Have a Seat, Eph, 2:4-6 & Col, 1:22

Good morning. Let's take a look at the passage here this morning. Mike read it for us, and you have it both in the overhead and the first slide in your handout. And for those of you who might be visiting here, we'll make note that this little number over in the corner is the page number on your handout. If there is no page number, it's not on your handout, it's just on the screen overhead, okay?

Now, what we have been looking at here is Ephesians chapter 2. We start with verse One through three, and we've covered that for a period of two weeks. And the way Paul goes about it is he says, here's the bad news, okay? That's verses one through three. We've covered those in the previous times we've studied that.

Today he gives us the good news, okay? It's the bad news that makes the good news so good, okay? And that's why he shares it with us. It's not that he's intending to say, here, here's some bad news, you know? Be joyful about it. It is the good news that makes the bad news in such contrast. When we look at the bad news, then the good news is really good. Okay?

Now, the way we pictured it as we looked at it this last time, is we pictured what Paul describes there as the terminal trio, is the flesh and the world and the devil. And to use sort of a modern analogy, it is as if the world is just shrouded in this stinking stench of spiritual smog, unable to escape it. Everybody who is of this earth is stuck in that stench.

The good news that we're looking at this week is how the Lord takes us out of that into the heavenlies together with Christ. That's what we'll be looking at this week, okay? and looking at Ephesians 2, 4 through 6, and also Colossians 1, 22, which is a kind of a brief summary of similar truths. What we see as we start off this passage are the words, but God.

After telling the bad news, okay? See, wouldn't it be something if Paul said, you're dead in your trespasses and sins. Goodbye. He didn't do that, did he? He says, you're dead in your trespasses and sins, and he says, but God. These are two brief but potent words. But God.

And this is a huge turning point, isn't it? If he ended at the end of verse 3 and said goodbye, it would be ended with bad news. But instead he has very good news to tell us, and it's because of what God did. He says, But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions and sins.

Let's take a look at that. What we see is this is a message all about God's character and motivation. Isn't that what he's summarizing here? But God, because of His character and motivation, It's God's character and motivation that moved him to make a difference, to change from what was a dismal circumstance. His character, he describes as being rich in mercy.

This word rich or riches, we've seen before and we're going to be seeing it again in the book of Ephesians. We've seen it twice in chapter 1 and we'll be seeing it again here in chapter 2 and then twice again in chapter 3. When it comes to describing God, God has to resort to rich or riches more than once. Because God's character, He has a wealth to bring to bear.

When it comes to mercy, God has a wealth of mercy. He's not skimpy on it. He doesn't have just enough mercy. Because God is rich in mercy, wealthy in mercy. And we have to understand what's the difference between mercy and grace. Mercy is withholding a judgment that we rightfully deserve. Grace is providing something beyond anything that was expected.

Now, let me give you an example. You're driving down Holly Street at 50 miles an hour. I don't recommend that by the way. A policeman notices and gives you Christmas lights. And now with these Christmas lights he walks up and he says, do you realize you're going 50 miles an hour? Yeah, I was going 50, you admit it. Mercy comes to you and says, I'm just going to give you a warning this time, I'm not going to give you a ticket.

Did you deserve the ticket? Yes. But you didn't receive it. Now, grace is different. Grace goes ahead and gives you the ticket and you show up at the courtroom and the policeman pays the fine. That's grace. Mercy is withholding judgment that you deserve. Grace is giving you blessings you don't deserve. Mercy is withholding judgment that you do deserve. Now, we do deserve the wages of sin, apart from Christ. The wages of sin is death. not just withholding of judgment, but abundant and overflowing blessings that we cannot hope to earn. God is rich in mercy and in grace, okay?

Because of His great love for us, this is the next phrase that Paul comes up with here, this love isn't just a, boy, I sure like you. This love isn't a, boy, you sure do good things for me and so I'll do good things for you. But this is an agape love.

It doesn't depend upon our worthiness. It doesn't depend even on our recognition that we need something. God loved us when we were unlovable. God loved us with an agape love even when we didn't even realize we needed something. That's the kind of love that He expresses here. God's unconditional love has a description to it. It isn't just a little bit of love. because of His great love for us. That's how it gets described. Now, He expands upon that. He says, do you understand the character of that love? Do you understand how great a love it is? So that's when He spells out, even when we were dead in our transgressions and sins. Even when we were dead in our transgressions and sins He loved us. It gives perspective on how great is God's love.

We were spiritually separated from God. We're positionally seeped in sin, just like that picture we showed earlier. Here's this city just choked in a stench of smog, a brown, gagging smog, an asphyxiating smog of sin. And when we're right in the middle of it, he says, I unconditionally love those people.

God was motivated and acted to identify us with Christ and to place us in him, in spite of the fact that we were dead in our transgressions and sins. That's how great God's love is. It describes it and qualifies it. Then he says, and he made us alive together with Christ. That means that believers are made spiritually alive together with Christ in their position. And notice who did the action here. It was God who did the action. God alone is the one who makes believers alive. He is the one that takes the action.

Those who are believers in Christ are the ones who are made alive, not because we try harder or are worthy, we go to the right church, that we are faithful in church attendance, give a higher percentage of our income, anything of the sort, nothing we can do can earn what God has done. He made us alive together because of His character, because of who He is, because of His motivation to act out of great love.

That's why. Then He says, by grace are you saved. And if we look at this, we might be inclined to think, well, heavens, why did He throw that in? After all, he's just going and telling us about these other things, how he loves them, and all of a sudden he throws in, by grace are you saved? But we have to remember something about what Paul's saying here. This isn't just a stray idea or thought that he puts in. He's been telling them they're saved by God's character of grace put into action on God's part, and not the character or efforts of any human being. Not at all. Now, when we say grace, we're not talking about this young lady, just so you know.

What happened, and we pointed this out before, that in the pagan world, the word for grace that Paul chose, charis, this word charis was used among the pagans. It wasn't a Christian word originally. What happened is that they would use this word to describe a favor that you would do for, say, a friend or a relative. and you didn't expect anything back. That was how the word was used. When believers got a hold of this word, they said, we have to have some word to describe God's grace. And so they stretched the word, I would say radically stretched the word, and what they did is they said, this goes way beyond, because God reached out and did something for those who are not friends and relatives, but instead for enemies, for people who didn't even know they needed to have something done for them.

Not only that, knowing what they needed, He did it. Christ dying on the cross would not be what you and I would choose. We would say, hey, isn't there some other way? That's kind of ugly. God acted when He was not compelled to act by anything we did or could come up with. God acted in a way that we wouldn't even recognize as, this is what I need. He knew what we needed.

Now, when the pagans thought of grace, they thought of grace. But however, when grace is used in Scripture, it comes across like this. Grace! Big difference. The word has been stretched way beyond the way the pagan world used the word. Now, here's another cultural insight we need to get.

The pagans, the people of Ephesus, had been taught all their lives, and this had been a tradition of centuries, that in order to get one of the pagan gods to pay any attention to you, you've got to do something first to get their attention and to earn their favor. If you don't, they are not inclined to do any favors for you. Matter of fact, they're not even inclined to pay any attention to you. So all of the pagan religion was all about getting the attention of and literally buying the favor of the pagan gods, and you had to take the initiative because the pagan gods didn't give a hoot about you otherwise.

Now, in the midst of that, Paul comes and tells them about THE God, and that's one reason why you will see in the New Testament, and it doesn't always show up in our English translations, he will use a definite article. THE God, specifically. This one.

All that they had learned about the pagan gods had to be unlearned when it came to God that we read of in the New Testament. A god that behaved like this, a god that had this character, was totally unheard of. And they had to unlearn everything and re-learn the character of God. This was all shocking. So if you imagine this, if you're a pagan, you're having to unlearn the character of God and relearn the definition of grace. Paul had a lot to teach these folks. Oh, one more thing. I almost forgot.

Saved here, the Greek is a perfect passive verb. Remember we've said before it's a completed past action with ongoing results into the future. And we make this point. that here we have the mascot of the perfect tense. Are you ready for this? Here's the mascot of the perfect tense. By grace are you saved, and the results of your salvation accomplished by God keep on going and going and going and going. This is the character of the perfect tense. It continues on. So when you have been saved by grace, the results keep continuing, and we want to make that point here.

The three aspects of our salvation. We are saved from the penalty of sin on initial belief. We are saved from that initial point of belief up to the time when we go home to be with the Lord, from the power of sin. And finally, we are saved when we go home to be with the Lord from the presence of sin. That's how you are saved by grace, all three aspects of your salvation. It begins at the initial point of belief and keeps on going. It continues on. That's why he uses the perfect tense. It's a continuing salvation that has more and more and more and continuing consequences.

At this point, I'd like us to sing Amazing Grace, because when we look at this, Here is an amazing Lord, an amazing Lord who, by all rights, could have just said, well, those people are toast. They're not worth anything. And yet, He marvelously, not only had mercy upon us, but showed amazing grace to us, to bless us. And as we'll see in verse 7, the blessings are so profound, it will take eternity for those to be revealed. Let's sing. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found. was blind, but now I see." See, we were once in that position of being dead in our trespasses and sins, but when we say we're found, boy, how profound is the found. Now, let's take a look at some more. When Paul writes, and he raised us up with him, We who believe have been raised up, that is, we've been taken from a place where we were separated from God spiritually. That's the place we had. We were spiritually separated from God. Then, we are placed in a position of ongoing, continuing fellowship with Him. Fellowship, relationship that doesn't quit.

Now, Christ was crucified physically, wasn't He? It was a real historical event. are having been identified with Him, we were crucified spiritually. That's right. If you're a believer here this morning, you died with Christ some 2,000 years ago. He died physically, you were identified with Him, and you died spiritually. As Christ was raised physically, we have been raised spiritually. Do you remember that? These are truths that we're told and we understand by faith.

Then Paul places what I'll call the crowning jewel. I have to use this term, outrageously gracious. We use the term in modern times, extreme grace. If John Newton were writing now, he would write not amazing grace, but extreme grace. This is intense grace. This is phenomenal grace. It's a majestic masterpiece put together and he puts the crowning jewel on it and he says, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

It would have been great for him to say, hey, you know, you folks are on a bad path, I'll take you off of the bad path and get you on to something halfway decent. But he didn't stop there, did he? He says, hey, I'll take the people that have been saved by being identified with Him in His death, in His burial, in His resurrection, and I'm going to place them positionally with their Savior. With their Savior. That is the amazing part. We've been placed with our Savior. And it's not a waiting till, it's have been. It's a done deal. Right now, you have been placed with your Savior. This is the perspective that God desires us to have.

Paul isn't telling us this so that it's just some hypothetical piece of information. If I came to you and said to you, you know, on the planet Neptune, there's a huge gym up there, and there's great big pink elephants that play basketball 24-7, okay? You would say, great, Vern, what does that have to do with me? You'd also probably think I'm nuts. But when we look at this, Paul is not telling us something hypothetical. Paul is not telling us something so that we can look at that and say, well, that's wonderful theory, but what am I going to do with that?

He's telling us this, He's spelling this out to us, about this, so that we'll understand that is the place, because you notice, that's where He leaves us. That is the place from which He wants us to see everything else. It's the perspective that He desires us to have to see everything else. Everything down here on planet earth, all the people, all the events, Everything to be judged from that perspective. Everything. Something else to be looked at here uses this us, okay? It is us who have been seated.

It is if you're a believer here this morning, it's not that you're just, gee, I hope to get seated some day with the Lord. That would be awful nice. It's not we're working towards getting seated. You know, eventually, down the road, I'll get there. I'm not earning a seat here. I'm not waiting. Did you notice the past tense? Have been. Have been seated.

It's a done deal, folks. Only by belief. A done deal. Fully accomplished. You're not waiting to sit next to the Lord. And by the way, later on in this letter, he is going to tell the people who have been stealing, stop stealing. He's going to tell those who have been speaking foul language not to do so. So this is not conditioned upon some performance at one moment or another. This is upon belief.

Notice, he says, our seating is in the heavenly places. This is literally in the heavenlies, and it's a unique phrase that only shows up in the book of Ephesians about five times there. We saw it when we first looked at Ephesians 1.3. You see, we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, but notice it doesn't say we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies and stop there. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing, and the heavenly is where?

Ah, it's not a where, it's an in whom. In Christ Jesus. That's where we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, and that's where Christ is. And the key thing to look at is the where and in whom is all about Jesus Christ. The where and in whom is all about the one with whom we are seated.

Now, positionally, as believers. If you're a believer here this morning, you know, it's amazing. People constantly ask for, oh, Lord, bless this and bless that, and I would like this blessing, and the Lord blessed me. We've been blessed with spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, and they're with Christ Jesus. They're in Christ. They're in Him. They're any person, the one with whom we've been seated.

If we look at this, Ephesians 2.6, the final crescendo is not the place. Have you ever heard somebody say something like, oh, he's in a better place? You hear that sometimes at funerals or after someone's passing. But this doesn't end there.

The blessings are in a person. It's all in a person. It is Him with whom I am seated. The Lord is calling here for us not to just look to heaven, but to look upon the Lord Himself, to behold Him. The Lord is looking for intimacy with us. That's why we've been placed there. That's why we're seated with Him. He desires intimacy with us as we're seated next to Him.

Not later. Not in the by and by. Certainly that will be there. But starting now. The other thing that comes out clearly here is this identification. He made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. These three verses have three soon words, okay? Little ditty, you know, not the sun, not the moon, but the soon, okay? It's the soon words, the soon prefix that shows up in the words here.

Let's take a look at them. Each verb that we're going to take a look at here communicates us in some action with Christ. Let's see what they are. He made us alive together with Christ. This is a compound word. Together with alive make. He did the work. He made us alive together. Notice it was His doing. It wasn't our doing, it was His doing.

It says we don't earn being alive. Do you notice that? It's believers. We don't earn being alive. We don't try to be alive or even seek to act lively. Believers are made alive by being spiritually alive by God's doing. It's God alone who does the action, not us. Now, just to get the idea, a lot of times we think that just by being active in some way that that's going to save us or give us some points with God. Paul is not communicating that here, is he?

You could go in the lobby, and if there's enough left there, get yourself about 10, 12 cups of coffee. Go ahead. Not right now. Later. But let's say you did. And matter of fact, if you really want to be lively, maybe you want the coffee really hot, put some hot sauce in it. I don't care. That's fine. What's going to happen is you may be real jumpy. And you may look especially lively as you're dashing for the restroom.

But the truth is, there's no action we can take that will make us alive spiritually. It's got to be God's action. It's got to be His doing. There's nothing we can do to make ourselves alive. It isn't on trying to be alive or trying to be active. We can't just get busy and be spiritually alive. Being made alive is God's doing. It is possible for a person who is paralyzed completely to be spiritually alive because of belief.

That's the first half of this being raised. We were buried, and then he brings that up there. It's the first half. We're going to see the second half here in a minute. Raised us up with Christ. together raised with Christ. When Christ was raised from the dead, we were raised up with Him. Raised to new life together with Him. This is the second half of being raised with Christ. It is God's doing. It's His accomplishment. And finally, seated us with. We are together seated with Christ. Again, it's God's doing. You see that? It's not our doing. We don't earn or work Getting seated. We don't do something that compels God to seat us. It's out of His own character and His own love. It's not by our own efforts. We don't work to get to a place that we've done it.

It's God's accomplishment. It is the end result. Do you notice? He's taken us through these things. It is the end result of the identifications. When you get all done, we're not left in the grave. When you get all done, we're not even left resurrected on planet Earth. And it's a real good thing we didn't get halfway ascended and stop there. But instead, we are seated with Christ. That's where God leaves us. That's where we're left. And that's the final point. We have been seated with Christ. That is the position and the place in which He has identified us.

Something to bring out, and this is, I think, valuable because if we put ourselves in the position of these Ephesians, we pointed out in Ephesians 1.10 and Colossians 1.20, when we were going through them, that the Bible describes three heavens. One is the Earth's atmosphere, the second is the solar system and outer space, and the third is the heaven where God dwells. Three heavens, not the Islamic seventh heaven. Remember what we studied a couple weeks ago is that the pagans all believe that the demons inhabited the air around us. They looked at the air around them as being inhabited by these evil spirits.

Then the other thing we pointed out is there at Ephesus was the temple of Artemis. There at Ephesus was the temple that was the seventh or one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Ephesians were very proud of it, although they worshipped at least 50 gods that we know of. Artemis, which is this second one here, had actually a garland of astrological symbols around her neck.

The people who lived in Ephesus were constantly in fear of the demons who were inhabiting the air and the astrological powers that were controlling their lives, and they would appeal to Artemis to manipulate those astrological powers. They were in constant dread of a fate over which they had no control, because they had no God that loved them or cared about them, unless they made some appeal by their own works and their own efforts.

That's why when Paul comes to them and said, Guess where you are. You're seated above it all. You're seated above the place that you've been worried about your whole life, where you think the demons live. You are seated above the solar system and those stars there, where you're so concerned about appealing to Artemis. You're already there now.

Do you see? the Ephesians could do when they looked at this is they go, have you ever had that kind of an experience? Somebody gives you some news and it's great relief. Maybe it's been worried about somebody that you thought was lost or had an accident or maybe someone you know had a serious illness. Paul gave them immensely good news. But if you think about it, this isn't just for the ancients.

Aren't we in a position where we're constantly worried about the world anyway? All the circumstances we find ourselves in, all the things that are going on and we're kind of under the circumstances, it's easy to do, isn't it? That's what the world communicates. As we were talking about in the elective this morning, the world is constantly communicating messages to you.

The world says you're deficient because you don't use this deodorant. The world says you are not going to be fulfilled and satisfied and happy because you lack our mint. We've got this gum that you've got to chew, and if you don't chew that, you will be less than a whole person. That's the message that the world gives you. You must have this Chevy until next year, when we want to sell you another one, or you will somehow be totally dissatisfied.

That's the world's message. What does he do here? The world's going to send us messages. He says, hey, you believers here in the United States that have so much in the way of physical wealth, You've been seated in the heavenlies. All the circumstances you're concerned about, the things that the world is telling you that you have to have to be satisfied, you're seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Why is the rest of this a concern? This is where you are. Not where you're going to be. Yes, that'll happen later. But the message here is, this is where you are. And it's not just a place, it's with Him.

Now we look at Colossians 1.22 and he says, Yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. And this addresses a question that may come to us. Let's take a look at it. One of the things we pointed out some weeks back is this reconciliation. Notice the direction of reconciliation. And you have this on your handout.

This is not reconciling God to us. God doesn't need to be reconciled to us. God is the absolute. We're the one that needs to move. Therefore, it's not just that God meets us in the middle. We are the ones, instead, that need to be reconciled to God. That's the direction of reconciliation, and so we show it graphically this way. But notice that the reconciliation has an in-order that.

In order to present you before Him, now one thought you may have is, me, before Him? I'm the one that's blown it. I could write all day long and I wouldn't exhaust the ways I've blown it. I'm the one that doesn't deserve this. What am I going to be like standing before Him? This answers it. The Lord has taken the action to make us holy. Those who believe have been made holy. Blameless, positionally blameless before the Lord. Beyond reproach. Beyond reproach.

You might look at your life and say, but man, I'm not those. That's not what He's looking at. I've got good news for you. It's not your life He's looking at. It's Christ's life. If it was your righteousness or my righteousness, yep, we'd be in bad shape being presented before the Lord. But it's His righteousness, it's His holiness, it's His character. And notice that it is the Lord's motivation out of unconditional love towards us that He does this. It's all His doing. It's not ours. It's not our best efforts. It's not, oh, I'm going to try really hard this week. That was a really good sermon, and that really motivated me, so I'm going to try extra hard. No. That's not the point.

The point here is these qualities are entirely Christ qualities. And by faith in Him, we've been given these qualities. When the Lord looks at us, He sees Him. That's why. That's why we are presentable before the Lord. When we look at this, our blessings are unfathomable. Imagine you have been seated, past tense, with Christ in the heavenly places, in the position we have with the Lord, we are holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

Not because of our best efforts, not because we tried really hard, but because we have His character. It's what God has done and not our own efforts. As we look at this passage, look at what the Lord has done. The Lord has left us after these identifications. The Lord has left us Seated with Christ our Savior the one who paid the price for us that we could not pay in the heavenlies It doesn't start when I go home to be with him There's all kinds of you know spirituals about you know Waiting until I go to heaven and later on it'll be better and all those kinds of things this starts the moment you believe Seated with Christ with him in the heavenlies and Why did the Lord do this? The Lord desires in this to have fellowship with us. Not then, yes then, but now.

Seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Intimacy with Him right now. And a perspective from which to look upon everything in the world. When we go through a difficult circumstance, we are still in the middle of that circumstance seated in the heavenlies. When we blow it, we're still positionally in the heavenlies. Can you imagine that? We don't have to run off and hide for a while. We are seated in the heavenlies.

How wonderful to behold the Lord and to be, by God's doing, not ours, worthy of it. Holy, blameless, and beyond reproach. What a marvelous thing He's done. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You that by faith in Your Word, we see where You have put us, and even more importantly, with whom You have placed us.

And Lord, we ask that You draw our hearts to that intimacy that You desire with us. That our Savior, even as He looked at the cross, He said, ah, it's a bargain. If it means fellowship with these believers, then I will pay the price. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross. And Lord, we give you thanks, Lord, for the character that we have that is not ours by our best efforts, but it is yours by your grace and mercy. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.