren that
had sin forgiven of their sins made Moses willing, if it were
possible, for God to blot him out of his book in their room
instead that God might be glorified and they might have life. That's
what seeing this joy made Moses willing to do. And Paul made
a similar statement in Romans 9.3 when he said, I could wish
that myself were accursed from Christ. That is, if it was from
Christ, if it was appointed by Christ for me to do this, and
this was His will, I could wish myself accursed for my brethren,
as the substitute of my brethren, in place of my brethren, my kinsmen
according to the flesh. And he wanted to have, Paul wanted
to see this glory more fully than he already saw it. And this
is why he said that I might know him and the power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his
death. Paul said, I want to be made
conformable to his death. I want to die like Christ died.
That's what this joy will do. So that's why Paul prayed that
he wanted these Ephesian believers to see this joy more fully. That's
why we want to see it more fully. That we might know him and the
fellowship of his sufferings and be made conformed, to know
the power of his resurrection and to be made conformable unto
his death. So now we've studied these first
two whats. Now we're coming to this third
what. What is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe.
So we're going to camp out a little bit here. This exceeding greatness
of God's power to us who believe doesn't refer only to one thing.
It refers to every act of God beginning with Him raising Christ
from the dead and then everything else in between to the time when
He raises us from the dead to be with Christ forever in glory. I had about five things I want
to show you from this, but it just got too big. It got bigger
and bigger and bigger, so I'm going to take one of those things,
and then we'll just come back and look at those other four
in detail a little later. The exceeding greatness of His
power to us who believe begins with the very act of God raising
Christ from the dead and exalting Him to the glory spoken of in
our text. Now you notice here the language
that's used to describe the power of God. And when He calls the
power of God to us the exceeding greatness of His power, He's
speaking of the power with which He raised Christ from the dead.
He's comparing His power to us who believe to that power with
which He raised Christ from the dead. So the power with which
He raised Christ from the dead was exceeding greatness of His
power. It was the exceeding greatness
of God's power. And then it says, according to
the working of His mighty power. which He wrought when He raised
Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly
places." The margin says, the might of His power, according
to the might of His power. You see, the Spirit of God is
moving Paul to speak this, to write this, but he's having trouble
putting this into words. He's having trouble writing this
power of God by which God raised Christ from the dead because
it's so great. It's exceedingly far superior than any other power
there is. That makes us know this one thing.
Of all things in the Scriptures that men can learn in the letter,
this is something they can't learn in the letter. Because
this can't even be put in the letter. This is something, the
power of God is something that has to be taught by God in the
Spirit. Because letters, mere words won't
even describe it. It has to be taught by God in
the Spirit. That's why so many men deny the
power of God. because it's something you can't
learn in the letter. You can't just learn it in your
head. You gotta be taught this in your heart. But now here's
the question. What made Christ's resurrection
so exceedingly greater than any other power God exerted? There
was other men in Scripture that were raised from the dead, but
the Spirit of God doesn't use them as the example of His exceeding
greatness of power toward us. He uses Christ's resurrection
from the dead. Why? Well, the measure of power
by which Christ was raised has to do with how and why he died
and for what reason he died. We have to measure the power
of his resurrection by the power of his death. You understand?
We're measuring the power of his resurrection by the power
of his death. His death was like no other,
so that means his resurrection was like no other. For the same
reason His death exceedingly surpassed all other deaths, the
power of His resurrection exceedingly surpasses all other resurrections.
I've titled this, The Power of His Resurrection. And I want
to show you three things that this power has to do with. First
of all, it has to do with the power of holy justice. Secondly,
the power of God's faithfulness. And thirdly, the power of His
grace and His love. Now, first of all, Christ's death
was exceedingly great by the exceeding greatness of the power
of God's holy justice. Therefore, His resurrection and
His glorification was exceedingly great according to that holy
justice. As Christ promised when He came
forth, when the time came, the spotless Lamb of God had all
the sin of all the elect of God from every age and time laid
upon Him. And He bore those sins in His
body on the tree. That's the usward who believe
here. The usward toward whom He was
working is the elect of God. Not everybody, but the usward
who will be brought to believe. When our sins were found on Christ,
the exceeding and mighty power of God's unyielding, unbending,
holy justice demanded His death. And I've reminded you repeatedly
that the death of the cross, when the scripture says He died,
the death of the cross, that death of the cross was His death
on the cross. That second death, the scripture
says, he that has part in the first resurrection, the second
death shall have no power on him. We're going to die our first
death physically, and then we're going to face a second death
if we die without Christ. That's the death Christ died
on that cross. It's called a living death. It's
called the worm that never dies. That's the death that justice
demands. That's the death He died when
He died as the substitute for His people on the cross. It's
called in Scripture the pains of death, the cords of death,
the sorrows of death. That's what He bore for His people.
And it's compared in the Scripture to a woman's travail in childbirth. That's how the Scripture describes
it. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 3 says, When they shall say, Peace and
safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon
a woman with child, and they shall not escape. That's what
judgment will be for folks. Folks walking around and they
looking at all their works and all the things they've done,
and they think they've made themselves holy and just and right by their
obedience, and they're saying peace and safety, and then suddenly,
in an instant, they meet God. And travail will come upon them
like a woman with a child, and they shall not escape. About,
well, 12 years ago in April on a Sunday, we had spent that Sunday
morning in church and that evening we had gone out and me and another
friend and Melinda went out. We walked down to a pond and
walked back and Melinda was as, she was as pregnant as you can
get. I mean, she was big. And we got back, and we were
sitting around the house talking, and me and her and a boy named
Ken Melton. And we were sitting around talking,
and all of a sudden, Melinda said, ouch. And she took off
into another room, and Ken said, you better check on her. And
I went and checked on her, and her ouches got to be bigger ouches. And I heard Ken pull out of the
driveway. He didn't want to be around.
And those ouches just kept growing and growing and growing. The
only thing, men, that we're going to have to compare to is maybe
a kidney stone. And she bore her delivery a whole
lot better than I bore my travail when I had a kidney stone. But
that pain that Christ endured is compared to travail, a woman's
travail she has when she's in childbirth. It's called the travail
of his soul. It's pangs like a woman has in
labor. And it comes gradually. It comes
gradually. Four or five days before, just
like your wife has that first ouch, and then those ouches increase,
and they get real bad before it's over. Well, four or five
days before his death, he said, now is my soul troubled. And the night in which he was
betrayed, when he came into the garden, he began to be sorrowful
and heavy and sore amazed. And then, as time went on, he
said, my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. And after some
time, his pains increased to the point, it says, he, being
in an agony, prayed more earnestly, and his sweat, as it were, was
great drops of blood falling to the ground. And then the sharpest
pains came whenever on that cross the lights went out and he was
forsaken by God and cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? What was he bearing? What was
the extremity? What was the exceeding greatness
of those of the pains of death that he was bearing in his own
body on the tree? It was first of all from the
sins of his people. It was the filth and the guilt
of our sins laid on Him. You think about how unimaginable
this depth of agony would be if you were exceedingly, perfectly
holy and right, so much so that you hated sin, that you couldn't
look upon it, that it was an abomination to you and something
you abhorred and you were made to be that thing. This also was
due to the wrath of God. He suffered the curse of the
law, meaning He sustained all the punishment of the law. That
includes the exceeding great power of the shame of it, that
shame He despised. It includes the exceeding great
power of the punishment in His conscience, feeling the wrath
of God upon Him, in His conscience, in the strokes of divine justice
upon Him. the exceeding great power of
the punishment of loss when he was separated from the Father?
These sorrows of soul are called in the Scripture, the sorrows
of death. That's what he was bearing. You
don't want to go to hell. I wish, I wish, Paul said, knowing
the terror of the Lord, we persuade man, you don't want to go to
hell. You look at the cross and see what Christ bore, you want
to see what hell is. being separated, knowing the
glory of God, knowing fully Maybe it has something to do
with being made to where you hate sin, and yet you are sin. You see your sin, you really
know what it is, so that it's just the terrors of sin, and
the abomination of it, and the wrath of God toward it, everything
about it, to be in hell? That's what Christ bore on that
cross. The sorrows of death come past me about, he said in the
psalm. Darkness covered the whole earth
for three hours. But then, just before he gave
up the ghost, you know what he said? Before he gave up the ghost,
he said, it is finished. He said, it's finished. And you
know what happened? God the Father heard him. He
heard his cry, because it was the acceptable time. This Eternal
Savior, this One who is the Eternal God in human flesh, in those
three hours, satisfied infinite justice on that cross. And the
Scripture said, Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have
I heard thee. When was the acceptable time?
When justice was satisfied. And he said, and in a day of
salvation have I helped thee and I will preserve thee and
give thee for a covenant of the people to establish the earth
to cause to inherit the desolate heritages. God's anger as a judge
was turned away. His anger he saw because he saw
the travail of his soul and was satisfied because by his knowledge
his righteous servant justified many because he bore their iniquity.
By His death, Christ condemned sin in the flesh. He struck the
final death blow to death when He was on that cross bearing
that death, both for Himself and for His people. And our substitute
being eternal, satisfied infinite justice. He snapped the cords
of death in two for His people and for Himself. And He destroyed
him that had the power of death, that is the devil. Therefore,
after he gave up the ghost and he was put in the grave, the
cords of death could not hold him in that grave because he
satisfied the exceeding greatness of the power of holy justice. And so the exceeding greatness,
the exceeding great power of holy justice demanded that he
be raised from the dead. Death could not hold him, because
he conquered death. And therefore, Acts 2.24 says,
Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because
it was not possible that he should be holding of it. It wasn't possible. You understand? We've got my
sister with us now, and my nieces are with us. You won't believe
these two girls are twins. They're twins. And they're with
us now, and so our sleeping arrangements at the house are a little different.
Everybody's sleeping in different places. Sometimes I'll have an
extra person in my bed when I go get in the bed, and I've been
having to sleep on the edge of the bed. And when you're sleeping
in a bed that's too narrow for you, and you've got covers that
are too short and not big enough to cover you, you can't sleep
very good. You can't sleep very well. But
this bed right here that God's describing to us, the exceeding
greatness of holy justice being satisfied by the power of Christ's
death, that's a bed you can stretch out on. That's a bed you can...
It don't matter how many of his elect are in that bed, you can
lay out and stretch out wide in that bed and have plenty of
cover and plenty of bed to lay on because there's plenty of
this exceeding great power to go around. He satisfied justice
for us, brethren, and because he did, the scripture says, that
we won't continue under death. The death is not a penal penalty
judgment of God to us. We're going to die physically
because our body's death and it's going to the grave. But
we're not going to stay in that grave. The moment we die, we're
going to go to be with our Savior. Because He said, Thy dead men
shall live. Together with my dead body shall
they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell
in dust. For thy dew is as the dew of
herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. We're going to
be with Him. Now that's the first thing that
this exceeding greatness of power is. It was the exceeding greatness
of God's holy justice. It was satisfied and demanded
Christ be raised. Alright? Here's the second thing.
It was the exceeding greatness of the power of God's faithfulness
by which He raised Christ. And all of this now, bear in
mind that what Paul is showing us here, this all was comparable
and in comparison to the exceeding greatness of His power He worked
toward us. And what I'm saying to you is, this actually was
the exceeding, the beginning of that, the first act of that
exceeding greatness of His power toward us. Because He justified
His people. of all our sin. Then secondly,
His faithfulness. God promised Christ that when
He finished His work, and He accomplished His redemption of
His people, and declared Him just, and that He would glorify
Him together with His human nature, with that glory that God the
Son had with the Father before the foundation of the world.
He had that glory as God the Son, but He promised when He
did this work, He would glorify Him with that glory in His human
nature. There would be a man in glory
together with God in one body. So Christ came and when He came,
He kept His promise to the Father. He finished the transgression. Don't that sound wonderful to
you? The transgression is finished. Whose? Mine and yours and everybody
else's for whom He died. Our transgression is finished.
He made an end of sins. Our sins are gone. He made reconciliation
for iniquity. We've been made the friend of
God by what He did. He brought in everlasting righteousness. We have everlastingly forever
fulfilled all the demands of God's holy law. We've been made
everlastingly righteous. He sealed up the vision and the
prophecy. He sealed it up. He accomplished
everything in the book. And what's not fulfilled in the
book, He's fulfilling it now and shall fulfill it all. And
He anointed the most holy. And I know one thing that means
is, is by one offering, He perfected forever them that are sanctified.
That's one thing that means. Therefore Christ prayed, I finished
the work. He said, I've glorified thee
on the earth. I finished the work which thou gavest me to
do. Now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with
the glory which I had with thee before the world. And you know
what the Father did? In His exceeding great and mighty
faithfulness, in that exceeding greatness of His power, He honored
His Word to His Son. And He raised Him from the dead.
Because every perfection and every attribute of God had been
fully glorified and magnified and manifest by what Christ did. His justice, His mercy, His grace,
His faithfulness, His long-suffering, the fact He will not clear the
guilty, His love, everything God is, is manifest in Christ
and particularly manifest at the cross. And so, in great power
of His faithfulness, verse 20 says, He raised Him from the
dead and He set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. far above all principality, and
power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but in that which is to come. And he's
put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over
all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of
him that filleth all in all." Now, brethren, do you see how
it was exceeding greatness of His power wrought to us who believe? Look at verse 20 again. He set
Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. And at the
same time, Ephesians 2.5 says, Even when we were dead in sins,
had quickened us together with Christ, by grace you're saved,
and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. Look over there at Colossians
2.10. I read this to you earlier, but I want you to see this. Colossians
2.10. Now He said He raised Him above all principality and all
power. He triumphed over all power and
all principality. He put everything under our Savior's
feet. Now watch this. Look at Colossians
2.10. Colossians 2.10. And ye are complete in him which
is the head of all principality and power. Complete. In whom also ye are circumcised
with the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh. That's what this circumcision
is. He put off the body of the sins of our flesh. That's what
Christ did. by the circumcision of Christ.
That's what he did. How did he do it? When we were
buried with him in baptism. All that holy justice that I
just talked about, Christ wasn't sprinkled with it. He didn't
just have a little bit of that sprinkled on him. He was immersed
in the judgment of God. He said, I have a baptism to
be immersed in, and how am I straight until it be accomplished? He
was immersed in the judgment of God. And when he was immersed
in that judgment of God upon the cursed tree, in the wrath
and justice of God, the old man of each and every elect child
of God was immersed in that judgment. We were buried with him in that
baptism. That's what our water baptism
is picturing, that baptism. Look at verse 12, wherein also
you're risen with Him through, I said this is by the exceeding
power of His faith, faithfulness. Look, you're risen with Him through
the faith of the operation of God who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has He quickened together
with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses. He's blotted
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was
contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His
cross, and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of
them openly triumphing over them in it. The more the Apostle Paul
saw this, the more he wanted to see it. And the more he saw
it, the more he wanted his brethren to see it. It's what made him,
when he was in prison, writing to the Philippians, it's what
made him say, this is going to turn to my salvation, whether
it be by life or by death. Because he saw the power of this
resurrection. He saw the faithfulness of God
in it. He saw the justice of God and the faithfulness of God
in it. And he wanted to see it, and he talks about it repeatedly
because he wanted to be made conformable unto Christ's death,
and he wanted his brethren to. Look at Colossians 2.20. He says,
Wherefore, if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of
this world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject
to ordinances? Now look at chapter 3 and verse
1. If you thee been risen with Christ, seek those things which
are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set
your affection on things above, not on things on the earth, for
you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear
with Him in glory. Look at Romans 6. Look at Romans
6. I know that I've said this to
you quite a bit here lately, but I'm just, this is why I couldn't
wait to get to this text. It's just, if we can get this,
if we can enter into this, I'm telling you, the more we will
enter into this, the more it will be no, Paul said, I've,
I've, I've suffered the loss of all things and I just count
it done. I don't count it to be any loss
at all. How can a man say that? seeing this. Our life's not in
this earth, brethren. We are seated with Christ at
the right hand of the Father right now and sure as He's seated
there. And our body of sins, our body
of death has been put in the grave and is dead and is buried
and is not regarded by God at all anymore forever. If we get
that, I'm telling you, it'll do something. It will do something
to you now. Look here, Romans 6.1. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. Now watch
this. How shall we? How shall we that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? He's not saying it's
as if we are. He's saying it's so. We can't
continue in sin. That's what he's saying. Know
ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ
were baptized into his death? He's talking about that same
death he just talked about in Colossians. We were baptized
when Christ was baptized, when he was immersed in that judgment.
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. That like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life. That's why he did that. For if
we've been planted together in the likeness of His death, we
shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. We're going
to be raised with Him one day. There's no possibility it's not
going to happen. No possibility, because we're
there with Him now. Now look at this, knowing this,
that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for
he that is dead is freed from sin. He's saying to you and I,
believer, we're freed from sin. You say, I see sin in me, it's
all I see. Stop looking at it, because what
you see is a mirage. It don't matter what you see,
it's how God sees it. That's how it matters. That's
how it is. And God says, this is how it is. Paul saw that. Paul understood that. Paul knew
that. He wanted his brethren to know. He says, now if we be
dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with
Him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, He dies
no more. It's not possible for Him to. Death has no more dominion
over Him. For in that He died, He died
unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise
reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof.
Don't yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin,
but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from
the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you. You are not
under the law, but you are under grace. Believer, just try to
grasp this. Just try to grasp this and run
with it as far as you can. We are not in the flesh. We're in the Spirit. We're in
the Spirit. Our old man of sin died when
Christ died, was buried when Christ was buried. God remembers
him and our sins no more. We're alive unto God. We're risen
with Christ. Therefore, yield no more to the
lust of the flesh. We saw it this morning, we talked
about it, to its doubting that our sins are put away. That's
the lust of our flesh, to bring in a question on all of this
that God is telling us and saying, but now it sure don't seem like
I'm dead. It sure seems like I got a lot
of sin. Well, God says you don't. God
says you don't. Because the lust of the flesh
is also to turn us back to the law and get all wrapped up in
this bondage of trying to make ourselves righteous before God
by our deeds. That's the lust of the flesh.
And Paul says don't yield to him. Don't yield to him. It's doubting of God's provision.
That's the lust of flesh says, yeah, but now I can't take this
too far that God's going to provide for me and everything, that I
can just lay down my life and freely, willingly give of everything
that he's given to me and expect that he's going to give me more
and keep me provided for. That's the doubting. That's the
lust of the flesh. Lust of flesh says, now don't go overboard
with that. Don't doubt him. Don't doubt
Him. I guarantee you. I guarantee
you. You cannot lay down your life
enough without the exceeding greatness of the power of God's
faithfulness making every provision for you. I guarantee you. I guarantee
you. Look how much Christ laid down
His life. Look how much He willingly was
willing to give. It began with Himself. If we
don't start with ourself, it don't matter. If we don't start
by giving up ourself to God. We got to give up ourself to
God. You can give your body to be burned. You can give all your
house and everything you've got. That won't matter. Start forgiving
ourself to God. Bowing, entrusting Him as our
Lord, our provider, our Savior, our all, our Christ, our sufficiency,
our completion, our everything with God. That's where it starts.
That's where it starts. And instead of coveting the things
of this earth, that's really what the flesh is doing. All
the time the flesh is saying, well now don't go too far in
laying down your life for your brethren. What it's really saying
is, you ought to hang on to some of that for yourself. That's
really what we're saying. Covetousness. That's all the
old man is. Doubting God. Doubting God's
Word. Bringing in questions. Isn't
that how it started? With Satan in the garden? Has
God really said that you're going to die on the day you eat thereof?
And that old man of flesh is of the devil. And so that's all
he does is question God's Word and question this hope we have
in God. Instead, yield yourselves unto
God as those that are alive unto God. What do you think Christ
would do for us today if we were walking with Him the whole time
He walked on this earth? What did He do for His apostles?
He said, the whole time I was with you, did you need anything? Did you lack anything? Was there
anything that you went without? If they were hungry, he just
took some loaves and some fishes and fed them and fed everybody
there. If they were on a sea and it started storming and they
were troubled and they cried out for help and the sea was,
the boat was about to sink and they, he just came to them and
said, peace, be still. There it was. whatever they needed,
whatever they, and the whole time he was serving them and
doing what was good for them and teaching them and edifying
them and growing them and preparing them for when he departed so
that they would know all and heaven and earth is given unto
me. Go forth and preach my gospel. Go forth and lay down your life
for me like I've laid down my life for you and suffer whatever
you have to suffer for me and know that by this great and exceeding
power of my faithfulness and by my exceeding great and faithful
and great exceeding power I will faithfully provide everything
for you. We're alive with Him. We can't
be lost. We're His body. We're the completion
of Him. If one thing happens to His body
so that there's a schism in His body, it's happened to Christ.
How well do you take care of your body? Huh? What your head does, don't your
body do it? And what your head does, doesn't it begin with our
head? When we get up in the morning,
you don't get up feet first, do you? You get up head first.
Well, He's leading everything. He's our head. And whatever He's
determined we're going to do, that's what we're going to do.
And if you feel an inkling to go in a direction and you feel
like Christ is leading you in that direction, ask Him for wisdom
and understanding. And if you feel He's leading
you in that direction, then go in that direction with everything
you got. When y'all asked me to come here, I prayed about
that, thought about that. And when my mind was made up
by God and I felt like it was God that had made my mind up
that I was to come here, I didn't come here halfway. I came here
all the way. I just said, I'm going with everything
I got. It's either going to prove that
He did it and it's His work, or it's going to prove that it
was all in my flesh and it's going to be a miserable failure.
But I'm trusting it's Him. Whatever we need to serve Him
to get the gospel of His Son out to His lost sheep, Christ's
resurrection and glorifications are guaranteed that our God shall
supply all our need according to His riches in glory. He'll
do it by the same faithful operation whereby He raised us together
with Christ. This is the power of His resurrection.
That's going to make us lay down our lives to be made conformable
unto His death so that God is glorified and our brethren are
saved. Now, the third thing, I don't need to have to labor
on this. You already see it plainly. It was the exceeding greatness
of the power of His grace and His love that raised Christ from
the dead. Scripture says He was raised
again for our justification. That is, when He was raised,
God the Father testified to Usward, for whom Christ died, that Christ,
when He was legally discharged, acquitted and justified, all
His people were in Him. We might see fully that our sins
have been atoned for, that God's made us complete in Christ and
forgiven us all of our sins. Furthermore, He's made Christ
our head in all things. He's the head of all things to
the church. You see the grace and love in that? By His resurrection
from the dead, He declared Christ to be the Son of God with power.
He declared Christ to be exactly who Christ said He is. And now
there's a man who knows us and who is in our flesh, who knows
everything about us, knows the weakness of our flesh and knows
the infirmities of our flesh. There's a man there in glory
who has all power in heaven and earth to comfort us in all our
time of need. And God did that. Let me show
you 1 Peter 1 real quick. God raised him for this reason.
Look here. He did it that we might believe
and have a good hope in God that God will do the same for us by
the righteousness of our risen Christ Jesus. Look here. 1 Peter
1.21 says, By Him, by Christ, we do believe
in God that raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory. That, here's the reason, that
your faith and hope might be in God. That's why He did that. So you see, when He enlightens
our understanding to see what Isaiah saw, that's when we're
going to cry out to mercy. You know what Isaiah saw? I saw
the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train
filled the temple. And he heard, holy, holy, holy,
the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory. And
when he saw Him and heard that, he said, woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips and
I dwell in a land of unclean lips. And sinner, if you see
this, if you see Christ seated upon His throne because of the
exceeding greatness of God's holy justice, And you see Him
seated there because of the exceeding greatness of God's faithfulness.
And you see Him seated there as the exceeding greatness of
God's grace and His love. And you see that all this exceeding
great and mighty power is toward you because God's made you to
see that. I tell you what you'll do. you'll
shut your mouth from talking about any goodness in you and
cast everything into His hand like stock and barrel. And brethren,
if me and you see it, if me and you see it more fully, we'll
stop doubting His providence and doubting His provision and
doubting what He can do for us and we'll do the same thing.
We'll cast everything into His hand. So you see, when Paul spoke
of wanting to know the power of his resurrection, it's not
just his sheer power. That's not it. It's the power
of all the perfections of God working mightily in harmony. That's what the power of his
resurrection is. I've just given you a few of them here today.
His justice and his faithfulness and his grace and his love. It's
all the perfections of God working together. I wrote this down. I'm going to read it to you because
I can't say it otherwise. I think God gave me this because
it just spilled out real fast. I'm going to give this to you.
Christ died for a multitude no man can number, yet not even
a multitude of graves no man can number could hold Christ
in the grave, because the power of the multitude of God's perfections,
all glorified together in Christ's sacrifice, is the exceeding great
and mighty power that is eternal life. That is the power of His
resurrection. It is. We have eternal life. We have
it. I want you to know that. I want
you to know it fully. I want you to know that none
of our possessions are ours. They're all His. They're all
His. I thought we owned everything.
We do, but it's all His. It's all His. If we make them
ours, though, Think we're gonna profit by them? They won't profit
us anything. But if we do with them what God's given us to do
with them, we'll profit. We're never the loser for laying
down our lives. We only gain by using all that
God has given us for the furtherance of His gospel and the provision
of our brethren. Because by it, God's glorified. Because we're
saying we trust in the seeding greatness of His holy justice
and faithfulness and grace and love. We're saying that we're
doing it because we love His people and we love His sheep
and we want to see them called out. We want to see them all
together for all eternity. Our life's not in this world.
It's in Christ above. And I pray God will give us grace
now to live our lives like we truly believe it. Look at Ephesians
6.10. This is how Paul ended. Ephesians
6.10. This is what he wants us to see.
Ephesians 6.10. Finally, my brethren, be strong
in the Lord and in the power of His might. We said this morning, he's our
strength. He is our strength. Be strong in him, in the power
of his might. However strong you want to be
is how strong you can be. Because he's got plenty of strength.
That's true. However strong you want to be,
that's how strong you can be. It's inexhaustible. Inexhaustible. Amen.