Our New Home, Heaven. -- Ephesians 1:3-7

Sunday morning we've been going through the book of Galatians. We're going to take a little side journey this morning. Those of you who were here on Friday night, the theme that we talked about, the first part of the celebration was, what did Christ leave behind in order to come to the earth? And we talked about that.

And the second part of that was, well, He came to do what? What was He here to do? And so today we want to talk about the third part of that journey, is that He has gone back to the heavenlies now, and who did He take with Him? So, Jesus came from eternity into time and space, and He did so, as we discovered, by virgin conception and birth. He came for one purpose only, and that was to die.

That was what He and the Father had worked out because of the issues of sin. The Lord Jesus and the Father had indicated to Adam, if you sin in Genesis, you will surely die. You will be separated from Me for all eternity. and Adam sinned as we know and he died and he was separated. Now the problem was with that when it relates to us we recognize there's only one penalty for sin and that penalty is death.

There isn't 40 years of hard labor and a hundred dollar fine. It's death. So and because he was the first human being and God had set up a principle where like begets like, and birds become from birds, and human beings come from human beings. That also was true spiritually. So whatever the spiritual condition that Adam had, we inherited by just being born from our father, from his father, and so forth, all the way back to Adam. So we suffer the same consequences.

Romans 5.12 says, therefore, just as through one man Sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned. We all sinned in Adam.

So, if the penalty is death for the sinner, why wouldn't the sinner's own death be enough to compensate God for the insult of personal offense against him. Why couldn't you die for your own sins? Of course, I don't know if you entertain thoughts like that that I have. Why couldn't you die for your own sins?

Well, the answer is surely because we aren't enough satisfaction for a holy God. We could not, by being a creature, satisfy the Creator. We couldn't do it. So God, being holy and righteous, needed to be satisfied regarding sinfulness or the insult against His character. So in order to satisfy Him, it had to be somebody, a special human being. And that human being was the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about this. The Word of God, Jesus Christ, left eternity, and He identified Himself with humanity by human birth. After he fulfilled his part of the eternal covenant, all three members of the Godhead raised him from the dead. So the question is, raised to what?

Romans 6.4 says, Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, even so we might walk in newness of life. to that verse is the newness of life, a brand new, entirely new kind of and quality of life that wasn't before. And that life is the resurrected Christ. So as we celebrate now the second person of the Trinity being conceived and born into the human race, as believers in the person and work of Christ, we celebrate that you, have been born into a new human race. Just like Jesus was born into this race, we have been born into a new race, a resurrected race of Christ. Christ's birth brought Him here, and your rebirth brings you there. Think about that. That my being born again puts me there. John 17, Some of the verses there are really amazing. Spell this out very carefully.

Jesus said, even as I am not of this world, I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but keep them from the evil one. They're not of the world even as I'm not of the world. I don't ask on behalf of those, but those who also would believe in me through their word. That's us.

Everybody here. that they may all be one, even as we are one, Father, you and me, and I and you, that they also may be one in us, so that the world might believe that you sent me." When the Lord Jesus prays to the Father, and He says, Father, I want them to be one with me, do you think the Father said, well, let me think about that? No. It was absolutely done. As we've talked about on Friday night, when God determines it in His mind, it's done. It's finished. It may not have been implemented yet, but it's done. In verse 24, John 17, Father, I desire they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am. Where is He? He's in the heavenlies. so that they may see my glory, which you have given me, and for you love me before the foundations of eternity."

So, there's a new birthplace. When we were reborn in Christ, where was our new birthplace? We were born into heaven. And we may not have physically be in heaven, but that's our home, and that's where we are. God has raised us up together in Ephesians 2, 6, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's our home. So we're to settle down there and we're to live there and we're to grow precisely where we have been reborn in Christ Jesus above.

Think about this. Do we not often entertain the thought that there's something more that remains to be done either by ourselves or by Him in order for us to draw near to Christ? We all entertain that thought once in a while. Do we not often therefore become occupied with the circumstances of worship rather than with the Lord Jesus Christ just Himself? Are we not often untrue to Him in questioning our title to be near to Him? because we find distance in our own hearts as if it were the warmth of our affections instead of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ which brought me near to Him. I have entertained those thoughts in my mind a lot because I'm not listening to the Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in me.

I'm being perfectly cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus. The holiest of all is our place before the Father, and so is simply upon the ground of what His sacrifice has accomplished for each one of us. Our dwelling place is in the light, not by reason of our subjective condition, but because the Lord Jesus Himself has made the position ours by putting away our sins and by bringing us to the Father. So I think our hearts have to enter into something more than just sort of looking back and into the waters of judgment that we've all been delivered out of because the Lord Jesus rose out of them and we left our sins and death behind and we left our judgment behind forever. It's wonderful as as wonderful as that is such a joy could never carry us through the desert where faith and patience are tried and tested every day if that's all we do is look back and we're thankful that God has rescued us that's not enough to live this life because we're assaulted every day by that world that we were delivered out of we talked about on Friday night that we weren't the word delivered isn't the right word the word rescued We were rescued.

What is needed is that the heart be carried into glory, the glory of heaven. Our hearts need to go there in the present sense of peace with the Father and the consciousness of our standing in His present favor, the favor that is even better than life itself. To be in the presence of God and be in favor for Him is better than your life. There's nothing like that.

Hebrews 10, 19, and 20 says, therefore, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He consecrated for us through the veil. You know what's terrific about these verses in Hebrews? There's never a verse that says, oh, you stay for a while and you get to leave. Once you go in, that's it. We're in there. And what the writer of Hebrews is encouraging us to do is to enter into that position and stay there. So the point is, believers don't know who they are, for the most part. They certainly have trouble understanding where they are, and they don't know what they have in Christ.

So what is this place, the Holy of Holies? The Lord Jesus told Saul when he appeared to him on the road to Damascus, I've appeared to you for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness of both of the things which you see right now and the things which I will appear to you. Other than Stephen, Paul was the first man to ever peer into heaven and to see the glorious Lord Jesus. And the Lord Jesus said to Paul, this is going to be your ministry. I've shown you what heaven is, and you're going to teach this to everyone on the earth, that they in fact belong and are seated in the heavenlies in me. That's what your ministry is going to be. It's not going to be Jewish. It's not going to be kingdom. It's not going to be blessings on the earth. It's going to be where I am in the heavenlies. So what does he see? He not only sees the resurrected Christ, but He sees Him glorified. He sees Him and is commissioned to minister and witness of these things that He sees.

So here then is the introduction to what we might call the Gospel of God. This is the good news that God has presented to His church, you and me. And it's according to the fullness of God's heart and purpose. That's the motivation from God's perspective. So, question, can anyone for a moment hesitate to accept the beautiful directive of this wondrous gospel beginning and consummating in the bright full circle of the Father's presence and glory? Shouldn't.

What God does is he unfolds through Christ the deep full counsels of his heart. He lays it out for us through Paul. And the scene where all this can be displayed is the glory into which Paul is now introduced. And seeing the Lord Jesus in the glory is the pivot and the center of the gospel that Paul is going to teach, which is now entrusted to him.

And he says that, he says in Ephesians 3, unto me who am less than all the saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles, what? the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery. What's the mystery? Which from the beginning and the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things in Jesus Christ. The mystery is really laid out for us in Paul's epistles. We're heavenly. We belong to heaven. We don't belong on the earth anymore. We're here for a while, but we're heavenly people.

The righteousness of God is established at the cross, and at the cross of Christ, He bearing Himself the judgment of man. He took care of, maybe put it this way, God took care of every single barrier between you and Him. He took care of it. And He doesn't leave anything for you to do, other than believe Him, that He did take care of it. All of this judgment that was on us is gone because of what Christ has done. And there is an end now to all that offended God. It's been taken care of. He was made sin, Christ was made sin for us that we should be made the righteousness of God in Him. Isn't that interesting? He took care of the bad side so that we could be made His righteousness in Christ.

We have a standing before God that is exactly the same standing that the Lord Jesus Christ has. We might say it this way, there has been an end to the man and Adam. The old man was crucified with Christ. Hence, with the righteousness of God, there is another characteristic, namely the end of man in the flesh. Before God, you're not a man in the flesh anymore. Then comes eternal life.

Grace reigns through the righteousness to eternal life through Christ Jesus, Romans 5.21. A further characteristic of this is that you are not in the flesh anymore, but you're in the Spirit.

It is the principle of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. And that principle has made us free from the principle of sin and death, we're free. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of His. You and I have the Spirit of Christ. We belong to Him, but we belong to Him where He is, in the heavenlies. So I encourage you to let your hearts endeavor to embrace all that is conferred on it in this word.

Righteousness, the righteousness of God has been established by Christ. the judicial ending of the old man has been established. We have been given the gift of eternal life. You know what eternal life is and how it's described in John 17? That we might know Him and the one who sent Him. That's eternal life.

The Spirit of Christ, so that Christ in me is the summing up as well as the fullness of all the blessings that we have. So Paul's job as a minister of God's gospel produces for those that believe a new order of existence after the order of a new man. And that new man is Christ lives in me.

It's not that the old man has received additions or advantages as in a legal religion as in the former gospel, but that I am made entirely new of him. who is the Son of God, and that the old man has been superseded and judicially put to an end in the cross of Christ.

So being crucified with Christ, it has no longer any recognized existence before God. Do you think about that? That before God today, right now, because we were all crucified with Christ, this old man doesn't exist before Him. He only sees us in Christ.

And so while I in my new creation am in Christ before the Father, He lives in me. Therefore, we see how the gospel of His Son positions every one of us before God in relation to God, and also in relation to the old Adamic man. The old Adamic man was set aside entirely and judicially and ended at the cross forever. we are now connected to individually with Christ as his life and head and possessed by the Holy Spirit so important for us now to understand our calling is heavenly we are an inherited saints the purpose of God for his glory in Christ these verses that I want you to take a look at and I put them out on the handout are particularly appropriate to what we're talking about. If you look at verse 3, it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, where? In heavenly places.

So we learn the source of all the blessings that we have. We learn the character of all the blessings that we have. We learn actually the beginning of the blessings that we have, and we learn the end of all the blessings. And they are so rich that it'll take eternity for us to even begin to understand them.

Above all that, the purposes of God have been accomplished through Christ. That's what He wants. So, what's the source? What is the source of all of this wonderful blessing that God has bestowed on us? It's the heart of God. It's His heart. That's what He wants. And the Lord Jesus and the Father are in unison with that, and so is the Spirit. God has been perfectly revealed in Christ. I think religion gets in the way of that.

In His pathway through the world as man, He manifested the infinite holiness and power of God and the perfect grace and love of the Father. It is to the heart of God, the Father, thus revealed that we are privileged to trace all of our blessings. You think about the blessings you have, you think about where they came from. They came right from the heart of the Father. That's where they came from.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us, isn't going to bless us, has already done it, with all the spiritual blessings, because we're spiritual beings, in the heavenly places. So, the Father has blessed us with spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. What does it mean by all? All.

A guy said to me, well, one time, he said, you know, I read this verse, but I asked God for this, that, and the other thing, and I didn't get it. And I said, well, the problem is that you're asking from a man who's separated from God in a world that you don't live in anymore to be blessed in that environment. You're now in heaven. You're a spiritual person. And you have been already blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, but not necessarily on the earth.

Not a single blessing that Christ, not a single blessing that Christ as a man enjoyed has been kept back. Nothing. We're blessed with all spiritual blessings, every single one of them. However much the profession of Christianity may confer outward benefits, because we do get benefits, there's no question about that in our environment, it ever remains that Christian blessings are spiritual and not necessarily material. As if we were to study the nation of Israel, they're all about earthly blessings. Our blessings are real because they have spiritual content.

We're sons. We're sons. We are organic sons of the God of the universe. We have unfettered acceptance as a son. There's never a time that you can't just sit down with your father and have a conversation with him. You don't have to go through any spiritual push-ups. There's no problem with forgiveness. Some of the blessings brought before us in the Scripture are spiritual blessings beyond the reach of the world's wealth. And they're secured through what Christ has done, and you get them, and I get them, simply by believing Him.

So what's the proper sphere of the blessings? And this is the one part that I want us to really think about. It's not earth, but it's heaven. We're blessed in heavenly places. On earth we may have a little, but in heaven we are unmeasuredly wealthy. All the spiritual and heavenly blessings are in connection with Christ, not because of our connection with Adam. They are totally in Christ. The blessings of the Jews were temporal, on earth, and in the line of Abraham. Ours are heavenly, they're spiritual, and they are in the line of Christ, and heavenly.

So unlike earthly blessings, they don't depend upon health, or riches, or possession, or position, or education, or nationality. They don't depend on any of those things. They're outside that whole realm of earthly things. and they will remain in their fullness when our life and our time is finished here, the earth closes up, and we go home to be with the Lord and enter into the fullness that we already have.

Verse 4 says, Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love. When did He choose you? When did He choose me? When did He determine that you and you and you and you would be with Him for all eternity? He did it before He ever created anything. He decided about that.

So we learn not only the source and character of the blessings that come from the heart of the Father, but we find that they are in the beginning before the foundation of the world. It was in far distant eternity that we were chosen in Christ. This involves a sovereign choice, entirely independent of all that we are, in connection with Adam and this world, in which nothing that transpires in time can alter any of this. Moreover, we're permitted to see not only the beginning of our blessings before the foundation of the world, but also the great end God has in view when the world shall pass away. God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that in the ages to come we may be before Him for the satisfaction of His heart that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love.

Now think about that. In order for you and I to be in the presence of a holy God, what's got to happen? God doesn't have to change, but we do. We have to become like God. We have to have the same blessing that God has. We have to be in the same relationship as the Lord Jesus Christ has with the Father. God's purpose was to have people before Him. And I think of that as we're in the same room with the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and we belong there. And we're just like Him. And so we can communicate. And He is overjoyed that we're there. That's His heart. And He made it possible. And we're going to be there for all eternity.

A friend of mine went home to be with the Lord several months ago, and he would call me up a couple of times because he knew he was going to go. He said, well, let's go to lunch, and I want you to tell me about heaven. So I talked to him about these verses. I said, do you really understand where you're headed? He didn't. But we spent some time talking about it.

I said, if you get it in your mind what's going to happen when you head to heaven, when you get there, you're going to find out, gee, I'm already there positionally, and these blessings that God talks about that are already yours, you're going to realize and enter into all of them. But in order for you to be qualified for that, you have to be in a condition that's absolutely suited to God.

Are we? Yes, we are. Yes, we are. Because we're suited to Him to be like Him, so that we can communicate with Him. We can love Him because He loves us on His level, not mine, on His. Only that which is like God can suit God. Hence, God will have us holy and without blame and in love. Think about that. Right now, and when we all leave the planet and go home to be with Him, we are holy, we are without blame, and we're in love with the Father and the Son.

This is really what God is and what is perfectly expressed in Christ as a man. He was holy in character. He was flawless in conduct. In nature He is love. God too will have us before Him in a character that is perfectly holy, in conduct, to which no blame can be attached, with a nature that is love, and can respond to that love, the love of God. God is love, and love cannot be content without a response in the object of His love. God will surround Himself with those who, like Christ as man, perfectly respond to His love. And so that He can delight in us, and we can delight in Him.

How do we realize this? How do we enter into this incredible thing that God has just laid out in these few verses? You only do it by faith. Faith receives these great truths, looks on to the glorious end, it delights in all that has been revealed in the heart of God and of the value of the work of Christ. Such is the Father's love, such is the virtue of Christ's work. that for all eternity we shall be before the Father's face, holy, blameless, and therefore in the full, unhindered enjoyment of divine love. As we are thus permitted to look into eternity and see the vast vistas of the blessings that lie before us, this passing world which so often appears to us so great and so important becomes very insignificant. While us in Christ and our body of believers as Christians, seen in its true character according to God, becomes exceedingly great and blessed. Last verse, verse 5.

He predestined us, predestinated us, to the adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to his intention, of his will. It was his idea. It was his determination. Predestination always seems to have in view these special blessings. According to sovereign choice, believers in common with angels will be before God, holy and without blame. He decided about that. But in addition to these blessings, believers have been predestinated for a very special place before God, and that place is sonship.

We're sons. We are set in the same place of relationship with the Father as the Lord Jesus Christ is as man. Exactly the same place. So that He may say, My Father and Your Father. So in closing, remember, it's the will of God that every saved one should eventually be with Christ and like Christ forever, John 17, to the praise and glory of his grace which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. The way God has acted in predestinating us to this great place of blessing, we will respond to the praise and glory of his grace.