Colossians Lesson 6 Week 3

Okay, well, question number five. We've made it through four. Two weeks, two questions. At that rate, we'll be here for a few more weeks. You'll be looking at me for a little bit longer. Hopefully that rate will change. Or not. Either way, it's all good.

So, we're looking at Colossians chapter one, verses 21 through 23. I think I'll read that and just refresh us on the text and then we'll jump into question number five and begin. So, verse 21, So we've looked through, I think, established quite an understanding around verse 21.

We talked about formerly alienated, hostile in mind, when that began, how that works. We even had some time to talk about, through interaction in the last few classes, about how that exists in your own lives with neighbors. and how you too were formerly alienated, and that's what Paul was drawing attention to the Colossians, that you were in a state of this, and now you're this.

So what was the reasoning behind why Paul had to write to them? We talked about they were dealing with a system of thinking that was false. Whether it was Gnosticism in its pure form or some spin-off of that, they were being challenged with the idea that the spirit world and the fleshly world were completely disconnected and there was no way to be reconciled to someone that was fleshly. the only kind of reconciliation or being made right existed in a spiritual sense. And so they were having problems understanding the Incarnation, that is, Christ becoming man. And so Paul wrote this entire portion of Colossians to start dealing with different areas that the Colossians were struggling with. And we too struggle with those things. Why did Christ have to be a man?

And we're going to talk about that today. We're going to specifically look at the fleshly body side of things. But we're moving into verse 21, and we talked about how the fact that he says, yet he has now reconciled to you. And we talked about reconciliation, that being made right, and how God is the one who establishes and, as we look at, makes reconciliation possible. And so we come to question number five. To what extent did God accomplish reconciliation? We hinted at it a little bit last week. But you guys have worked through some of that and I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on the extent of reconciliation. Some thoughts. My thought is 100%. 100%. Not just your right arm or your left arm. No, I don't have to add a thing. Is it you? Is it everyone? Is it really that guy down the street that annoys you to no end?

Does he have reconciliation made possible to him? If he believes. If he believes. We talked about, I think Courtney brought this up last week, just the idea that reconciliation has been made possible. It's made available to every human being. But is it actually applied for every human being? How is it applied? Through faith. Through belief. That's right. Through faith. That's right. That's exactly right.

So, if we think about this extent of reconciliation, it's a good question to ask here, but it's really something that was covered by Mike to some degree in verse 20. Think about the author. Who's the author of reconciliation? Verse 20. Have a look back at that.

The Father was pleased that all fullness dwell in who? Christ. What about the agent? Who's the one that actually did the reconciling? Who? The Father and God. In Christ, in Him, through Him. That's right, it's Christ. So the author, we could say God here. We have the author, the agent. What's the means? What was the means of reconciliation that verse 20 talks about?

The death of Christ. Look closely. To the full extent of giving His Son to die for us. Through the blood. The problem is she has a different translation. That's right. She doesn't have blood. That's not fair. Why do we have all these translations? What was the accomplishment? I can't spell that word, right? What was accomplished through reconciliation?

It's right there in verse 20. We're reviewing a little bit here. Redemption? Look closely. Peace? Peace. That's a good word for today. Even in your insanity of transition, you've been reconciled. Christ has authored it. He's the agent by which it was made possible through his blood, and you have peace.

It doesn't mean that you experience that on a condition. We talked about position versus condition. So I'm going to step aside for a second. What's the difference between position and condition? We're just reviewing here. Condition can change. Condition can change, but the other word... Position. Position is forever. But I had a fallen position before, I would say, and it changed. That's right.

Well, let's use the word peace. What's the opposite of peace? Unrest. Imnity, hostility, right? We talked about that. That's verse 21. So the opposite of peace is hostility. So your position before believing and being reconciled was you were an enemy of the Lord. That's where you stood. And we as enemies, before having believed, all expressed that hostility and alienation of mind in different ways, right? I do it different than you, you do it different than me, but the fact is that our position was you are an enemy of God before you believe.

But your position after belief becomes what? We talked about last week a little bit. You become a friend. You become a family member. You have the ability to go before the Lord in prayer in the most intimate way. Christ is in you. That's a totally different situation. However, are there moments in the day that you're not walking with the Lord? Does that have anything to do with your position? So, the challenge becomes, when you're in a transition in your life, and everything is out of control, in your position, you're at peace.

You're at rest. Why? Because you're in Him. You're seated with Him. We're going to talk about established, steadfast, in a little bit. In your position, you're at peace and rest. In your condition, when you're not walking with the Lord, when He's not doing the living through you, you feel in turmoil. Because you're trying to fake it. Right? You're trying to deal with the situation on your own.

Now, our condition has a bookend to it. When's that bookend? It's now. It's from the moment you were born until when? And at that point of death, your condition meets your position. The challenge between now and then, and I say challenge, but the decision between now and then is abiding. Right?

Abiding in what? And what does abide mean? To be established. Okay, established. To continue to place your mind on. Right? Set your mind above. Okay, we're going to talk about that. You see this whole issue of condition versus position about where's your head? Where's your focus? When you're focusing on yourself, what are you looking at? Your condition. You're looking at your condition and you're probably not walking with the Lord because you're wrapped up in you.

But when your mind is set on things above, when your mind is set on Christ, that is your position, who you are in Christ, I'm just going to put right here, in Christ, because that's the big factor. And up here, your condition, you can be in Wanda. Thank you. Or you can be in Christ.

Now, the truth is that you're never, the Lord never looks at you in the way that your condition expresses itself on this earth. He always looks at you from a positional perspective, who you are in Christ. But you don't want to look at it that way. The Lord says, I look at you as being 100% wrapped up, covered in the blood, at peace and at rest.

You're reconciled. Things are made right between me and you. There's been propitiation. I'm satisfied. There's been a redemption. You've been set free. Because we've been crucified through Christ. Exactly. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm going to say, in me.

But our condition doesn't have to be in me. When our mind is set on our position, the Lord does the living through us. Now, this condition is not one of we're losing our salvation, you know, moment by moment, or gaining it back. It's a situation where When we are truly ourselves, our condition is operating on our position. That's spiritual sanity. When we are truly ourselves, who we are in Christ, our condition, we are being vessels for the Lord to do the living through us. So our position in Christ is being experienced in our condition.

The problem is that we want to commit spiritual insanity often by walking in our own way of thinking as opposed to placing our mind on things above, the abide above concept. And that's what this verse says. if you look at verse 22, or even move on to 23 when we get there, if you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast.

Is that a condition thing? We're going to have to ask that question in a little bit. Hold on to it. But what I wanted to do is not go into great depth with the condition position factor, but just to remember that every time we read scripture, we have to think about, is this a Is this something that I need to understand from a conditional perspective, meaning how it gets lived out between the time I was born and the time that I die?

Or is this a positional truth that I have to take and reckon on as being who I am without regards to anything that I see? Because that's faith, right? And as Vern says, we all have faith in something. Is your faith in your position or is it based on a condition that is constantly changing and challenging your heart? Go ahead. I think it's important to understand that our position never changes. Never changes. No matter how we feel about it, think about it, or abide in it, it never changes.

So it's important that we learn what our position is, because that's where the stability is. How important is it to learn your position? You just said, it's extremely important. If you don't know what your position is in Christ, your condition is going to be all over the place. How do you learn your position in Christ?

His Word. His Word. Is that it? Yeah. It's simple. It's that simple? It's how simple? I didn't hear simple. No, what did he say? What did he say? Say it again. His Word. The Bible. I'll just say this, and this is not me telling you that you need to spend a certain amount of time in your Word. This is not me telling you that you need a daily devotional. This is not me saying that you need to check off time in the Word every day. This is not me saying that.

What I am saying is that in order for you to walk and to experience a walk of freedom and peace and rest, it is absolutely critical that you know who you are in Christ. And the only way to know that is to spend time with Him in the Word. So whatever that means... Go ahead. Is that where faith and the facts and the feelings follow? That's right. Good job. If you spend time with your feelings, are your feelings trustworthy? Not all the time. I just had a question. When I'm reading 20 there, that having peace, is that part of the package, the salvation package, the peace of God, peace with God, or is this a different kind of peace because we believe what the Lord has said? Do you understand what I'm asking?

So I think that the contrast is in verse 21. So the opposite is alienation, hostility. And so Paul, he's got two situations of contrast. So verse 20 talks about the peace being made through the blood. We talked about the author, the agent, the means, the accomplishment. Verse 20 establishes what the Colossians had as a present possession. And then in verse 21, he contrasts that with where they used to be. So the peace is, it's tied into this issue of reconciliation. I think. Cornyn? The other thing, I think with position, condition, and where we're at, one thing I always, you know, we're looking at it from our side. I always like to look at, see what God sees.

And that derives this peace, this rest. He sees us only positioned in Him. in Christ. That's how He sees us. We may not be walking, we may not be doing conditionally, we may walk in the flesh, but God only sees us in Him. It's from our side we turn away and what do we lose? Not position, we lose fellowship. And it's our, that's what we do. He's still pouring on grace, pouring on His intimate knowledge of each and every one of us. He just sees us in Christ. That's all He can do now. He sees us because that's where we're positioned.

And that to me gives great peace and rest and comfort, because no matter how stupid I am, God still sees me only in His Son. And that gives me great rest. When I do something stupid, it's mine, and I'm losing fellowship with a God who is so intently in love with me and drawing me to himself. It's me that turns away. But God still only sees me in Christ. And that is what I derive great peace in.

Because no matter how dumb I am or how many times I walk in the flesh, He is still pouring on His grace and He still sees me just in Christ. Does that make sense? Don't get wrapped up in looking at you. Get wrapped up in beholding the Lord through His Word, and you'll see yourself the way the Lord sees you. And that will change your life. That will change a believer's life.

So if we say, what's the direction of reconciliation? What does it say in verse 20? And I'm going back here, but I'm establishing a perspective of something very important. You know, we call this Resurrection Sunday. If you flip it around, I mean, you could even think of it as Reconciliation Sunday. I mean, what's going on here? Why are we talking about peace and, you know, all wearing purple and, you know, we have this whole kind of traditional perspective of the weekend.

But really it's an issue of you've been reconciled and what was the direction of that reconciliation? Did you reconcile yourself to him? Well, what is it? What does it say? He did it. It's all his work. He made things right between myself and him. He did it. He set things right. And finally, what's the extent? That's really the point of this question. What does it say? I think the extent question is actually answered in verse 20 better here. What's the term?

All things. Did you know that even the creation itself is going to be reconciled? The new creations is I mean, we are first born in the new creation, but that is the beginning process of an entire plan the Lord has to reconcile all things, even in creation. This present world, as beautiful as it is, especially in the springtime, is going to be made new. And it is in a state, a positional state of being reconciled.

So is the earth now and everything that's happening all over, is that, can the earth be in a conditional? I mean, I don't even... That's a good question. I haven't thought about it that way, but is there a positional truth regarding the entire creation, meaning the earth and heavens and Well the earth can't sin, it's a globe. So I mean, you know... But has it been affected by sin? Yes. Oh yeah, right. So let's flip this question on its head and say, what's the extent of sin? Is it to all things?

God, he created the earth. The earth is just a round thing. So if sin's the issue, then that's what God has to deal with. He's got to deal with the sin issue in order to affect reconciliation. It's interesting that God never changes and the sinful earth never changes, but because God took sin out of the way through the death of Christ, he can now reconcile or extend his grace and mercy towards an unreconcilable world and receive believers back to him. So sin's the issue, really. Sin stands in the way of reconciliation, and the effects of sin were earthly as well. When we think about death, the consequences of sin, what does death mean?

Does it mean annihilation, meaning it's done, it's gone, it's no more to exist? And that's what we think about when we think about the word death. We think about losing a loved one, we think about, I'll never see that person again. Or, that person has just been annihilated. I don't know what's happening there. But, biblically speaking, that has nothing to do with the word death. Maybe you won't see them again, but in terms of that being the case because of annihilation, or just ceasing to ever exist again, is not true. In the biblical sense, death means separation. And so, the earth experienced separation because of sin. And so what's God's plan to reconcile or make things right even with the earth?

New creation. Of which you are partakers of even now, the Bible tells us. So the extent of reconciliation is all things. Every single person has access to being made right before God. But there's a trigger. And if they don't want to trigger that reality or receive that gift, they can choose to stay in a state of hostility and enmity with God. Now we haven't chose that as believers while we're here this morning spending time in His Word, wanting to behold Him.

Because we've been reconciled and we experienced that. But the real factor here is that you're at peace with God. Whether you feel it or not, regardless of how much time you've spent in the Scripture this week, or how much time you've prayed, you don't think about your condition with regards to peace. You trust Him at His Word, and He says, I've reconciled and made things right with us. Between myself and you, we're good. If you want to act like it's not okay, well then you're operating in me, as opposed to in Christ. Because between me and you, speaking of the Lord, from the Lord's perspective, things are great between us.

We're at peace. And that is a different mindset. You just don't even hear that largely in Christianity anymore. My goal in a lot of situations with churches is to shackle you to that pew and make sure that you're focused on your do's and don'ts. And I'm saying don't worry about that. You focus on the Lord and you experience the peace that He says, I've got peace right here. I'm at rest about you.

Why can't you be at rest about me? The problem is we always want to insert ourselves thinking we have something to do with the situation when in fact we just don't believe Him. This me factor is a big factor in our condition. Which is why people say we get our heads stuck in the clouds a lot here at Holly Hills.

You know, it's true. And it's a good thing. I think it's a biblical thing. Our mind is abiding above and we challenge ourselves to go there because that's where the peace and that's where the expression of Christ's life in us starts. Where's your head? We ask that question a lot at our house.

Romans 5.10, just to kind of cap this question off, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, which we're celebrating this Easter weekend, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. So there's no question that the fact that God's love for us and the world is being made clear in this verse, and it's spoken of many times as what we talked about last week, that finished work of Christ, which is what this weekend represents. There's a lot of different ways I'd love to phrase this weekend, the finished work of Christ's celebration. I don't know, it's kind of not a good branding term, but there's a lot better ways to refer to what's going on.

Number six, discuss why Paul uses the term fleshly body in verse 22 in order to combat the intrusion of Gnosticism into the Colossians believer's mind. Well, to say that simply, why did Paul feel it necessary to say that reconciliation, this whole idea of being made right, why did he tie that to the fleshly body of Christ? I mean, that's the whole thing, verse 22, and yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body. Why did he say that? Do you think? Was it because Gnosticism was beginning to come into their beliefs? they didn't believe that it was possible for anything spiritual, I think you said, to come out of the flesh? I think that's right. Yeah, I do. You know, today, I don't think systems of belief today use that term reconciliation very often. It's kind of like tucked away in the fundamentalist world, I guess, of which we fit proudly. How do you make things right? If you're an unbeliever, what are the ways that you go about making things right? You can't. You can't. That's the truth. But how do you attempt it? I mean, we've got friends.

We've even tried to make things right on our own before things were made right on our behalf and we simply accepted it. But, you know, there are a million and one different ways that you try to reconcile yourself to whatever is out there, whatever standard, you know, that you believe is kind of the ultimate divinity. So, you know, in a Hindu perspective, how do you make things right? In every regard we set our own standard. You set your own standard.

Maybe you help the little old lady across the street, and you get a few karma points. No. No, that's just it. I try to tell this to my sister. No matter how good you are, no matter what you do, it's not going to bring you up there. You have to have faith, you have to believe, right? Is that what you're saying? It's your faith, and Christ died for us so that we can have God look at us. Every form of unbelief tries to answer this question in a different way. Okay, was I wrong? No, you're right. I'm using what you're saying to wrap my thoughts around it. You're right.

There are no works or efforts that you can do in order to make things right between you and the Lord. It's all about what He did. It's about His effort, which we celebrated this weekend. The Colossians were being challenged with the idea that you can't be made right through anything that you can touch, feel, see, empirically, you know, the senses. This is not a senses thing. The only way that you can be made right with God is through some form of unfleshly spiritual experience. And that's no different than what is going around in mass droves today.

Nirvana. What is this idea of Nirvana? How do you achieve it? What is Nirvana? It's a really great band back in... You didn't ever listen to Nirvana, did you? You don't know what I'm talking about, do you? I would say one time I was listening to Alistair Begg and he said he was like waiting to take off on a plane and he started talking to a gal who was a Buddhist and he listened to her for an hour to try to understand her viewpoint and when they were done and when she was all done he said you know I actually believe that all the stuff you do as a Buddhist does make you feel better But it won't save you. And how can he say that?

I mean, you know, people, when we say things like that to people, like, are you so high and mighty you're going to tell me that my time spent in meditation, I mean you're off running around, you know, filling every fleshly need. I'm actually putting my fleshly needs aside and meditating, and I do it a long time. I mean, the time I spent by that tree, focused with my eyes closed, attempting to have oneness with all that is, so that I'm like that drop of water that falls into the shoreless ocean that becomes one and ceases to exist. My time spent there makes me feel good, and yet you are so busy about your career and your life and I'm meditating.

How are you so high and mighty that you can tell me that that doesn't save me? Because the guy's got his eyes wide open and has the faith on Christ. Right? Because you can't go to heaven unless you go through Christ. But this guy says, how can you be such a bigot? How can you be so high and mighty to tell me? Well, when Mike says, you hand him the Bible and you talk to him. That's a good start. That's a really good start. I like that. Courtney, you had a thought?

That's not what God wants us to do. God wants us to rest in Him and our position in Him. He doesn't want us to go out. He doesn't want us to go meditate for six hours trying to do what you were describing there. He wants us to rest in Him and our position in Him. And he wants us to do that through faith, not through any of our works.

The issue is grace. Christianity is the only... I hate to use the word religion. Well, don't use it. It's the only system whereby salvation is a grace-based enterprise. Every other religion is based on personal performance to satisfy a God who's angry.

Do you hear that? It's pretty key. I think since we're talking, you know, system, big picture thinking, when we're talking to this Buddhist in the illustration that you mentioned there, we're not coming to them from a high and mighty, lofty, more proud place. We're coming to our fellow man, in this case a Buddhist, from a place of grace, having been partakers and receivers of a gift.

And when you tell that person the only way that salvation exists for you is not how much time you spent meditating, but whether or not you believe in the person of Christ and what he did on your behalf, you are not actually saying anything that is of your own opinion. You're an ambassador. Remember, an ambassador does not speak on his own behalf. He represents.

So if that person says, you're an awfully proud and blah blah blah blah. You say, well, actually I am a receiver of the most gracious and wonderful news that exists, that is I have been given a gift, and I want to share that with you. It's actually an expression of love that I'm telling you this.

Courtney? Yeah, I was thinking that, you know, with the Hindu you bring up, it's kind of like, I think Juana brought it up about her neighbor, whoever, who said, you know, everybody goes to heaven. And the response to that, you know, in those cases, I would say, you know, whether you're the Hindu or the guy who goes to work or whatever, the thing is, Each of us, you know, I'd say, that's great, and you think, whatever, we're all sinners.

It doesn't matter whether you're meditating, or whether I'm working hard, or whether I do any, there is no not one. And that includes me, and that I'm a sinner. Just like you, we're all sinners. And to try and put it on a par that it doesn't matter what you do, whether you're a Hindu, a Buddhist, a great philanthropist, the one who walks the little old lady across the street, whatever. We're all sinners. The base root is sin and that's kind of where you bring it back all to one level that I'm no better than you and you're no better than me and the only thing that gets us out is the free gift through grace, which I agree with Mike, that's the thing. We're all the same and the only way out is through grace. That's right. Free gift.

And we believe that because of our faith in the final authority of God's Word. Now, don't forget that everyone has a faith in a final authority. And at the end of the day, it's not about you versus him or her or them. It's about the final authority that I take by faith versus the final authority that you take by faith. That's really the issue. I mean, at the end of the day, they have a system, and Vern's been talking about evolution and that perspective of faith. But it is.

Ultimately, you can't put all the pieces together, and you have to exert some amount of faith in a final authority. Our final authority is wrapped up in this word, contained fully and totally for us, and in one word we can summarize that entire final authority through grace in Him. How would you explain that to someone? I mean, like in that situation where she said everybody goes to heaven, and then I was reading something last night that says Grace is not a thing, but grace is Jesus. It's a person. A person. Yeah. And I've never thought of it that way. And the only way to experience grace is to be placed in that person.

Which is Christ. Which is Christ. It seems like every system, and I think probably even including atheism, has some degree of trust in self, or faith in self. Whereas Christianity can't have any degree of trust or faith in self. Does that make sense? It's a totally different way of thinking. And the sin nature doesn't like that. And just because that's what the Bible says, that doesn't mean that it's better than every other system, unless you believe it. That's the only way it matters to you.

So again, it goes back to that final authority. If you're final, I mean, all people go to heaven, where did you get that from? I mean, did that fall out of the heavens? Where did you get that information? You're placing your faith in some statement some form of thinking, and I'm placing my faith in a different form of thinking, and we're different there, and so I'm not going to beat you over the head with my Bible in order to convince you that my final authority is better than yours. You have to make the decision for yourself.

But at the end of the day, that whole idea of believing means that you change your mind about your final authority. There's something that happens that takes place with the Word of God and the Holy Spirit convincing a person's mind of the truth of the Scripture, that they all of a sudden say, that final authority that I've been holding on to, whatever it was, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, whatever it was, Atheism, I don't believe that anymore. And I'm going to place my faith in this final authority.

I mean, that's what happens. We don't say it that way, but the system changes in a person's mind. There's a flip. And they no longer believe this, they now believe this. And with that belief comes all of these things that we're talking about. It comes a knowledge of grace, it comes a knowledge of reconciliation. A lot of people don't even know they were reconciled with God when they became a believer.

They'll find that out later. Yeah, you should go on TV because this morning I was listening to this woman and she was on television making big talk and her grandchild had said that she talked to the uncle who had died and she believed it. Went on TV and discussed how great her grandchild was because the uncle talked to her. So they're so confused and most people don't teach properly.

So what do we do? I mean, you can talk until the cows come home. I'll do that. I think the simple answer to that question is When you run out of gas, you present the Word of God to them and let the Word do the talking. That's the answer to your question, Lana. What do you say?

It is only the Word of God that pierces to the deepest part of the heart. I know that from what I've learned. in the last year and a half or whatever. And that truth is not only going to change your life, but has the possibility of changing others too. You get the opportunity, and I use that word very specifically, opportunity to be a part of how God introduces his word into the heart of an unbeliever. And you witness, in some cases, you actually see the Holy Spirit convicting their heart, but you're not doing it. It's the Word of God that's doing that work.

I think it's so difficult for people because we're so accustomed to working for everything. You know, from childhood on, you've got to work for stuff. And for the unmerited grace of accepting what Christ... it blows their mind. It blows our minds, exactly. That's why it's called Amazing Grace. It's a good point. It's hard to accept that because our life is built around effort. It's paradoxical. That's back in the mid 80s. I had our work Bible study.

He drew this line up as high, high up on the blackboard as he could. And then he drew the line down below. And it was positional rights, which is infinite that God has. And it was this little sloping line with Billy Graham on one end and Dahmer and those guys on the other. And so. People like an atheist is compared to Dahmer. I am really rocking.

And Mayor Bloomberg said last week that he said he asked, Are you going to go to heaven? He said, Well, if there's a God. I'll be going to heaven because I've earned my way and I'll be walking right in. I know, I couldn't believe it. Was he crazy or what? That's him looking on that line of human goodness. You notice he pre-empted it by saying, if there is a God. If there is a God, there is good blood.

So I think we've answered our question, haven't we? I took this question into a little bit deeper, more philosophical perspective, but you hung in with me, and I think that what we're saying is that we have a final authority that says that we can be reconciled through grace to God, not on the basis of our own efforts, but on the basis of His efforts, through His blood, and it was through His fleshly body.

So, just to kind of come back to that question and support that with another scripture, Hebrews 9.22. You can write that down if you don't have that reference.

And according to the law, I'm reading here, Hebrews 9.22, and according to the law, one may almost say all things are cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. And it goes on, actually previously in the same book of Hebrews, it says, therefore he had to be made like his brethren in all things so that he might become merciful and faithful.

The fact that he had a fleshly human body was a demonstration of God's mercy to us and made possible the shedding of blood, which is what actually satisfies the Lord. And you say, well, that's awfully horrific. Well, the shedding of blood, what is the shedding of blood?

What happens when you don't have any blood in your body? The life is in the blood. That's right. When there is no blood, there's death. There's separation. And for Christ on that cross, when all the blood that He shed for the sins of the whole world that gave you an opportunity for salvation, that life was shed for you. That blood was made possible for you. He was separated from the Father temporarily on your behalf so that you don't have to be. He made things right for you, this reconciliation. Any questions? So, let's move on to question 7. Like I said, two questions a week.

What is it that God plans to do with those reconciled? Look close to verse 22. What does He do? In order to what? That's an interesting word. Anybody got a clue as to what that word present means? He reconciled you in order to present you before Him, holy and blameless and beyond reproach. Well, I sure don't feel that way. So He made things right. That's right. He made things right between us. And then, He doesn't just make things right, He actually presents you.

It's interesting, that word present actually has to do with your standing. Do you think that has to do more with condition or position? So we might be able to say, in order to make your position before Him, holy and blameless beyond reproach. I mean, that's unheard of outside of the scripture.

That way he ever liveth to make intercession for us, it's that intercession for us. Is that intercession? Yeah, it's the way it says Jesus ever liveth to make intercession for us. He's always interceding for us before the Father. I'd have to say it is. I think there's a conditional intercession that the Lord makes on our behalf and that there is a positional and our positional intercession is where in this case when the Lord looks at you you've been presented. It's as though you are right there, wrapped up in Christ, and he looks at you and says, holy, blameless, above reproach. And that is intercession, because he is standing on your behalf and saying, there is nothing here with Wanda, or anyone else in the class that believes, there's nothing at enmity with me and the Father. I've got his back. He's in me. And that's a form of intercession, I would say. Would you agree? Yeah, you. I love that. That's the first time I've seen that go.

I think a part of the answer would be all the way back in verse 12 where it says, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us. to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life. I think that what God has done by placing us in Christ has made us acceptable to himself on the same basis that Christ is acceptable to him. There is absolutely nothing between us and him. Nothing.

Do you remember the last time you thought, I've just got to spend some time praying and make things right with the Lord? Now, you know, maybe that's real in your condition. You're thinking conditionally and you want to get back in fellowship, that's a good thing. But positionally speaking, no amount of time or energy or anything you can do is going to change the way that you've been presented to Him and the way that you stand before Him. Now, we ask to be made in fellowship with the Lord in 1 John 1, 9. We talk about that often, but that is for us.

It doesn't change the way the Lord ever saw you. Without blemish, I mean, these are the words that you talk about on Easter weekend or Resurrection Sunday. He was the perfect sacrifice. He was without blemish. And here he uses that same word description of you because you're in him. Here's the big deal.

And I say this directly to you as a reminder of what comes as a result of believing and having experienced reconciliation. You will never be accused of sin. You will never be accused of sin by God. Because He sees you in Christ. Where do you see you? And that's the difference. When you see yourself in Christ, when you abide above, when your mind is set on the truth of who you are, your condition meets your position.

It kind of makes me think of where I'm preaching last Sunday concerning the Old Testament versus the New. And then the blood on the doorpost. And when I see the blood, I will pass. I will pass over you. There's an old hymn like that too. When he sees we're covered by the blood, he sees the blood, he passes over. The holy, blameless, sinless place that you are because of your faith in him.

We should close. Michael say that he starts hearing the music in the other room. So I think the come back to the intercession. I think the intercession is both because of the positional intercession. And just what you're saying, the sin is paid. We don't all the conditional things, the stupidity and all that. He still only sees us in Christ. So that position is also an intercession for our condition because he only sees us in Christ. You know, the Holy Spirit's working on us and drawing us back to fellowship and all that. But the intercession, I think, because it's a positional intercession, means an intercession conditionally. Because he only sees us in Christ. So I challenge you with this. There's always a good challenge at the end of...

Don't do anything. Just rest. Don't do anything. Just rest. Oh, gosh. I'm just thinking, man, that sounds really hard. Whoa. Resting. I'm just kidding. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the truth of your word, and without it we would have no final authority that had any bearing on our life. We could not see our way through this life without your word giving us understanding of who you are and what you've done on our behalf, and we celebrate that this weekend. And we remind ourselves of our identification in the death, burial, and resurrection, ascension, and seeding. Without these identification truths and who we are in Christ, We're left to a life of our own efforts and I just am so thankful that you have delivered us from a world of law and do's and don'ts to a place of grace and peace and rest. And I just pray for each of us that we would find that rest as we place our faith in you concerning who we are in Christ. It's in your name we pray. Amen.