I look out and I see some faces
I recognize, some that I think I should recognize but don't.
So I'll ask you all to do me a favor. If when leaving this
evening we have never met, let me know so I don't have to pretend
like I know you. No, I'm one of these guys. I
do remember faces. I usually know if I've seen you
before. Terrible with names. But so often people come up and
shake a hand and talk to me like we've just been walking together
for years and years. Good, nice to see you and everything.
So if we never have, just let me know. It is a blessing to be here.
I've enjoyed the trip I've been taking. I left Monday and I preached
in Wheelersburg Wednesday night, met with the saints there and
then this morning in Ashland and now here and it's always
such an encouragement to my heart to almost say get away from Rock
Valley. That's just the first part of
it. But to go out among other brethren and and brethren that are familiar
and with whom I've walked for a long time. And it's been 31
years since I first showed up in Ashland. And that's a little
bit hard to believe until I look in the mirror. If you'll open
your Bibles to Ephesians 1. Now, I imagine that you are very
familiar with this chapter of Scripture. You can hardly be
a believer in the sovereign grace of God and not know about this
scripture. Nor can you know about this scripture
and in any way hold some kind of consistent theology that is
contrary to the sovereign grace of God in Christ. I remember
that in my first year of Bible school, I was at a rather free
will, well, a very free will school. And the professor who
was going to teach us the book of Ephesians was the free willist
of them. And he was trying to get through
the first chapter of Ephesians. And I remember he tried, he started
over three times. And later as I came to an understanding
of what this chapter means, I can understand why he was having
such a hard time making sense of it. Because he was trying
to make sense of it within the context of the freedom of man's
will and the worthiness of his own decisions and purposes. And you just can't go through
Ephesians 1 and come out with anything good for man in it.
Now this chapter is a doxology. That is, it is a declaration
of praise. Once Paul gets done introducing
himself, telling us who wrote it and who he wrote it to, he
gets right to business with the words, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's in verse 3. And the word
translated blessed is the word, I believe, from which we get
our English word eulogy. You know, when someone dies,
somebody says a good word about them. And that's what's meant
here. Say a good word about God. We can't bless God in the sense
of improving His condition in any way. When we talk about God
blessing us, we're talking about Him ordaining something and bringing
something to pass that improves our condition. But you can't
improve on God's condition. He was perfectly fine before
the world began. He's been perfectly fine the
whole time the world's been going on, and when it's all said and
done, he'll still be perfectly fine. He did not create the world
because he felt unfulfilled. You say, why did he create the
world? I don't know. He just did. But we don't bless
Him in the sense of adding to Him in any way. We merely declare
the greatness of His being and the greatness of His works. That's
what it means when it says, blessed, praise be to the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then you skip down here to
verse 6, to the praise of the glory of His grace. Now in geometry,
it takes only two points to establish a line. So we've already got
two points of praise. And so Paul here is charting
out a course of praise. And we see this line continued
on here. It says in verse 12 that we should
be to the praise of his glorious grace. So now we've got three
points. And that establishes that we
were right in drawing the line between the two because it went
right through the third. And you can be sure of this,
any preaching that comes from God and any preaching that is
drawn from these scriptures will be right on that line of praise. Every point of it. If it is not
on that line, it is not of God. And then also notice this, that
in all this declaration of praise, and he gives us really a very
good theology of salvation through this, a very concise one, a very
pointed one. And it is a description of what?
Or shall I say a catalog of what? Of what we must do in order to
be saved? Of the responses we must make
in order to appropriate the salvation that God has provided? Not at
all. It is a catalog, a list of things
which God has done. And that's why it's praise to
God. Now men do not praise God from a platform of legalistic
righteousness. They do not praise God from a
platform of free will decisionism, because you can't do it. You
can say praise God, and they try because they know they're
supposed to, and they form the words and they say them a few
times, but if you let them loose, If you let their mouth truly
speak out of the abundance of their heart, it will inevitably
end up to the praise of man. It will inevitably take upon
itself that mark of the beast, man, man, man. Man in his righteousness,
man in his will, man in his purpose. That's what it will always be
if God lets a man speak from his natural heart. But not when God overrules the
natural heart and fills a heart with grace. And out of the abundance
of such a heart flows praise to God for what God has done. And the only time it mentions
in this whole thing what we have done, it says in verse 13, in
whom ye also trusted. It's picking up the word from
verse 12 and it actually means hoped. The word is actually hoped. I don't know why they translated
it trusted. It means hope. Why do we hope in Christ? Do
we hope in Christ because we were smarter than our neighbor? No. Because God had his gospel
preached to us. And it says, after ye heard the
word of truth, And brethren, there's a lot of people, that
can't mean simply after we heard some man preach the gospel. Because
a lot of people hear that and do not hope in Christ. A man may hear the doctrine of
the gospel and go away unchanged. But when he who is the word of
truth speaks, a man puts his hope in Christ. And he cannot
take any credit for having done that. It was the inevitable result
of the working of the grace of God. We don't deny that a man
does it. We just deny that he can take
any credit for it or claim any prize for it. It just happened
because God made it happen. Now one of the chief aspects
of the glory of God And I say one, but I'm going to divide
it into three parts, but they all three go together. One of
the chief aspects divided into three is this, that in the salvation
of men, and women, man, human beings, in the salvation of human
beings, God is active. Active. God's not waiting. God's
not waiting to see what you will do. He takes action. Secondly, He's sovereign in His
action. He does what He wants. And thirdly,
and this may be the most important, or maybe we'll just call it the
capstone, He's successful. Now really, all those three go
together. And you put them all together,
you have what we call sovereign grace. But this idea that God can try
to do something or that God wants to do something, I hate it. I'll
be honest with you, I hate it when I hear people say, God wants. No, He doesn't. God never has
wanted anything. To want to be is to be without
something you need or desire. He has everything He desires. Now, it would not be out of place
to say that God desires the salvation of His elect. Nothing wrong with
that, but He doesn't want it. He has it. And you don't want
what you have. God doesn't want to do anything.
He does things. God doesn't attempt anything.
Or as one fellow told me many years ago, God has a dream of
saving the world. And I said, well maybe your God,
oh I didn't say this, I was quite a young fellow and he was quite
old and I didn't feel, believe it or not, for once I didn't
smart off. But my thought was maybe your God dreams, but mine's
fully awake and fully realizes everything he purposes. Now this
principle is spoken of plainly in verse 11, right at the end,
when it speaks of God in these words, describes him this way,
him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Several weeks ago, I was listening
to Brother Bruce Crabtree preach on a CD as I was driving my pickup
along. He was preaching from some other
verse in this chapter, but he read most of the chapter. And
as he read just those words, what a blessing came to my heart
to think that the God of my salvation is described this way, him who
worketh all things according to or after the counsel of his
own will. I love, and I hope you do too,
I love the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. And one reason I love
it is because after many years I've realized that the doctrine
of the sovereignty of me is just so much air. Because I've tried
to do many things and I have succeeded at none of them. Really,
at none of them. It may be a measure of success,
but I have never fully realized any goal which I have set my
mind to. In fact, The truth is, there's
only been one successful person in all of history, and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ, whom the world looks upon as a failure,
and whom many preachers preach as a failure. And yet, he shall
not fail until he's done what God sent him to do. On the Mount of Transfiguration,
I think this is such a remarkable example. It says that Moses and
Elijah spoke to him of the death which he should accomplish."
Who ever heard of accomplishing death? Remember brother Tim James
once said, you don't go to a funeral, look at the body, the corpse
lying there in the coffin and say, what an accomplishment.
Why is hell forever? Because the death of hell is
never accomplished. It's never finished. And what
did our Lord say? on the cross, using the very
same word by which it said the death he should accomplish, he
said it is finished, it is accomplished. And when he accomplished it,
what he was saying is, I am a resounding success. Now, I want to look at the terms
mentioned in this description of the God of our salvation.
It says, Him. Him. This universe is ruled by
a person. It is not ruled by chance or impersonal fate. Do you know what we mean when
we say chance? Do you know what we really mean? We really mean
that there is a set of circumstances with too many variables for us
to be able to predict its outcome. And so we say, well, so-and-so's
got a chance. There's a chance of rain tomorrow. Rather, there is no chance of
rain tomorrow. It's either going to rain or
it's not. We simply can't predict it because it's too complicated
an equation for us. Have you heard the phrase, the
die is cast? My father worked in a tool and
die shop, so I always thought they were talking about a die
that you use to punch out things. I never could figure out. I thought,
well, maybe they meant they'd cast the metal that made the
die. They're talking about dice. And it's interesting that the
person who, whoever made up that phrase, realized the moment you
let go of them, it's already, the outcome is determined. He
didn't say the dice have quit rolling. He said they've been
cast. Why? Well, even as they go through
the air to you and me, it's still chance. Because we simply can't
predict how they're going to come up. But I'll tell you, the
equation's there. And if we knew all the variables
and everything, we could predict it. And brethren, when it comes
to this world, for lack of a better way to put it, the die is cast,
but it is God who has determined the outcome by His purpose. There is no chance. And fate, that's an impersonal
force. There are no impersonal forces
in the world. You and I are not being driven
along to our inevitable destiny by forces without mind or purpose. We are predestined. Our destiny
is predetermined by a person, God himself. Now it says he works. There's two kinds of sovereignty,
or maybe we can call it two manifestations of God's sovereignty. There's
what we may call transcendent sovereignty. God dwells in a
light to which no man can approach. And what's it speaking of there?
It's speaking of the God who transcends the universe, who's
outside of the universe. I mean, God existed before the
universe ever came into existence. And when the universe, when he
called it into existence, it didn't change him. He did not
become something he was not. Transcendent simply means above
it all. And God is the transcendent sovereign. And a transcendent sovereign,
it's just like the author of a book. Now, if you wrote a book
or a story, you would be transcendent to that story. You're above it.
You're not a part of it. And you write it. Now what happens
in that story? Everything you write and only
what you write. You're all familiar with Shakespeare,
William Shakespeare. Imagine him, he's sitting there
writing Romeo and Juliet. He's getting near the end, you
know, and it's a tragic love story. Things aren't working
out like Romeo and Juliet wanted them to. Romeo's considering
taking his own life. And Shakespeare sits there with
pen in hand, looking all perplexed. And his friend walks in and says,
what's the problem, Bill? And he says, Romeo's at a point
of crisis. And I don't feel I have the right
to decide for him what he shall do. I'm going to have to leave
that up to him. His friend looks at him and says,
have you lost your mind? If you don't write something,
nothing happens. If you don't determine it, nothing happens.
We cannot divide this sovereignty into things which God purposes
and things which God allows. Because if He just says allows,
nothing happens. There is no will of man apart
from God predetermining and purposing what that will shall be. Why
did Romeo drink the poison? You can legitimately say because
Romeo decided to do that. Why did Romeo decide to do that? Because Shakespeare decided that
Romeo would decide to do that. You say, well, I'm not just a
character in a book and God's not just a human author either.
But as Romeo is to Shakespeare, so are we to God. We are His
story. What we call reality is God's
fiction. It might say, I don't like that.
It doesn't matter whether or not you like it. It doesn't matter whether
or not Romeo liked the fact that he was simply a character in
Shakespeare's story. It doesn't alter the fact, does
it? Do you realize that your opinion doesn't alter facts? Now, in this transcendent sovereignty,
God does not enter the stream of history. He merely purposes
it. And it's spoken of. in this scripture
because it talks about the counsel of his own will. As it were, as he wrote history,
he dipped his pen into the ink of his own will and wrote it
down. What's going to happen in the
book? Whatever God wants to happen. But there is what we might call
imminent sovereignty. Now, imminence is the opposite
of transcendence. Eminent means here. Now we speak
of God who dwells in a light to which no man can approach,
and yet He also calls Him, I think I'm pronouncing this right, Jehovah
Shammah. The Lord is present. Now here's
a mystery, and I'll do what I can to explain it. But when God created
the heavens and the earth, the first thing He created was Himself. He became part of his creation. It's as though Shakespeare wanted
to communicate with Romeo. But he can't yell at the book
and make Romeo hear. So Shakespeare writes in a character
called Bill and speaks to Romeo. Not only that, God brought himself
into the creation as the very first thing of creation. And through Him, all of the things
were made. And He is active in this creation,
pulling all the levers of the universe to bring to pass His
will. He is active. God is not waiting
for anyone to do anything. He purposed what shall be, and
then He entered the stream of events to make it happen. You know, we got an election
going and we got two guys with a will to become president of
the United States. And they are doing all they can
to make their will come to pass. But when it is done, that is
once they've exerted themselves and spent all the money they
could get a hold of, And given all the ads they could, and everybody
that's for each side has said all they can, this November 4th,
it's going to rest in the hands of those who go and pull a lever,
or I guess in these days it's do something with a computer,
whatever, but the voters. And you know what? All those
two guys are going to be able to do that day is sit and wait
and see if things work out according to their will. God doesn't have
to do that. Fact of the matter is, even in
that illustration, God's got the election decided. And He
is, even right now, working out everything to put in place the
man He wants in place to accomplish His will. And it will happen. Now, that doesn't mean that you
and I should say, well, it's already decided, no use to go
vote. You go vote. I mean, it's already decided
whether or not I'm going to eat next week, but that doesn't mean
I'm going to lay down my labors and not do anything trying to
get food. Believe me, I like food. I'll do all I can to see
to it it comes my way. But God has it all sewed up.
He works everything. You and I walk on the grass,
and underneath our feet are things going on that we never even pay
attention to. There's worms crawling in there. There's bacteria decaying
things, and fungus, and stuff we really don't want to think
about. Maybe that's why we don't think about it. But you know
what? God's doing it. He's working in the areas we
don't think about, in the areas we don't know about. You all
have any idea what's going on up at the North Pole right now?
I haven't got a clue. But I know who's making it happen. And he's
up there doing whatever he's doing to accomplish his will.
And until about the last 50 years, we didn't have a clue how big
this universe is. And finally we launched that
telescope up there. Wow! There's a lot more to this place
than we thought. The mathematics may have told us it was bigger
than we thought, but now we see. And you know something? For all
the time of the universe, however long that is, God's been out
there in the far-flung reaches of the galaxy doing what He wills
to bring to pass His will. You know something? His will
is bigger than you and me. It really is. We got a pretty
small view of things. We see what goes on in the little
circle of our life. And because we can only see this
small patch, we think it's a big patch. It's very small. You were born, you live your
life, and during that time you may become important to a handful
of people. But you will die. Have you ever
been to the beach? You go out there on the beach
and you scoop out some sand and you leave a hole. How long is
that going to last? Until the next wave comes by.
And the beach will not know you were there. And you will die.
And for two or three days people will pay attention. And they
will leave your funeral and nearly everybody that comes to your
funeral will go on with their lives as though you never existed. And there will be a handful who
were very close to you and they will grieve. And they will weep,
but the time will come when even they will go on with but occasional
memories that you will ever hear. We think we're much too important.
We've got much too large views of ourselves, don't we? He is sovereign both in that
transcendent way and in that eminent way. And everything that's
going on, God's doing it. And He's doing it to bring to
pass His will. Now, if God's doing it, and I
forgot to get a watch or anything. I'm in a mess. Just wave if I
get to do it. If God's doing it, it's just. Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right? Friends, whatever happening,
it's the right thing to happen. You can count on it. Everything
that's happening, God's doing it, and everything that God does,
it's just. And that means if we bring it
down to the issue that concerns us so much, the matter of salvation
or condemnation, we may say this, that no man shall ever be punished
more than he deserves. And no one shall ever be blessed
more than he deserves. You say, back up the bus. I don't deserve to be blessed
at all. I know what you mean, because you're looking at you.
And you say, when I take into consideration the things that
I have done, it is not appropriate that I should ever be blessed.
I am unworthy, the least of thy favors. I know what you mean,
and you're right. But God does not view you in
you. He does not deal with you according
to what you have done in you. He views you and deals with you
according to what you have done in Christ. Because at one time
He viewed Christ according to what was done in you. Whatever blessings we receive,
and the scriptures tell us we receive all spiritual blessings
in the heavenly places, we're worthy of them. And that's not
something we say in pride. It's something we say, like John
Denton did, amazing grace. He not only gives me the blessings,
he says, you're worthy of them. It's just. Whenever he works,
it's powerful. Omnipotently so. We read of God's
sovereign power in Daniel chapter 4, where he dealt with Nebuchadnezzar,
and he dealt with Nebuchadnezzar sovereignly. And you know, the
only people who ever declare the sovereignty of God are the
ones who come in contact with it. That's why Paul spoke of it so
much. Believe me, Paul was not going to Damascus wondering what
he wanted to do. He was not going to Damascus
saying, you know, maybe when I get there I'll be nice to the
Christians. He hated Christ. He hated the
Christians. And his will was to destroy them. And he came in contact with a
will more powerful than his. Therefore, he said, it's not
of him that wills or of him that runs. It's of God that shows
mercy. And Nebuchadnezzar said, whoo,
look what I've done. I'm king of the greatest empire
there is. Look at this empire I've created. And God said, Nebuchadnezzar,
you've got it all wrong. You didn't exalt yourself. I
exalted you. And I'm going to prove it. Because
I'm going to humble you. And for seven years, I assume
that's what seven times means. For seven years, Nebuchadnezzar
goes around eating grass like an ox. He lost his mind. And at the end of seven years,
he didn't get smart. God restored his sanity to him. So here's what happens. Little
Nebuchadnezzar is born over there, wherever it was he was born.
And God says, I've determined you're going to be an emperor
over the greatest empire. And it happened. And then God
says, okay, for seven years, you're going to be the lowest
of men. That happened. And then God said, OK, now I'm
going to put you back on top again. And that happened. And
Nebuchadnezzar spoke and he says, Now I extol and exalt the Most
High God. He does as he wills among the
powers of heaven and in the inhabitants of the earth, and nobody can
stop him. Nobody even has the right to
say to him, What in the world do you think you're doing? And he exerts that which requires
the most power of all, Nebuchadnezzar said, and he who lives in pride,
he is able to humble, to abase. You think it took a lot of power
for the Lord Jesus Christ to look into that tomb of Lazarus
and say, Lazarus come forth? It did, but nothing like it takes
for him to humble a man and bring him down. and make him bow to
Christ. But he can do it. Just like that.
He doesn't even break a sweat. He's omnipotent. And he works
universally. He said he works all things.
Everything going on is God working. to bring to pass His will. There
is not a place where God is not working. There is not a thing
going on that He's not in control of. He upholds all things by
the word of His power. He controls all things by His
sovereign authority. And it doesn't matter whether
men realize it or not, it's still so, isn't it? Just because they
don't know He's doing it doesn't mean He's not doing it. Even when they say God is not
sovereign, they do so because God sovereignly determined that's
what they would say. Did the unbelief of the Jews
make the Word of God of no effect? No. Because He never intended
that all the Jews believe. But every Jew He intended to
believe, believed. And thus there was a remnant
saved, chosen, saved according to the election of grace. He
says he works all things according or after the counsel of his own
will. Is Paul saying then that God
just does whatever he wants? Well, you know, it's true that
God does just anything he wants, but that's not exactly what Paul
is saying. We can talk about our will at
any moment being this, what do you want to do? But normally,
when we speak of someone's will, We're speaking of what they are,
in our language, trying to accomplish. Now, I've got a will that by
Friday evening, I'll be home. That's my will. And I'm going
to do everything I can. I'm going to control everything
I have the power to control to bring that will to pass. Now, God has a will. He has a purpose, an end goal,
if you will. And what Paul is saying is that
God is actively working to ensure that that will comes to pass. Now, for most of human history,
that will was hidden. Nobody knew what it was. Brother
Todd read in the study from Ecclesiastes 3, It says He's put the world
in our hearts. That's the way the King James
put it. I saw another translation that said He put eternity in
our hearts. And I thought, now, how do you get those two together? My understanding
from what I read is the Hebrew word means the vanishing point.
You look out there so far and everything just... And that's
as far as you can go with it. And if you look back... And what
it is, we're set here in this time-space universe we live in. And we can look into the past
and look back to our first memories. That's as far back as we're going
to go after that everything just all together. We can predict
the best we can what might happen in the future. But for the most
part we don't have a clue what's going on. And it says God does
this so man won't understand the work that he makes. We know
what God's doing because we can just look around and see it.
But we don't know what he's accomplishing. until now. It was not really
known until after Christ had died, ascended to the Father,
and the Spirit was sent, and the apostles began preaching,
and it says in verse 9, having made known unto us the mystery
of His will, God has taken His people into His confidence, and
told them what he is accomplishing by what he's doing. Isn't that remarkable? God let
us in on his will. Now, he didn't tell us all the
details of how he's going to get there, but he did tell us
where he's going with what he's doing. In verse 10, that in the
dispensation of the fullness of time, that's a long phrase
that means when everything is said and done. He might gather together in one
all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, that means the
high places, and which are on the earth, that's the low places,
in him. Now that phrase that's translated
here, gather together in one, it's from a rather long Greek
word, but in the middle of that long Greek word is the Greek
word head. And this word was used in bookkeeping. Now, you all know what a spreadsheet
is, most of you might anyway. And you start writing out your
checks because you got to keep track of your finances and so
you write mortgage, so much. But you write it in a column
that says housing expense. And you might say light bill,
that goes under the heading utilities. Oil change, car expense. What Paul is saying here is that
the will of God is that everything come under the heading Christ. Everything's about Him. And He
is working in everything according to the counsel of that will. Everything that's happening from
what you and I see in our day-to-day lives to the worms and the bacteria
and the fungus under the grass to the motions of the planets
out there and the stellar bodies that we didn't even know anything
about until recently, to the things, the big motions of the
political, what we think is big things in the political world,
to the small matters of households, everything. God's working in
it to bring all of this under one heading, Christ. Now you
know that phrase that become popular probably in the last
10 years, when you get kind of aggravated at somebody that's
selfish and you say, how come it's always got to be about you?
Well, that's inappropriate for you and me, isn't it? It shouldn't
be about us. Certainly not all of it. But
it's entirely appropriate for the Lord Jesus Christ, because
it is all about Him. Everything is. Now, we know,
and we tend to emphasize here in a church service like this,
that all of salvation is about Him. But brethren, everything
is about Him. This world was made through Him,
by Him, and what? For Him. God made a universe
for His Son to exalt Him. People say, well, you know, I
just, I don't understand the meaning of life. I know the meaning
of everything. It's Christ. And when all is
said and done, everybody's going to know that. The problem is,
is that the six billion people on the earth are trying to make
everything about themselves. And that puts them at cross purposes
with God. Now what does this mean for you
and me? For we who trust Christ. It means some glorious things.
That no matter what happens, It's good. And we know that all things work
together for good to them who love God. I heard one person,
I don't know if this is an accurate translation or that they were
paraphrasing it, but I like the way it came out. He said, and
we know that in all things God is working the good of them who
love Him. But the reason it's good is because
in all things God is working to bring everything under the
heading of Christ. And that's good for Christians.
That means that if your 401k survives whatever's coming up,
and I don't know what it is, but if it survives, that's under
the heading of Christ and it's good for you. And if it doesn't,
and you're left with so much worthless paper, it's still good,
because it's still under the heading of Christ. That means
that if you enjoy the full vigor of health, that's good for you,
because God's working, that's going to be under the heading
of Christ, and that means it's going to be good for you. That
means if you waste away, if you spend a significant portion of
your life in pain, or in weakness, that's good too. Now it's not
as easy for us to say good. I didn't say it's pleasant, but
it's still good. Job said, the Lord gave, the
Lord's taken away. And in both cases, blessed be
the name of the Lord. Why? Because Job said, I really
don't care. I mean, it's just as fine with me that, you know,
My children are dead, my cattle are gone, and all that God left
me was a crabby wife." No. He was miserable, and he said
he was miserable, and he cursed the day he was born. But he said,
the Lord's good, blessed be His name. He said to his wife, shall we
take good from the hand of the Lord that is pleasant, and not
take the unpleasant? Now, how is God bringing all
things unto Christ, or how has He done it? Just quickly a few things here.
Beginning in verse 20, which He wrought in Christ. Let's talk
about the power of God. Power of God working all things
according to His will to bring all things unto Christ. He wrought
it in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. Crowned Him the
Lord of life. who triumphed o'er the grave,
who rose victorious to the fight for those he came to save. In
death and in the raising resurrection from the dead, Christ is put
over all things. And life and death have meaning
only in relation to him because he is the one who lived and died
and lives again. Life is all about Him, and so
is death. He raised Him from the dead and
set Him on His own right hand in the high places. God's blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in the high places, and that's really what that word
means, high. We think heaven, we automatically think of some
kind of place where God exists. Even our English word heaven
means the heaved up places. Now, All it means is the high
places where the spiritual eternal things happen as opposed to the
low places where you and I live. Now, I don't resent the blessings
of the low places, but I'm going to lose all of them. Whatever
we get down here, we leave. But those spiritual blessings
in the high places, we can't be separated from them and they
can't be separated from us. And it says that He has been
set on the right hand in these high places. And that's why the
blessings can't be removed from us. Jesus Christ Himself is out
of reach of every contrary power to Him and the purpose in Him. And so are all the blessings
that are in Him. That's why he said, don't lay up treasures
for yourself down here in the low places because there's going
to be moth and rust and subprime mortgages that's going to take
it from you. He didn't say it just that way,
but it works out that way for us. Lay up for yourself treasures
in heaven where none of this stuff from the low places can
reach. It's eternal. Christ is up there,
seated on the right hand of authority, the right hand of God's favor. You know where the Scriptures
say, and from His abundance have we all received grace upon grace,
grace for grace? I always wondered what that meant. The scriptures say that Jesus
Christ grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God
and man. Favor? You know that's exactly
the same word that's normally translated grace? And what the scriptures are teaching
us is that the favor that we receive from God is the overflow
of the favor that God has for Jesus Christ. How much favor
is that? He's on the right hand of God.
in heaven. He's got all the favor of God
and it flows out of him like a water out of an artesian well
and splashes all over us and it's grace upon grace upon grace
showering us from the overflow of the grace upon the Lord Jesus
Christ from on high. Far above all principality, that
means authority and the power and the might and the dominion,
old man thinks he's something else, doesn't he? The glorious
empire of blah-de-da-de-da. You might as well be talking
about, you know, well, the dog catcher down the road, you know.
None of this, you know, the bigger a man's title is, the less there
is to him, you know, in this world. We've got to take on the
trappings of glory because we don't really have any glory of
our own. It all means nothing. Christ is above it all. And it
said, in every name. There's people out there trying
to make a name for themselves. And as I drove here, I noticed
there's a lot of names out on people's lawns. Little signs. Important names. You can pile
them all together in one pile, they won't reach his name. He's
above every name. Above every title. You can get
all the kings, and all the tyrants, and all the dictators, and the
presidents for life, and the presidents for four years, and
whatever. You can pile them all together. It's not going to equal
His name. And He has put all things under
His feet. That means there's not a part
of Christ that isn't above everything else. I mean, the feet's the
lowest part of Him. The lowest part of Christ is
higher than the highest thing in this universe. "...and gave Him to be head over
all things for the church." Now, I don't know if that simply means
He made Him to be head over all things for the church. I like
to think of it this way. What a wonderful gift to the
church. God gave Christ to the church
as head over all things for her welfare. Do you know why it's
always good for the church no matter what's going on? Because
no matter what's going on, it's Christ that's doing it. And I'll
guarantee you, our husband will never do anything to hurt us. It might be painful, and if it
is, it's the time to cry. It might be full of joy, then
it's the time to laugh. But whether laughing or crying,
dancing or mourning, it's good. Because it's Christ. Because
it's God working. Bringing everything under Christ. And making everything good for
us. Brother?