The Position & Possessions of the Believer # 33 (Lesson 35)

Okay, I didn't quite finish last week when we were talking about glory and I had gotten down to actually, we were working through the ninth question And I'd ask how does God's purpose in Romans 8.28 relate to our being glorified? And what I wanted to just finish up was that Christ is the image of God in fullness and perfection. And his whole issue while he was here was to show out the perfections of the invisible God. Christ and Christ alone has represented God to man, as he alone was perfect man before God.

Now, the issue, and maybe we'll talk some about this today, has Christ left the planet? What do you think? What's that? He said he left the planet. Yeah. Did he leave? Physically, he did. Is he still here, though? What kind of vehicle does he drive around in these days? That's right. Exactly right. He's still here.

And the issue is, is that The glorification of the believer is the manifestation of the life of Christ in and through you. So he's still here, as ever much as he was when he was here physically. So my last question then was, what assurance do we have that glorification is a possession of ours? What assurance do we have that glorification is a possession of ours? There you go. The Word of God is the assurance that we have it. And the other assurance is the witness of the Spirit Himself. Alright, took care of that quickly. Let's go to number 33, which is complete in hymn.

Colossians 2.10 was the verse, but actually I think maybe to do this right We probably ought to do 9 and 10, so turn to Colossians chapter 2 verse 9 and 10. Just to give you a little bit of background on Colossians. Colossians is an interesting book and it parallels Ephesians in some respects.

But it's different, too, in other respects. Ephesians is the one letter that places the believer in the heavenlies, in Christ. Everything in Ephesians is from that perspective. When you come to Colossians, the frame of reference or the viewpoint from which it is written is the believer is positioned in the heavenlies, but he's living down here. and his focus and his attention and all of his life, so to speak, is from the heavenlies, but the frame of reference is he's living here, where Ephesians has you only here in your position. Now, in Colossians there were two big issues why the book was written.

Anybody know what they are? Or even one of them? It was a warning against a couple of issues. And the reason I'm asking it is because they are incredibly the same issues we deal with today. Exactly the same issues. What do you think? Not so much that. No. More subtle than law. One is tradition. primarily religious tradition. We've always done it that way. We're just going to continue to do it that way.

But the real subtle one is that the reliance or the beginning of the reliance by believers on human wisdom, philosophy, things like that, human or earthly viewpoint rather than functioning based on your life being hid with Christ and God. So what the Apostle does is he focuses these believers in on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He Himself is all wisdom and knowledge. He is. Not human thought, not philosophy, not tradition, not religion. He personally.

And so that's where the focus goes. And in order to get these Colossians to kind of understand And he wouldn't have used this term, but we use it. Their identification with Christ, verses 9 and 10, kind of set that up. So somebody read 9 and 10. Anybody? I'm sorry? Colossians chapter 2, verse 9 and 10. So, interesting little verse.

In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. So my first question was, what does the word dwell mean? Does it mean that all the fullness of God is hanging out? What does it mean to dwell in the sense? Be at home? Anybody else? Abide. Abide is a great word. So, in Christ Jesus, a dwelling in Him is this rest of the phrase.

Why do you think the Apostle would have to say that? In Him, given the little preamble that I gave you, why would the Apostle have to say, In Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead. Why would he say it that way? Did he have to persuade them that Jesus was God? Answer, yeah, probably did. That he was, in fact, God. And that all wisdom and all knowledge is present within him.

Don't you think, I mean, we all think like Greeks think. You know how a Greek thinks. I'm the center of the universe and what I do in my lifetime is I go out into my environment and I learn as much as I can about the environment I live in. Philosophy, theology, physics, science, literature and I bring all that information into me and then I decide what's true or not. That's how a Greek thinks. Isn't that how we think? We send our kids to college so that they can think just like that. Isn't that why we do it? That whatever their course of study is, that they can become proficient in whatever they do. Is that the premise that this verse lays out? Answer no. So what does he say?

He's saying in Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead. So where is the resident of all truth and knowledge? Is it in me, the human being? It's in Christ. My second question then was, why is the fullness of God dwelling in Jesus important to us? Why is that important to us? We're in Him.

And oh, by the way, let's look at the word fullness. What do you think the word fullness here means? It's an easy word. It just means to fill up, fulfilling, absolutely full to the brim, overflowing. So the fullness of God, all that God is, dwells in Christ.

Now, I know the Colossians had a tendency to rely on philosophy as a means to solve problems, but we never had that, do we? Do we view that as a problem, as an issue in our lives? What do you think? You guys must all be holier than I am, because I do it all the time. Politically correctness is a really good one. You know, how am I supposed to act? What am I supposed to think? I find myself in a stressful situation comes towards me. Am I equipped to handle it?

On Thursday night we're in Hebrews chapter 12 talking about trials, suffering, chastisement, that kind of thing. And it's interesting, the writer of Hebrews tells the Jews, hey look, you guys cannot or you should not take lightly the child training of the Lord. To take lightly is a very interesting term because what it means is, it doesn't necessarily mean the opposite, you better take this really seriously, what it means is that you should not take what God has sent you to grow up and try to implement and fix and work through this issue with your own strength, your own philosophy and your own understanding. Because it's a spiritual event and not a philosophical one.

See that? So whenever we find stresses and tribulation from the Lord coming into our life, I think it's natural, humanly natural, at least in the beginning, to try to deal with it and solve it with our own wisdom. As an example, well, given enough time, it'll work itself out. If I throw enough money at it, it'll fix. If I pray more, it'll go away. you know, rather than realizing that it is something from the Lord that's designed for us to be conformed to the very image. And at the end of, I think it's Hebrews 12, 8 or 9, it's a very interesting little phrase in there, that God sent this so that we might become partakers of His holiness.

Well, it's interesting, if you deal or attempt to deal With situations in your life with your own philosophy and wisdom, what do you miss? You might be able to solve the problem, or at least tolerate the problem, but what do you miss? You miss becoming the partaker of God's holiness. It seems to me that's a big miss.

That's more than striking up. organizations that have a big project that they're working on, Christian organizations. And then they have things, roadblocks, come in their way that they can't accomplish what they want to. Some of them may be illegally, or some of them will struggle. So then the people from the Christian organization are putting it out as Satan's fight against man.

But yet is that a valid position? Is it more, are they missing the whole purpose of the situation? Do you think that got on the tape? Should I repeat it like I can? The point of the question is, and correct me where I'm wrong, is that how do you deal with contemporary Christian organizations? that have a plan and an agenda or a program that they're trying to implement and they find that there's resistance either from society or protest groups, the political correct group or whoever resists them. And their view is, the Christian's group view is, oh this is just an attack of Satan and what we need to do is thwart him to carry out our mission. Alright, what do you think? That's a great question. What do you think? Give me some input.

There's a great example of that going on right now with Ken Ham and his creation museum in Indiana. Boy, you know, there's a hundred thousand people that come the first week and there are five protestors. Guess where the press was? With the five protestors.

It's very interesting that Christian groups or leaders come up with an agenda and they think this is God's will. So they put this plan in place, right? There's an assumption that what they're doing is what God would have them do. Now it may be, it may not be. Most of them you have to wonder if they're designed to glorify God. Then if there is resistance, what's the natural resistance?

Our program is so wonderful that we got Satan's attention and now he's after us. We had a guy come into our Tuesday group who kind of had this frame of reference, and I said to him, Satan doesn't know your name, he doesn't know you live in Denver, he doesn't know your address, and he doesn't care. He said, sure he does. I said, no, you have to understand, Satan's not omnipresent. He's in the Middle East someplace whacking on somebody, and you are not that important. You've got a sin nature, and that's all he cares about. So what do you think?

I mean, the first thing I think you have to do if you're spiritually diligent is it has to come from the Lord and you have to know it. And I must say, there are few and far between that are like that. It has to be biblically based. It has to be something that God specifically lines up with scripture.

Anytime there's a program or, well, we think we ought to do so and so, Gee, it sounds like a good idea to me. There has to be this awareness that, well, is this something that the Lord would call us to do based on his word, or is this just a good idea, a good Christian idea that we came up with? And the whole question there begs the influence of the Spirit of God. You see that? What I've been able to recognize, especially around this place, is that if the Spirit of God is leading us, then we need a program. We need to get a program going, because other churches have it, or gee, it's a good idea, or there's a need.

Is that a good reason to do something? Not necessarily. But God comes along and He creates the need, He raises up people, He does circumstances and situations, and our job is to be as intimate with Him as we possibly can to see the direction He's going in, to give an example.

We could sit down and have a discussion, take a straw vote, and maybe cast lots and come up with another elder, rather than waiting for God to raise the person up and recognizing what God's doing and approaching them and saying, hey, you know, looks to me like you're functioning as an elder. You ever thought about being one? Pays big. Do you see the difference?

So I think that Courtney and I have been talking and he's working on it more and I am a little bit on purpose driven life and purpose driven church. You've got to have the purpose. And Vern's response is that it's a life-driven purpose. You've got to have the life first, then the purpose is there. Most Christian organizations are, we've got the purpose first, and then we try to fit the life in there someplace along the line. And if we get resistance to it, it's got to be Satan who's doing it.

You know? So, I don't know. Things go, you know, have a great plan, great things, things go great, and they change completely. And, you know, I think of Joseph, you know, thrown in the pit, and what man meant, or ill, or whatever, God meant to a bit. And, you know, in my own life, you know, being here and the other thing. You know, I just go back to God is God.

And He will allow, you know, testing and trials and every James part. What is that? It's, you know, that you may be perfect. There's trials. And the other thing, God can say no. You know, what we want is an answer yes all the time. Sure. And God can say no, and that's a perfectly valid answer. Or maybe a wait, or, you know, and all those things.

And just going back to And he may be working on you, or working on that group, to focus on him more, before he lets you go on. Let's just take the verses we're dealing with this morning. In Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you're complete in him. And take last week's glorification and the weeks before that.

Does God intend for us to have an intimacy with him, right now? Well, don't you think he's going to let us in on what he's got in mind if we have that intimacy through the Word? So, if that intimacy is there, which on his side, he's coming at us full on. If that intimacy is in line, and we're diligent studiers of the Word of God, how are you going to miss? Can you make a wrong decision? How many think you can make a wrong decision? Not two?

Then, we're going to have to erase Romans 8.28 out of the Bible.

Because even if it seems wrong to us, He's going to use it for our good. You see that? When you sin, we were talking the other night about sinning. The difference between child training in this stewardship and the Old Testament is, is that the Jews always viewed trials and tribulations as punishment for breaking the law. Do we ever, as Christians, suffer punishment? We don't. We don't. You know why? There's no condemnation. Who took the punishment?

Christ took it all. So God is free now to take your sinfulness, your whatever, your idiocy, your laziness, your whatever, and use it for your good. Even a guy that comes up with a spiritual agenda, pours a bunch of holy water on it, binds Satan and off he goes. Is God using that for that guy's good? Yeah, he is. Maybe not.

The whole purpose behind learning the 33 or 34 things we're discussing is so that we will rely on God to be God. And we are His sons, His offspring, and positionally we have all of these incredible blessings and we can count on them. No fair going to God like David did and said, don't take your spirit from me. Would that be a legitimate prayer for a Christian? No, it's not. Why not? Because you already are in Christ, you already have the Spirit of God, so you wouldn't even go there.

Well, if that's the case, then in terms of agendas and directions and decisions and all of that kind of stuff that we do every day in our life, You know, only the old man thinks he's alone and has to rely on philosophy or his education or whatever to make a decision to go in the right direction. Has God not laid out your whole life and mine right here? Sure has. Sure has. I'll read something from John Darby about this.

Man as a child of Adam is not at the center of the immense system of God's ways. Oh, gee, that's too bad. Out of Christ and without Christ, he does not know the center. He speculates without foundation and without end, only to lose himself more and more. His knowledge of good and evil and the energy of his moral faculties do but lead him astray to the more. because he employs them on higher questions than those which simply relate to physical things. They produce in him the need of reconciling apparently inconsistent principles which cannot be reconciled without Christ. Moreover, the tendency of man is always to make himself as he is the center of everything, and this alone renders everything false.

So don't you love the world? The world is populated by billions of self-centered individuals, right? And over here is God and everything is centered in him. So you think these people oppose him? Sure they do. But over on this side are the Christians who have these sin natures and those sin natures are just as self-centered as the old man's, as the non-believer's sin nature. They're totally self-centered and they're trying to get God to do their deal. Aren't they?

Think about it. Here comes the blessing from the Lord in a person's life that causes them consternation. Trial. Child training. They get on the phone. They call up Nancy. Nancy, you've got this severe problem. Put it out in the prayer chain. What do the people in the prayer chain do? They pray to God to do what?

Cut it out. Stop doing that. I don't want to grow. I want to stay self-centered. Right? Isn't that what we do? rather than thanking God, taking it out of His hand, because we understand what He's doing, and we can thank Him for everything that comes our way. I'm not criticizing Nancy. Don't go tell her I did. Maybe I need to change the way I phrase the question. So what does the phrase or the formula, in him, mean? If you can answer this one, you're going to come up here and lead the class.

Yeah, that's good. It's used in various forms over 200 times in the New Testament. That little phrase, in him, in Christ, This one little phrase includes the whole range of Christian dogma, the whole thing. And there is nothing more expansive and yet nothing less understood and appreciated. Do you agree with that statement? Yeah, I do.

God has proposed to sum up all things in Christ and that outside of him there's going to be nothing which has any place in the eternal purpose and intentions of God. The plan, the method, the resources, the times, the eternities are all in Christ. So is it important for you and me to come under this heading of I am in Christ? Well, if God is going to sum up everything in Christ, maybe that's a good place to be.

I'm a realtor. Location's everything. You know? It's really important. Your turn. What does IN CHRIST mean? Give me some elements of it. It means I go to Holly Hills. It must be IN CHRIST. What does IN CHRIST mean? This is, by the way, called the IN CHRIST class. You've been here for however long you've been here. You should have an answer. What does IN CHRIST mean?

No condemnation. Okay? He's our very life. He's our very life. Anybody else? We have everything except deity in Christ. All spiritual blessings. All of them. And when we say we have everything in Christ, that also means we have fellowship and communication just like he has. And the first part of one John, amazing verses in there that talk about intimacy. Who else? In Christ, in Christ. Related to God? Were his children not just by creation? Were his legitimate, organic offsprings? Yeah. Adult sons. Anybody else? That's right. That's right.

I mean, the 33 or 34 things that we've been talking about, all are based on this issue of being in Christ. What's interesting is that there's all kinds of discussions about whether people are believers or not, whether they're living the life or not, but what's the bottom line? Are they in Christ or aren't they? If they're in Christ, they have the Spirit of God. If they're not, they don't. That's pretty simple in terms of the language.

But God has determined to place us in Christ and then he's also determined to educate us about what that is. John 17, he talks about the intimacy. He says, Father, the intimacy that I have with you, I want them to have too. Why? Because we're in His Son. If we are to have a relationship with God, what is the means God employs to effect this fellowship?

Now this is kind of a sequential question. If God says, OK, I've decided I'm going to have a relationship with that person over there. How am I going to do it? I think I'll show up in the burning bush. What kind of relationship is that? Maybe I'll go visit him in his tent. What's that? It puts him in Christ. How does it get him there? That person exercises faith. That's what he does. Now what does God do once he exercises faith?

Death, Burial and Resurrection. So now he's in Christ and so now he can have a relationship with Him. Now why is that really important that all that's got to happen in order for there to be a relationship? Well, we have to die first. Keep going. And then be raised in newness of life. Maybe use this as an example.

The whole entire world is listening on channel 7 and God is broadcasting on 9. See that? Because nobody in the world has 9 on their button and they can't understand the language anyway. So God has to recreate us in Christ in order for us to even comprehend what's going on on Channel 9.

But He has done that, so He has not necessarily come down to our level. He came down here, gathered us up and took us back up to His level so that He could fellowship with us on His level. That's how important being in Christ is. The relationship is on His level, not ours. That's very cool. Does that make sense? That our relationship is with him on his level?

Why does Paul use the word bodily in verse 9? In Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Why does he use that? Why would that be important? Yeah, that's right. That's exactly what he's trying to do. It's not just a spiritual thing. It's an entire human being thing. Body, soul and spirit. He had a real true body from the incarnation and in that person, body, soul and spirit dwells the fullness of the Godhead. Human being.

So what perfection does Christ represent before God? And what does the word perfection mean? completes the better word. Without blemishes is kind of that, oh, I'm getting better until I get cleaned up viewpoint. Perfection is really, I've come into the fullness of the design of which I was designed and engineered. God created a man to be a certain way, and if it's Christ, he's perfect. He has all the elements and all the attributes of a man before God who's perfect.

So what does the word complete then mean in verse 10? The Greek word is pelerou. It means to cram, to level up, to furnish, to satisfy, to execute, to finish, So now think about this, in Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of God, the Godhead in a body, and then this next phrase says, you're complete in Him. So what's the word complete mean? Major Morris, almost there. Lacking nothing. Now you ready for the $12 question? Raise your hands if you walk around every day from a viewpoint, I'm complete in Christ. No fair, put your hand down. If it's true, why don't we live that way? Are we not complete in Him? Have we not been totally perfected? He says we are. The point to the Colossians was, look, you don't need to rely on any worldly system or philosophy or mindset.

If the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ and you're complete in Him, where is going to be the source of all your understanding? It's going to be Him. There's a built-in problem with that. Do you know what the built-in problem is? Especially men.

When you start talking about dependence and reliance and focus on the Lord Jesus Christ, what fear comes into your mind about this fast? Oh my goodness. People will reject us, but God's given me responsibilities. I have to feed my family, I've got to do all this stuff in the world, and if I'm focused in on the Lord, my family's going to starve. Have you ever had that fear? I have.

I've got to use all these skills I learned in the world to make a living. God doesn't know anything about the real estate business. Really. Jesus wasn't an engineer, he was just kind of a teacher. What did he know? What did he know about computers? They weren't even around when he was here. Do you see the thinking? And that's the old man's viewpoint.

That you have to live in both worlds and you have to take the best of the world to enhance your Christian environment. Isn't that right? That's kind of back to what you're talking about. I'm going to take the best out of the world, create a Christian environment and we're going to move forward. What's the problem with that? With me thinking of that personally or on a bigger level. What is the problem with that viewpoint? It goes against the verse.

In Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead. Anything left out? And you're complete in Him. So He is the total and only source of wisdom and knowledge. Only. Only. So that means I'm not going to school. I'm going to stay home and sit in my chair until he infuses me with what he wants me to do.

What you discover is that in Christ Jesus, the fullness of his knowledge includes the whole environment that you live in, everything you're involved in, not only financially, personally, on every aspect of your life. The difference is that his frame of reference is without sin, and because he's God, it's perfect. Can you rely on that? Can you trust God about that kind of thing? What do you think? You can. Next week you're going to tell me how much you do.

No. So, what it means to be complete in Him is that if the fullness of the Godhead is in Christ, then He becomes the object of our delight in whom we possess all things. Do we? Now think about it. The verse says that in Christ Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead. And then it says, you're complete in Him. Does that mean you get the same thing? What do you think? No? Not sure? Maybe?

The other thing you have in Him is a position above all creation, in the perfection which has placed Christ there. A guy said to me a long time ago, and I originally was sort of afraid to go there, But he said, you know, you read the epistles of Paul in the New Testament, and you're reading about the Lord Jesus Christ, but you're also reading about you, because that's who you are. Other than deity, everything that is talked about in Paul's epistles is what's true of Christ is also true of you. So, if we are to know the complete truth, then what must we study? I've got lots of books in my library, come on over. What must we study? We need to study Christ Himself. So where do we study Him?

That's right. That's exactly right. To know Him. We know Him in Christ as a living person. And I think that the transition for a growing believer lies right there. objective fact of the Word of God to a living person, that he is a living person, and that he desires to have fellowship with us. And he lived once bodily in this world, who still has a body above the world. We know from God, from his Word, that in the person of Christ himself dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

Most of us look at studying the Word of God or spending any time with the Lord Jesus as something we have to do to get ready for Mike's class. Or if you're teaching, I'm getting ready. Or if you're going to sit with somebody and have a discussion about some issue in the Word of God, maybe you'll do your homework or maybe you spend a few minutes every day just in fellowship with them. But the rest of the time I've got to be out hitting the bricks in the world and learning what's going on out there. Really?

Do you think God would make time for each one of us to spend increasingly more amounts of time with him? In his word? Not to make you philosophers and theologians, but why? Why would God draw you to spend more time in his word? Why would he do that? Sure, he wants you to know him. And he wants you just not to know about him, he wants you to have an intimate, personal fellowship with him, just like you have with other people. To me, I don't think there's anything more important than for the believer to understand that God has put us all together, given us his word, and indwelt each one of us with his spirit for that purpose. That's the underlying purpose that He has for every one of us. That we would know and behold the glory of His Son, have intimacy with Him, be loved by Him, to love Him back. So many times, the study of the Word of God is an academic enterprise rather than a fellowship enterprise. See that? So, is that the first bell? Can any man live the Christ life? Not without Him.

She knew it was a trick question. All this, which is nothing more than quoting scripture, will serve to emphasize the divine inclusiveness and exclusiveness and will heap, we trust, the recognition of the great fact that no man can live the Christian life. What do you think about that statement? Can any man live the Christian life? Answer no. You put a caveat on it. I just wanted a yes or no answer.

That means you can do it. How many Christian lives are there? That's right. So who lives it? He lives it. What do you do? Sit in your chair. What do you do? Talk to me about a life. What is a life? What is it about? Boy, you guys are really on it today. Huh? Rest? But talk to me about the life of Christ. What is it? What is a life? Define a life. What's the essence of a life? Who He is.

So if something is what it is, then it has to function based on what it is. Do you agree? All life is based on principles. It functions based on the principle of what it is. Isn't that right? So if it functions based on the principle of what it is, or who he is, how does Christ function?

If it's his life, he functions a certain way, does he not? Does he ever have to sort of take stock of how he's doing? He doesn't? Does he ever have to sit down with his father and say, how's it going? Now his life functions, I hate to use this word, but it's the best word I can think of, godly instinctively. Do you understand what I mean? It functions his way all the time.

So, here we are as believers. We've been placed in Christ and it's His life that's to be lived out through us. Well, the one thing we do know is that He doesn't need any coaching. Do we need coaching on how to do it? What's the one thing we do as our involvement in the life? We believe. And what do we believe? We believe what the Word of God tells us. In Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Okay, I believe that. And oh, by the way, you're complete in Him. I believe that too.

Let's take the 33 or 34 things that we've been discussing. Next week when we talk about the one or two, We've made this point before. If anybody in this class just grabbed onto one of those things, in terms of the life that's in Christ, it would totally change the way you live. Just one of them.

But instead, we sort of say to God, we do believe him, but oh, not really, and sit back in our smugness waiting for God to do something, or we go out and do some spiritual push-ups to demonstrate, oh, we do have the life. Aren't you proud of me, God?

The life of the Lord Jesus Christ lived through me is a life of incredible dynamics and energy that will totally wear out your body, but you're resting. That doesn't seem to go together, does it? Paul said at the end of his life he was spent, yet he rested. He suffered tremendously, yet he rested. So there is a life. I think it's important for us to understand that every life has characteristics that show forth and manifest what the life is.

I use the term my dog. My dog is a Labrador. I didn't have to teach him how to bark or to lick or to do what he does, you know, because he's a dog. I don't have to be taught the Christian life in the sense that, oh yeah, I'm an entity and there's Christ and he's going to teach me how to do it. No, the reason to place me in Christ and put the Spirit of God in me is so that he can live his life out through me.

I function by faith in what the facts are. I believe them. Dear Father, how we thank you. For us, I guess today I would pray that we would more fully, conditionally enter into what it is to be complete in Your Son. That we would be able to just behold His glory and have all of the influence of the glory of Your Son upon us all the time. We thank You, we pray in His name. Amen.