If you would like to, turn your
Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1, and let's begin reading in verse
19. And what is the exceeding greatness
of His power to us who 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, in heaven, in the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of God,
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 head over all things to the church,
which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. Christ seated at the right hand
of God is our subject this morning. Now the Apostle Paul had been
praying here for these Ephesian believers that they may know
the Lord better. That they may come to a greater
understanding and knowledge of Him. And we studied these three
wots. He prayed that they might know
the exceeding riches of this glory of His inheritance in the
saints. And they know the hope of His
calling and so on. Then the last want that you and
I looked at there is in verse 19, what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to usward who believe and in us who believe. See the
apostle Paul wasn't setting forth these truths that you and I may
read them and then go our way, but he was very concerned that
they might know this power, might realize it, might experience
it in their souls and live their daily life in the light of it.
You might know, he said, what is the exceeding greatness of
this power in us who believe. Now he gives here in verse 19
and verse 20 two examples of the exceeding greatness of this
power of God. And first of all, he gives this
one, that they might know what is the exceeding greatness of
His power in us who believe according to the working of His mighty
power. Now, he asks them to remember
when they first believed. And he said, how did you believe? Was it by your own power? Was
it by your own strength? You were dead in trespasses and
sins? How did you come to believe the
gospel? How did you come to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ? And he reminds them that it was
according to the working of God's mighty power. Now Paul often
uses this word according to. You find it here in the first
chapter, in the second chapter, in the third chapter. And it
means as a consequence of. by virtue of, or owing to, you
believed as a consequence of, the working of His mighty power.
Now let me read you some places here. Look in the first chapter
and look in verse 5. Having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself, according to,
or as a consequence of, the good pleasure of His will." And then
in verse 7, "...in whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins, as a consequence of the riches of His grace."
Then there in verse 11, he mentions this phrase again, "...in whom
also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated as the consequences
of the purpose of him who worked all things after the counsel
of his own will. And then you turn over in the
third chapter and it's even more evident that this word according
to means as a consequence of. In chapter 2, chapter 3 rather,
in verse 7, whereof I am made a minister according to or as
the consequence of the gift of the grace of God given unto me
by the effectual working of His power. And then look in two more
verses in the 16th verse and the 20th verse. That He would
grant unto you according to or as a consequence of the riches
of His glory to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the
inner man. And down in verse 20, Now to
him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think as a consequence of the power that worketh in
us. Now I stress this this morning,
the meaning of this word according to, because some would acknowledge
that That salvation, while they say that it's the gift of God,
they say concerning faith that God merely offers the gift of
faith, or that He gives this gift, but it's wholly up to man
to exercise this faith, to actually believe. They say that God has
nothing to do with faith except give it as a gift. and that men
are dead in trespasses and sin, and that when they exercise this
faith, then salvation comes. Well, we know that the Apostle
Paul said there in the second chapter, in verse 8 and 9 of
Ephesians, that by grace are you saved through faith. And
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. But he's not simply saying that
faith is given to us as a gift, and then we, by the power of
our free wills, exercise that faith, and then we're saved.
But what he's telling us here in our text is that our very
believing is a gift. that believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ takes the mighty power of God in us. That's what he
means there when he says that we believe as a consequence of
the working of his mighty power. This is why faith is sometimes
called the mystery, the mystery of the faith. Great is the mystery
of godliness God was believed on in the world. The mystery
of faith is that we're born without it, we must believe on Christ
to be saved, but we don't have the ability to do it. God commands
us to do it, but we cannot do it. We're inexcusable for not
doing it, but the only way that we can believe in Jesus Christ
to the saving of our souls is through the mighty power of God
working in us. This is the work of God that
you believe. Does a man believe? Sure he believes,
but he believes according to the working of the mighty power
of God in him. at an early age, and I remember
it very well, that I was made aware, even in my lost condition,
I recognized, I was made to think upon this that I could not believe. I thought one day within myself,
I think I could keep the law quicker than I can believe. And
I hope that you feel the same way about yourself, that you
could not believe until he worked in you to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's why Paul is making this
statement here to these Ephesians. He said, remember when you could
not believe? When you did not have the ability
to believe? How did you come to believe in
Christ? And as they began to examine themselves, they realized
this and they remembered, yes, it was by the mighty power of
God's grace. That's why I believe. And this
is why that you and I believe that those who have been brought
to believe, they'll never cease to believe. Because that same
good work, that same mighty power that has begun a work of faith
in them will continue to work until this faith ends inside. That's why the Hebrew writer
said that we're not of them who draw back into perdition. but
were of them who believed to the saving of our souls." How
could he be so confident in saying that? Because he knew who had
begun this mighty work of faith in their heart, that Jesus Christ
indeed was the author and finisher of our faith. And this is why
John said, this is the victory that overcometh the world, even
our faith. Faith overcomes the devil, it
overcomes flesh, it overcomes sin, it will indeed be triumphant
at last, and the reason is this. That it's the work of God that
has begun faith in a man's soul. So that's the first example Paul
gives them here of the exceeding greatness of God's power. It's
the work of faith. And then in verse 20 he gives
them another example of the exceeding greatness of God's power, and
that's the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead,
which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.
So there is an example, an illustration of the exceeding greatness of
God's power. Now when he talks here about
raising the Lord Jesus from the dead, you remember the context
here. There in verse 17, where we're
told that Jesus Christ in His humanity, in His human soul,
His human nature, that He has a God, He has a Father. that God is His God and God is
His Father. And Jesus Christ here, as Paul
presents Him, He presents Him to us in His humanity, that God
raised Him from the dead. And this is a wonderful thing,
that the same Christ who died upon the cross, died in His humanity,
died in His human soul, who shed out His blood, for the remission
of our sins, that suffered there with our sins in His own body. He died as a consequence of our
sin. The Bible says that He tasted
death, that He knew something about what it meant to be under
its power. He suffered the pains of it.
Peter tells us that, that God raised Him from the dead, having
loosed the pains of death. What makes the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ so miraculous is the way in which He died,
the awful death in which He suffered. No man ever died as the Lord
Jesus died. Other people were raised from
the dead, Lazarus and the widow of Nain's son, and so on, but
none of them died as the Lord Jesus died. He lost all of His
blood. He died with our sins in His
own body. He died with the wrath of God
upon Him. Behold and see, He said, if there
is any sorrow like unto my sorrow, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted
me in the day of His fierce anger, His wrath. Can you imagine what
He suffered? Can you imagine how He suffered?
And when He died, He died an awful death. And there He laid
in the tomb. in that cold sepulcher, that
dark place, that lifeless place? And can you imagine how the powers
of this world, Satan, was trying to hold him there for those three
days? And yet on that third morning,
the pains of death was loose. He overcame the power of death. He overcame the penalty of death. Death had to loose him. And the
apostle in Colossians chapter 2 tells us that he spoiled principalities
and powers. When he raised from the dead,
he took death's armor from it and its strength and its weapons.
And he made a show of the devil and death and all his enemies. He made a show of them openly
because he triumphed over them in his resurrection. And he brags
about it. There in Revelation chapter 1,
He said, I'm He that liveth and was dead, and behold, I'm alive
forevermore. Amen, He says. He stops and brags
about His resurrection, and He says, I have the key of hell
and of death. And the resurrection of our Lord
Jesus Christ was such a miraculous thing because of how He suffered
and why He suffered, that when He did raise from the dead, The
apostles themselves had difficulty believing this. Some of them
even saw Him, and the Scripture says they believed not. How? We talk about the mighty power
of God working faith in a man's heart. How much faith did it
take? How much power did it take to
believe that Jesus Christ had raised from the dead? And the
only explanation that you and I can find in the Scripture,
the reason for His raising was this. The mighty power of God. The mighty power of God which
He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. Now,
there were some among the Corinthian church, and they were denying
the resurrection of Christ. They couldn't understand how
anyone who died physically, especially under the conditions with which
he died, could be raised from the dead. And Paul writes to
them and said, you're not Christians at all. You're foolish. Because
you yield in your sins. All our preaching is vain if
Christ be not raised from the dead. And they ask this question,
well, how is it possible for the dead to raise? And Paul said,
you're forgetting this one thing, and that's the power of God.
You do not know the power of God. All the mystery is taken
out of it, my friend, when we remember the exceeding greatness
of God's power. This is the same thing that the
Apostle Paul is alluding to in Philippians chapter 3 when he
talks about that He might know the power of the resurrected
Christ, the power that is in his resurrection, that he may
know God's power in his heart and in his life. That I may know
Him, he said, and the power of His resurrection. That's the
same power that is now working in every believer. And Paul says,
I pray for you that the Holy Spirit may bring you to the knowledge
of this power that is working in you, in your daily lives,
and keeping you, and upholding you. My friends, I know nothing
that is so strengthening to faith then come in to realize more
fully that you and I who believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, we
do so by His power and we're kept by that power. He upholds
us by this power. He giveth power to the faint,
He says, to them that have no mind. He increases strength. And how many of us this morning
have experienced this strength? We've come to know it at different
times and realize it in our hearts. And we realize something else
after we've come to experience this. that there's no living
the Christian life without it. There's no believing, there's
no repentance, there's no worship, there's no serving the Lord and
following Him, but as we do so according to the working of His
mighty power that works in us. It's God that works in us to
will and to do, and He works by this mighty power. Oh, the joy! that comes in knowing
this and believing this in our hearts. Now he comes here to
the last part of verse 20, and he makes this statement. When
he raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, he says that he set
Him at His own right hand in heaven, in the heavenly places. This phrase is often mentioned
in the Scripture. To learn what it means, we have
to go there and look at different passages where the Holy Spirit
has been pleased to write this verse down. Mark makes mention
of it. He said, After the Lord had spoken
unto them, he was received up into heaven, and he sat down
at the right hand of God. And Matthew makes mention of
it. You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand
of power. And Luke makes mention of it
when he says, You are after, you shall see the Son of Man
set on the right hand of the power of God. And Peter makes
mention of it, he said the Lord Jesus has been raised from the
dead and He's gone into heaven. In his humanity, he's there in
heaven, and he's set on the right hand of God. And Peter was preaching
to the Jews, and he often preached to the resurrection of Christ,
and he made this statement that he was raised by the right hand
of God and with the right hand of God. He has exalted him with
his right hand and set him by or at his own right hand there
in heaven. So it's very evident in several
places in the Scriptures that we're told that Jesus Christ,
in His humanity, and my friend, that's something that's very
essential to remember. Jesus Christ has always been
with the Father. He's the everlasting Son of God.
But when He came to this earth, He came through the womb of the
Virgin. He took our real humanity. He
lived in it. He obeyed the law in it. Thereupon
the cross of Calvary, He suffered the penalty of sin in His humanity. And God raised Him from the dead
and seated Him there in heaven. And right now this morning, The
Lord Jesus, in His human nature, in His full humanity, is seated
there in heaven at the right hand of God. Now, that's a wonderful
thing. That's an amazing thing to think
about. And I want you to turn your Bibles
this morning some places with me where this is mentioned. And
we must hurry along and look at them, but first of all, look
over in Psalms 110 and verse 1. The Lord said unto my Lord,
The Father said to the Lord Jesus, Saith thou at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool. And as you read this
psalm, you see here that this has two meanings. First of all,
in verse 2 and 3, this is the first meaning. The Lord shall
send the rod of your strength out of Zion. Now, the rod of
the strength of Christ is His gospel. The gospel of Christ
is the power of God to salvation. And He says, therefore, Rule
thou in the midst of thine enemies. And then he quickly says in verse
3, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Now
first of all, here the meaning is that Jesus Christ will subdue
his elect people, his chosen people. They were under the awful
judgment of God just like everybody else when they were born into
this world. Paul tells us that when he said, you were sometimes
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. Yet Jesus
Christ has been seated at God's right hand to subdue His elect. And those of His sheep that were
not following Him, that did not know Him, and did not obey and
love Him before, now He has the power to subdue them and make
them His friends. Now the Apostle Paul himself
is a prime example of this. He was on the road to Damascus,
and he said, I thought within myself that I ought to do many
things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which things
I did, he said. But on the road to Damascus,
When the time of love had come, Jesus Christ brought him down,
he broke his will, he invaded him, arrested him, and Paul,
who was the chief enemy of Jesus Christ, now became his friend. He was reconciled to God, really,
and in his experience, and he was reconciled because Jesus
Christ was exalted to bring Him down and to make Him His friend. Now, ain't that a wonderful thought?
You can see that in your own experience, can't you? There
was a time when you were the enemy of God. But the Lord Jesus
Christ converted you. He washed you from your sins.
He gave you a new life, a new nature. And now you love Him
because of it. Oh, I love the Lord, David said,
because He heard my cry. He brought me low. He stripped
me. He broke me. And His love arrested
me. And He made me His friend. And
he's able to do that because God's exalted him there at his
right hand to save his people from their sins. But he teaches
something else also here in Psalms 110. He goes on to say in verse
5, "...the Lord Jesus at thy right hand shall strike through
kings in the day of his wrath, He shall judge among the heathen.
He shall fill the places with the dead bodies. He shall wound
the heads over many countries. The Lord Jesus is not only exalted
to give repentance and remission of sins, but He is also exalted
to punish sinners. Now this is a terrible thing
to think about. that Jesus Christ, the man who
is on God's right hand, is not only there to save to the uttermost
those who come to God by him, but he's there to punish those
who will not come. The Lord at thy right hand shall
strike through enemies, his enemies, those who refuse to bow to him,
my friend, he rules them too. And he'll reserve them and he'll
preserve them until the day that he is to punish them. This is
why the Lord in Psalms chapter 2 says that He has exalted His
Son there upon His holy hill of Zion, and He warns men to
be wise therefore, be instructed, He says, you judges of the earth,
serve the Lord, serve the Lord Jesus Christ, fear Him and tremble,
kiss the Son lest He be angry, and you perish from the way when
His wrath is kindled but a little bit. The Lord Jesus Christ has
been exalted, therefore, on the right hand of God, not only to
save his elect people, but to punish all of those who live
and die his enemy. Dear Charles Spurgeon said one
time that every man must either be saved or he must be damned
by Christ. He must be justified by Christ
and he must be condemned by the Lord Jesus Christ. One or the
other. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
power to do both because God has exalted Him there at His
right hand. Now the next place I want you
to turn to is over in Hebrews chapter 1. We have this phrase
mentioned again. He begins here in Hebrews chapter
1 verse 1, God who has sundered times and in diverse manners,
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these
last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir
of all things, by whom also he made the world, who be in the
brightness of his glory, in the expressed image of His person,
and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had
by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty on high." There we have that phrase again. And in the
book of Hebrews we are told different things that this means, seated
at the right hand of God. And the first thing is this,
here in Hebrews chapter 1, It means that this is a very special
place. This is an honorable place. This
is a glorious place. It's a place that God Himself
has reserved for this one glorious person, and that is the Lord
Jesus Christ. He went on here to say in verse
4, being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by
inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. And then he goes
on into verse 13 and he says, To which of the angels did God
say, Set on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The right hand of God is a special
place. It's an honorable place. But
my friends, it's reserved for only one. The elect angels never
were invited to sit there. Though they're glorious, though
they fly as lightning to obey God's will, but this place of
honor and glory and dignity is reserved for one, and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's as though the Father
said when He raised Him from the dead, My Son, come here. and sit down at my right hand. My son, it's good to have you
home. I love you. You have honored
me and the earth. Everything that I sent you to
do, you did it with all your heart. My son, my soul is wrapped
up in you. I delight in you. Come and sit
at my right hand. You angels, you move over now. This is the place for my son.
I know that you're excited about all that's taking place. But
move over, this throne, this place belongs to my Son. That's what it means for Christ
to be exalted. And we're told another meaning
here in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3. When He had by Himself
purged our sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty
on high. Now you that read your Bibles,
You realize that the writer of the book of Hebrews went on in
the 10th chapter to enlarge upon this subject. When the Lord Jesus
Christ died upon that cross, God raised Him from the dead,
and He sat down. He sat down. Now this means so
much because you who are familiar with this passage realize that
under the old dispensation, the Jewish dispensation, those sacrifices,
the Aaronic priesthood, when the priest went into the sanctuary
with the blood of those bulls and goats, he sprinkled that
mercy seat And he went back out and a year later, he would come
back in and he would bring the blood and he would sprinkle the
mercy seat. And this continued year after
year, but there's one piece of furniture in all that sanctuary
that was missing. And that was this. There was
no chair there for the priest to sit down in. And there's good
reason for that, because their work was never finished. Year after year, they offered
these sacrifices for sin, but they could never sit down and
rest because their work was never finished. Now over here in Hebrews
10, we're told that. Look in verse 11. The writer
here says every priest under this old dispensation, the Aaronic
priest, they stand daily, ministering and offering oft times the same
sacrifices which can never take away sins. They stand and they
offer oft times. And therefore, they can never
sit down. They can never rest. But look in verse 12. But this
man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, he
sat down on the right hand of God. See that? The Lord Jesus,
when He had offered His blood to God, He sat down, and the
reason He sat down is because the work has been finished. There's nothing else to do. God
raised Him from the dead, and He said, My son, sit down here,
because you have indeed finished the work. Sin has been purged. It's been punished. It's been
washed away. It's been taken away. There's
nothing else that needs to be done. It's finished. Oh, isn't
that wonderful for you who know the Lord this morning? That you
believe in Him, though you realize that you're yet a sinner, that
you feel the workings of sin within you, and sometimes you
fall and you show ashamed of yourself. But what you remember
is this, that Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God. And where you find your comfort,
that your sin has been taken away, is right there in His glorious
person. He's not standing, but He's seated. Your sins have been purged. Yes,
you fill them. Yes, sometimes you fall in them.
But all your victory and your assurance is to remember this,
that your sins are no more. Before God they've been purged,
they've been atoned for. Come now, he says, and let us
reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as the driven snow. That word there,
scarlet, it simply means that a garment was double-dyed. They used to call scarlet fixed
color. And it was fixed because once
it was put upon a garment, it literally became part of that
garment. It just wasn't dyed outwardly,
but it integrated within that garment. And the old Jews had
a saying that neither dew nor rain nor washing or long usage
could remove the color of scarlet. It was there to stay, but the
Lord says, though your sin be such that it's died, that it's
fixed, and the stains have gone all the way into the depths of
your soul. Oh, there is a blood, the blood
of Jesus Christ, God's Son, that reaches deeper than the stain
has gone. It's purged so thoroughly that
nothing else needs to be done. Where remission of these is,
there's no more offering for sin. Sin has been put away, my
friend, put away from where it really counts, and that's from
the face and the judgment of God. And that's why the Lord
Jesus is seated there. The work is done. Well, we've
got to go on. Look here in chapter 8 of Hebrews. This phrase is used again in
verse 1. Now of the things which we've
spoken, this is the sum. We have such an high priest who
is set on the right hand of the majesty in the heavens. He is
set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. And then he makes this wonderful
statement. He's a minister of the sanctuary. A minister. We know the Lord Jesus was a
minister when He was here. I didn't come to be ministered
unto, but I came to minister, He said. But oh, here's a wonderful
thought that He's yet a minister. He's a minister of the sanctuary. He's a public servant. He's a
chief servant there in heaven that God has appointed to minister
on God's behalf and on the behalf of the believers. And what ministry
is that? It's the ministry of a mediator
and especially a high priest to make intercession for us.
That's what he says here in chapter 7 of the book of Hebrews. Look
here what he says in verse 25. Wherefore, he is able to save
them to the uttermost that come to God by him, seeing he ever
liveth to make intercessions for us." He lives to plead and
to maintain our cause and therefore to save us. from our sins to
the uttermost. Paul said, Who is He that condemneth?
It's Christ that died, yea, rather, that's risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercessions for
us. Now that's Romans chapter 8 and
verse 34. And verse 35 goes on to add this,
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? My friends, here's
a two-fold chord. One of them is the intercession
of Christ, and the second is the love of Christ. He intercedes,
and He intercedes because He loves us. And nothing can separate
us from His love. He pleads, He pleads His merit,
and He pleads out of the love of His heart. Dear old Moshein
said one time, he said, if you and I could hear Christ praying
for us in the other room, he said a million enemies couldn't
prevail against us. But he says distance makes no
difference. Sure we cannot hear Christ praying
for us in the other room. He's in heaven, but we can believe
it when we read it in God's Word. We hear Him praying there, standing,
or seated rather, on the right hand of the Father in heaven. I tell you, the Father knows
us. The Father knows Himself. He knows how holy that He is. And He knows how fallen we are.
And He set His Son at His right hand because God knows that He
cannot deal with us Himself. And He knows that we cannot come
to Him. So He sets this mediator between
Himself and us. And now God can receive us as
a Father. And He can forgive us. And the
fellowship is never to be broken. And you and I, as poor fallen
as we are, we can go to God and address Him as the Father. And
God can meet us and we can meet Him in sweet, unbroken fellowship. because God has set upon His
right hand this mediator, and He's ever making intercessions
for us. Ain't that a wonderful thought?
That's such a wonderful thought. My friend, what would happen
to us? Dear child of God, what would
happen to you? Even though you've heard the
Gospel, even though you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, even
though you've been told there's an inheritance laid up for you
in heaven, Yet, would you even make it to that inheritance?
Would you even make it to heaven if God had not set a mediator
to plead and maintain your cause at His right hand? Even the Apostle
Peter would have never made it. He said, Simon Peter, the devil,
Satan himself, desires to have you that he may sift you. But
he said, I prayed for you. And oh, dear child of God, that's
our hope of making it through this life. That's our hope of
being forgiven when we've sinned. That's our hope of not despairing
when we've fallen. But to rise again and walk the
Christian life is because we have a mediator, a faithful and
merciful high priest. And he's seated on purpose at
God's right hand. Well, one more place. Look over
here in Hebrews chapter 12. Look quickly at Hebrews chapter
12. And in verse 1 we're told this.
were a foreseeing we all sore compassed about, was so great
a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight,
and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus the author
and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set
before him endeared the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God. Who for the joy
that was set before Him. And what the writer is telling
us here is that the Lord Jesus endeared everything that He endeared. And one of the motives in helping
Him for Him endearing all of that was for the joy that He
would have in setting there at God's right hand. I don't know
how joyful the Lord was when he was in this earth. I imagine
really that he was a joyful man. We know that the last few days
of his life, we find the trouble in his heart, the sorrow of his
heart had increased. He often said that. Now is my
soul troubled. And there in the garden, we remember
how troubled he was. But I remember, you know, as
a teenager how delighted he was, at 12 years of age even, to be
out doing the will of his father. And I imagine in his 20s, though
we're not told anything about his activity, but I imagine that
really he was a joyful man, and probably in his ministry he was
joyful, he was happy. But we know this much. And I
think the scripture here in Hebrews chapter 12 tells us that he is
now a joyful person. For the joy that was set before
him, and he has now entered into that joy. He finished the work. He was successful in it. He triumphed
over his enemies. Now he is seated there in heaven,
the universal head and ruler over all things, to the good
of his church, and he rules there with joy. This is what we find
in Zephaniah 3, verse 17. The Lord your God, in the midst
of you, He's mighty. He will save. He will rejoice
over you with joy. He will rest in His love. He will joy over you with singing. So it seems today, even though
the Lord Jesus knows that we're still fallen, He lives there
to make intercessions for us He pleads our cause, He delivers
us, and He will bring us to heaven, and He's doing it all with joy. For the joy that was set before
Him. Come with me, He says, and rejoice. I have found my sheep, which
was lost. So I guess we can not only say
we rejoice in the Lord, but we rejoice with the Lord. My friends, I say this this morning
with all reverence. Jesus Christ, our Lord, is a
happy man. He's not a disappointed person.
He's not a troubled person. He's not an anxious person. He
knows everything that's going on. He knows our state. He knows our condition. He knows
our walk. He knows our felony. He remembers
that we're just dust. And yet daily He bears witness. Daily He saves us. And yet He
does it all with joy. With joy. I used to think, surely,
the greatest burden on the Lord's heart is to put up with me. I felt within myself, as I do
now, that I'm so unworthy. I see sin mixed with everything
I do. And I thought the greatest burden
of the Lord's heart is just to put up with me. Oh, He does,
but it's more or less because He has to. But my friend, I don't
think it's that way. I think it's the joy of His heart
to undergirt me and to hold me. He's thrilled when I've fallen
and helping me up again. It's His very life. He exists
as it were for no other reason. but to plead and maintain my
cause. He's bringing me to glory through
this world of devils and sin and trials, and He's doing it
with great joy. And if you're a child of God
this morning, If you've believed in the Lord Jesus as a consequence
of the exceeding greatness of His power, then you can know
the Lord is pleading and maintaining your cause too. And He's doing
it with great joy. Bless His holy name.