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330.
Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.
What? What?
400 and four times.
That's something you need to.
For everyone.
Stop me alive.
Oh my God.
And why?
No, no reason to go away.
Grind the horse riding from the airport.
The Lord.
To me.
So I'm going to listen to your life angle.
The boy's land I have.
Umm.
Lord Gray pride, the Lord pride up crying and I'll be.
CVS.
Lord, everyone dressed up and may I go?
God and Father, we did his book today as we open up thy word or the treasure it is we hold in our hands.
By reveal mind for us.
So we just pray that our guide and direct us to a motion that would be suited for.
For the occasion for the company to this year again, we just thank Thee for this opportunity to once again to be my presence. Would Thy word open before we just pray for the time in the name of our Lord's and Savior Jesus Christ.
What her brother brethren might consider taking up Ephesians chapter one? I was just thinking of a little expression used in verse 11.
According to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the council of his own will.
00:05:29
It's always a good chapter.
Gosh.
If someone else has a different exercise, I'd be.
Certainly willing to.
Hear another suggestion.
Vision Chapter one.
All an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.
To the Saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.
Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the blood.
In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, wherein He hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He hath purpose in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time.
He might gather together in one.
All things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in Him.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who work on all things, after the council of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ.
In whom ye also trusted. After that ye heard the word of truth.
The gospel of your salvation, in whom also after ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of His glory.
Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the Saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened.
That ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches are, the glory of His inheritance in the Saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to Oxford, who believe according to the working of His mighty power.
That he wrought, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
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Far above all principalities and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.
And has put all things under his feet, and given him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth All in all.
Well, we know that this epistle gives us heavenly teaching. It really presents to us the.
Fact that all of our blessings are heavenly, they're eternal. They have to do with the spiritual things. Those things in connection with Israel were all earthly. They had an earthly inheritance, things were temporal, they were passing away. They had a Kingdom which would be shaken. And but we have those things that can never be shaken. So the apostle brings before these believers into all of us really. He writes by the will of God to the Saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. He speaks really to the whole Church of God.
And gives this revelation, this teaching is in connection with the revelation that Christianity is heavenly in its character and all of its hopes are heavenly bound up in the person of Christ. And so this chapter really brings before us the heavenly aspects of Christianity and raises our sight above this earthly scene.
That is why I said it's all I said. It's always a good chapter. Robert and of the.
I was noticing how the expression the will of God.
I'm not very good at counting, but I it was at least five times that the will of God is mentioned in our in what we read, and it's a wonderful thing to that God has been able to reveal himself now.
One of the things that most all of us struggle with is our own will, and it's a hard thing to learn not to do your own well.
You really can't learn to know what God's will is and.
Unless you learn to cease doing your own will.
It's a struggle in the human heart.
The Lord Jesus who came and lived here on earth.
When he was about to leave.
He expressed one of the few times I said the only that I got corrected by another brother. One of the few times that the Lord expressed his own will was in connection with our subject that we're having here.
When he was about to go back to the Father in John 17 and he prayed for us, it's a prayer about us, and it's a prayer where He asked the Father to allow him to take His beloved, the ones the Father gave Him, to be with Him there in glory. If it weren't for that prayer, brethren, we wouldn't be studying this chapter.
The Lord Jesus chose to have a people in heaven.
And this is only been revealed to us through the Apostle Paul. He was the special vessel used to make this known to us. And it's a truth that has been handed down to us.
For close to 200 years now.
That truth was lost sight of in the church history since the apostle's time.
During the Reformation, there were many brilliant, valiant and many truths that were recovered.
But this chapter was not properly understood until later date. God in His mercy made it known, brought it out.
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And it's been taught to us, those of us who have been brought up under the sound of this ministry, we can be very thankful for it.
The thing that that that burdened them on my heart about this subject is it's not to be treated as just an intellectual thing that we know about.
It won't do us very much goodwill, Robert, if we don't, if it doesn't get passed our head into our heart and our feet. And so as we take this up and it's a good subject, I, I trust that it will, the outcome will be that not only we talk about it in reading meetings, but we will learn to live it in our lives.
If we don't walk in it, we will lose it.
This chapter lays the foundation for the latter half of the book, which is exceedingly practical, isn't it? But if we don't know what we are in Christ, how can we know how to behave? We can't. So, as you say, far from being, it is locked.
It is high, but far from being impractical, it is the basis for the practical truth that follows.
It's good to realize that different epistles and different books, different characters that you can in Romans, were looked at as being responsible.
And and, and then God comes in and meeting that responsibility. But here you're not looked at as being responsible, you're looked at as being dead. And that's where it starts dead.
You're not responsible if you're a dead man.
And God, then he, in a second chapter, we're going to find that.
The forest birds of that second chapter. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sin.
Dead have quickened us, made us alive with the Christ.
And raised us up together and made us sit together and heavenly pleases in Christ Jesus. So this is a purpose of God.
He finds us dead and there's not that process. We're talking about a process and other books. We get the process in which we're brought into these things. We're we're born again and then we're sealed with the Spirit of God. But here goes from dead right into being placed with Christ in heaven. It's the God's purpose. And so God is indulging his affections and telling us what he has done, not what we're going to what we're going to do.
That he's saying relax and just bask and I want to tell you what I've done for you.
When I get dead.
And I've raised you to this position. It's a purpose to go.
The apostle Paul here starts out with talking about his the will of God that saved him and brought him into apostleship and made him the message, the mouthpiece of this chapter or this book. And when God does things that he does it the way he does it confirms what he's teaching to the very fact that Paul, the persecutor of Christians, was the one God took up and changed.
And brought into the understanding of this and revealed it and that made him the communicator of it to the people of God is a demonstration of what we're talking about God. It was God's purpose to do this to a people. And so Paul becomes the pattern, the example, the the best sample of all of what God, the will of God can do to a dead Christian dead any sins.
And make him.
Participant of the Church of God.
Uses that language in first Timothy chapter one. We might just read it in chapter one verse 16. He says, how be it for this, 'cause I attain mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern or a model to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. So Paul was a model of how God would save a soul and how he would be used for the glory of God.
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Chapter 2 of Ephesians gives us the material that he had to work with. It was dead material. But now we're seeing in this chapter as Quicken raised, seated in heavenly places in the heavenlies in Christ. And so he goes through this in the epistle. But I think it's nice to see as we begin here that it's on the principle of the sovereignty of God and His will that these things take place.
And so and so also we might add the love of God. What he did in his sovereignty is he acted in love because God is love. And so that's why you have love brought out throughout this passage. You might just say that verse that you quoted Brother Doug and John 17 says, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me.
That they may behold my glory, which thou keepest me to come. And maybe not quoting it quite right, but for thou loveth me before the foundation of the world. So he wanted the church to be with him. It's one of the little expressions that the Lord Jesus uses throughout the New Testament, throughout the Gospels and in the book of the Revelation, that little expression with me. And so he wanted the church to be with him, but he wanted us to know that what he had done was on the.
Because he loves us. The source was love, the love of God.
It doesn't begin with us, it began with Him. And so He begins by presenting the prior you and God really great, be true you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and bless us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places or in the heavenlies in Christ.
So he wants us to know that we're brought into this wonderful relationship, that we know God is our Father, and as a result, we've been brought into these blessings. And brother, I think it's Brother Darby that said that.
A Christian cannot live in the right way in this world without knowing Paul's doctrine, without knowing the heavenly character that he is called in to live in in this world. So this book, this epistle.
Presents to us the fact that we are quickened, raised, seated in the heavenly, and Our Calling is entirely heavenly.
And because of the love of God.
I want to finish the verse that I think you were thinking to finish quoting in John 17, and that's the last verse. The last part says that's a love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. Isn't that wonderful?
That same love, that flow between the Father and the Son is what the Lord wanted to bring his own into that. That's a perfect circle of, of, of love. And Paul seems to have got a hold of that here. And when he starts writing this and he can't write about it without praising God for it.
Is a good verse for us. The 2nd chapter in the 10th verse. That would kind of explain it well. We are his workmanship.
Created in Christ Jesus under good works with God of the poor, ordained that we should walk in, but we're a new creation.
When the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.
He breathed into his disciples the Spirit of God, and he said, Oh Mary, to go and tell them, I have send it to my God, that your God and my father and your father.
And then he breathed into the, the, uh, the.
Breath of God. Well, in the first creation, God breathed into Adam, the breath of light, and became a living soul and soul. We've been brought into a new creation where everything, everything in that creation is according to God.
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And there is a day coming when our body will catch up.
But at the end of the day, they pull this man up and he takes off his helmet and he doesn't have to have the air, you know, the pressure, everything caters to the life that he has up above that water. And that's the little picture of what we've been brought into. Now we can we have that in our life, in the life that we have. We're in Christ that we have that and.
In mind and spirit we can live in that sphere.
It's a practical thing, it's a real thing, it's something that in the coming day we'll have a glorified body and we will be there where everything caters to that life without the flesh.
And then?
In a moment after the rapture, we'll all see everything one way. There won't be any argument. We'll all see it one way. Christ will be in the center. All the praise of Lord of Heaven.
We are in Christ. We have Christ's place and favor before the Father right now.
Proverbs, chapter 8.
The Spirit of God tells us that the sun's delights were with the children of men and in the habitable parts of desert.
How much more must he delight in what he has taken manhood to now?
In the establishment of this new order of life, after delighting in in man as a creature, as a child of Adam, how much more now?
How the cost of what was before it must have sustained the Lord Jesus. Here it says in Hebrews that for the joy that was before.
This joy that that was soon joined to be realized and the spending of this chosen vessel all to communicate these things that had never been revealed in the word of God before that are revealed from an ascended Christ.
The pulse falls. I was thinking this dog was speaking about the will of God and his desire to communicate these precious things. How Joseph, when his brethren came back to to Egypt and he spoke harshly to them at first because he had a purpose to work in their souls. And I mean, I know and we know it's a picture of the restoration of this. We want to come today. But he couldn't take it anymore. He had no.
Find a place we this is bowels yearned in itself the anticipation of allowing his love to flow forth to that and to be.
United to them you know proper way as soon as the work in their souls was done.
How what's the light to the Lord Jesus is sending up on high even before he ascended and he was raised from the dead. You quoted to say, I say to my father, your Father, my God, your God and.
I would must delay his heart to hear one of his own now to the youngest believer now to depress God as father in this chapter. That's what he has starts out in the second verse and it's sprinkled right through to the God and father. You know God is your father. You know something that that the ancient men and women of faith never knew he inspired to to.
Know more of God than of His.
Counsel and his purposes and it was not revealed to them it was revealed to you and me now to be able since the work of Christ has been accomplished. Holy Spirit sat down you and I can cry Father and when I was off. So it's not just in passing that this reference is made to God as Father. He's a bright bright light in these passages of Scripture and I know in in many assemblies. You know the brother young brothers they start to pray and.
And, uh, they're thanking the Father for dangling the cross and all that kind of thing, and they're getting it all switched up. And we just bear with it in this fight. And then they start to appreciate more the place that they have and they grow in their understanding. And then you start to hear them address the Lord. This is man in the glory in Christ Jesus. And then you hear them address God's fault.
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How, How the Lord yearn for this time that we now enjoy, and the best is yet to go.
In the end of that good bus, since you're a blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, New translation says bless us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly in Christ. Again, just emphasize the practical side of it and to I think tie back something that I may have said. What practical implications does this really have? Well, Christianity by and large.
Is has not recognized this truth.
The Protestant Reformation is called Protestant as a result of a protest. That protest was a protest organized by the Princess the the Those in government authority not. They weren't ecclesiastic, they were in government they protested against an edict that said that they could no longer govern the religious affairs of their.
This takes in Germany, it just goes to show, and I was very characteristic of the Reformation was that it was a national movement and it never got above that in the Reformation in England really was very much.
Taken control of. Well, I'm not, I'm not worrying it very well, but by Henry the Eighth, who?
Chose to throw out the puck's authority for his own benefit. He was highly could hardly be described as a partisan himself. It was very much in the hands of the political leaders and in to this day this has affected Christianity to this country where we still see a strong desire of Christians to control the political process.
But we have no place here in this. We do not look for a inheritance in this world like Israel did in this chapter. We find out that we have an inheritance. It's an inheritance in Christ and it's not here in this earth. So these things really do affect us and the face of Christianity and has her her centuries up to this present day still affecting us because.
These truths are not understood and not acted upon, or if they are known, they are very much watered down.
I shared some examples of.
The blessings we've been given, the spiritual blessings, we don't have to wait. We can join them now.
Can you turn to Joshua 14?
Help explain this, but I've enjoyed it. Our family readings at home.
Umm, OK, first.
Start with verse 8. Nevertheless, my brother went up with me and made the heart of the people melt, but I only followed the Lord my God. And then verse 10. And now behold, the Lord has kept me alive. He said he's 40 and five years even since the words fake this word unto Moses, while the shoulder is no longer in the wilderness. Now, lo, I am this day four scoring five years old.
And yet I am strong this day, as I was in this day that Moses did we as my strength was then, even though my strength now for war to both to go out and to come in and then.
Yeah, I've enjoyed the chair that these verses looks like.
It's actually here, he's 85 years old. But she laid a hold on the the blessings and just showed his wife he was still strong.
But I enjoy the verse 12 too.
Is down there, therefore give me this mountain.
Therefore, the Lord's faith in that day is for the owners and that David and I can were there.
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And still be the Lord will be with me. Then I should go to try to come out as Lord said Joshua blessed him and gave him the calendar Harrison.
I've heard this shirt too, but.
It requires phase two chesting award. I think of the first state space move mountains and mustard seeds holding that right but.
Faith and trust me, Lord, you can lay hold of that and He'll bless us and He'll honor that He's been on me, I will honour. And what was neat, is it the way all of our children will follow in that example?
And that and look at Joshua 15 verse 17.
And osteonec the brothers Caleb took it and he gave him access his daughter to wife and it came to pass and she came on to him that she moved him to after but her father appealed that she lied in off her act and she was under her **** with a spouse who I answered Jimmy a blessing for thou that's doing the Southland Jimmy all through the springs of water he gave without the spring and another spring.
So they she asked her blessings. Not only did he just give her the.
Brings the water, but he gave her the upper swings and another swing and I've heard that shared somebody. I don't know what that is the help there, but one last thing in Exodus.
33.
Genesee, sorry.
Where Jacob rest with the with the Angel Lord.
And there's 24 the Jacob was left alone. The wrestled the man with them until the breaking of day, when he saw that he prevailed not against him.
That's.
That's the whole of his time in the hall of Fylos out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go for the day Breakers. And he said, I will not let you go, since I'll bless me. He said, what is thy name? He said Jacob. He said thy name shall be called no more Jacob than Israel. For as a Prince of power with God and with men, and prevailed.
So Jacob had to go through a hard time, and we may have to go through a hard time, but the worst bring it and view it. Do that.
Hold on.
And he can reverently, almost not let go of the Lord until we get that way.
These are nice examples of faithfulness Old Testament Saints who laid hold of what they believed in and and fought valiantly in the fight of faith and overcame and.
They they are good examples to us.
We must make the distinction of the two, the two worlds, the two spheres of blessing. Our chapter talks about heavenly things.
But it also talks about the things in earth. And verse 10, there are two spheres where God wants to bless in the Old Testament only revealed one of them. That's the earth, and that's what they fought for. And these ones that you've spoken of are examples of those who are diligent. And it was right for them to go out and kill the enemy that had taken position of God's heritage. And God wanted it for Israel to have it. And so they were right.
But that wouldn't be right for us to go out as Christians and quite earthly battles because this is not our sphere. This is not what God has given us. He's got chosen to give us heaven. He's called us there. But there is also a warfare for heavenly things. And that's in our last, last chapter of this book. And so these examples that you're Speaking of can be examples to us to apply in the heavenly sphere.
They are. That's the spirit world. There is a spirit world going on up there and that would seek to keep Christians from laying hold of their true relationship with the Lord Jesus and to just get occupied with earthly things.
And so if they can succeed in that, then they have kept real believers from enjoying what this chapter is talking about.
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And so that's the the fight of faith that we fight in the world today. And it's not for us to go out and being and worrying against the Muslims nations, for example, because that Muslim faith is wrong. That's not the Christians calling today. We should be out to save them. We should be out to win their souls to Christ and some are being won.
So we need to distinguish heavenly things from earthly things.
The book of Joshua really has been called the Ephesians of the old settlement. And so they went into the land and they fought the enemy, a physical enemy. But you and I just, you were mentioning we're engaged in a spiritual warfare. It's just as real and there's just a serious anonymous face. But we have those Old Testament passages as illustrations, as God's.
Picture book, you might say. And then we have the teaching, the real application of the teaching of it in the New Testament. And So what he's revealing here too is a brother Vern referred to, is that there's a new race of men, a heavenly race of men that didn't exist in the Old Testament. They were, they had new life and so on.
Those that belong to the Lord, but you and I.
Are a part of new creation, and we're a part of a new race of men.
In the Old Testament, there was God over all, and then there was the angelic powers. Then we had man that's created, a very intelligent being in the image of God. He was created, and then we had the lower creation. But after Christ died, rose again from the dead and glorified, there was a fuse, the head of a glorified race of men, and now there's God over all.
And then that heavenly race of men associated with Christ, what are their blessings? What are the purpose? God tells us the purposes to bless that race, that heavenly race. And He wants us to enjoy them, those blessings. Now then we have the angelic beings. We, you and I, are part of a higher creation than even the angels. And then we have fallen race of men. Then we have the lower creation. So it's good for us to recognize that we're blessed.
In a spiritual sphere, we don't have an earthly inheritance.
We have a heavenly inheritance and all of our blessings are associated in Christ because he is a heavenly man.
Not to sidetrack too far is in connection with Joshua again in the first chapter. We want other buses in every place we saw your first that have I given you, I will give you, but that have I given you. So these blessings that you read in this chapter I also enjoy. But we do have to walk in. We do have to make them good to ourselves. You know, we've been going through the book of Joshua during our Bible reading during the Sunday school time.
Here in in this local assembly, and it's been wonderful, wonderfully encouraging. But it struck me as we went through it, that, and I'm just gonna throw a number out because I don't have a way of measuring, but I would suspect that 90% of ministry that you find available in Christian bookstores and so on is wilderness ministry. That is provision for our pathway through this, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But if that's our only diet, we won't grow. And the ministry that is lacking is that which is connected with our heavenly portion, that which corresponds to Ephesians, that which corresponds to Canaan. You know, the manna ended when they went into the land of Canaan. And that's a man is a subject that.
Is a whole subject in itself, so I wanna get sidetracked. But they they ate of the old cone of the land, which was speak of Christ and resurrection.
He was that cold that went down to death in John 12 to and now has brought forth, uh, much fruit. Otherwise he would have abided alone. So it was Christ and resurrection that they ate all. And as I said, these have the implications of this in our life are very important. There was a, a, an issue of the Christians, a little magazine that PTP publishes recently on spiritual food. There was some very good articles in that. Speaker, If we just restrict our diet so that, which pertains to our daily needs down here, God's provision for us in our wildness journey, we will be stunted in growth.
00:45:15
Ask questions.
He addresses the Saints, not the Church of God which is in Ephesus.
The address is the Saints. Perhaps it's twofold reason. First of all, the 1St chapter, until we get to the very last verses, takes up individual truth, truth process, individual believers. It doesn't really touch on the church until the end of the chapter. Secondly, when you look at the epistles to Timothy, first Timothy, he says for this cause.
He is the sought Pennsylvania emphasis that some might not teach any other doctrine than what the apostle Paul had given them. They were already letting it slip.
2nd Epistle is Timothy. He says I sent Titicus to Africa. It's imperative that the truth that I gave to the Saints in Ephesus be maintained.
So perhaps A2 fold reason the assembly is not addressed. Perhaps there's assets with the apostle already at this point that they were letting slip.
The truth that had been given to them. And he writes this epistle, reinforcing it. That's an encouragement in a way.
Because we're in a day where these things have been left slick, they haven't been maintained, but it's still good truth for us. It's still what we need. It's still imperative to maintain efficient proof.
But their address that saves individually because what is individual is taking up first, and that's a right order. And that's an order for us. As an example, when we meet other believers, the first truth to take up with them is not necessarily the ground of gathering our church true. Get a sense of where their soul is at.
They may need harm or to be established than what is individual and Roman's troops, perhaps gospel truth things. If if I'm not settled as to where my soul is at before God, how can I go on to take up the deeper things I need to be established and where my soul is. And here with the Ephesians, first he takes up individual truth and he establishes that and from that vantage point.
Once their souls are settled in that, then he unfolds.
Church True. And So what has he established them in first of all?
Their place as sons before God. Their blessings in heavenly places. Their election.
By God, their relationship to God as God and Father, He establishes those things first.
Resting there as the elect sons of God and the circle of Father's love blessed with every heavenly blessing. Now he says I'm going to unfold to you more. And so really he takes up what is individual looking at that.
He says.
And he gives has already been mentioned the title of God, that God our Father or the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because God has blessed us in that two fold character. He's blessed us as God and he's blessed us as Father.
He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world as God, sovereign election. He's blessed us in that way. He's predestinated those he chose as God, as Father. He's predestinated us to a relationship with himself as sons. So he blessed us both as God and as Father, but specifically as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In Genesis, when Joseph is blessed by Jacob, Jacob speaks of all the blessings that exceeded anything that has been known by himself or any before him, being on the head of Joseph.
All the blessings that heaven has to give are on the head of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we come into those as being blessed, being blessed by God.
00:50:06
As common objects with Christ as associated with them, we come into his place before God. We come in and we share his inheritance with him. We come in and share everything that he has won and that God has blessed him with, because he is the victor of Calvary and Son and heir. And we come in and we share all that within every heavenly blessing.
Common objects of the father's lump with his son. And so the thing that he takes up first is on ship. We've been brought into that place before God as son, and there's a difference between sons and children.
It's sons of full age. It's not little children, it's grown up sons.
Wonderful difference, all who have had little children and that and they've grown up, you know, the enjoyment of being.
Able to talk to your grown up children in a way that you couldn't talk to them when they were little. There were things that weren't fit for them, things they couldn't know. But now they've grown up, you enjoy a fellowship within that they that you've never had with them before. And God has brought us into the place of full grown son. And what does he want to talk to us about? Because I want to tell you everything about my beloved son and all that I purposed in him and how.
My eternal counsel centers all around him in every detail of it, like the hub of a wagon wheel, and all the spokes radiate out from that till you get to its circumference. The wheel itself, it's all centered in that hub. Everything is centered in the sun, and you have been brought into that.
By sovereign grace that it all centers in him. He wants to comply with all of His thoughts about His Son to us for our enjoyment, fellowship with him and his thoughts of His Son. But we had to be grown up son's purse. And that's the place that He has brought us into sovereign grace.
It might be good too, because you're talking about the fifth verse where it speaks of adoption. And we tend to think of adoption, uh, and, and bring it and place it in this, uh, this verse. But adoption in this world, the meaning of that word is far different. It means that a family finds a child who doesn't have a, a father or mother or family and he adopts it into that family.
Well, that's not what adoption means in the Scripture. It's the placing of sun to the takes child and saying it. So when a person is born again, he's a child, but he's placed in that place of sonship where he brings us into full intelligence as to God's purposes. So it's a far different thing. It's a wrong idea to use the meaning of the world of adoption. It just means.
Placing a child in a higher position.
You never see a truck going down a road that says Smith and children. It's always Smith and sons because a child doesn't understand how to run that business, but a son, daughter, and he takes them into the full knowledge of how to run that business. And God has taken us into the full knowledge of sonship. There's a beautiful example of that brother Vernon Genesis.
And the blessing of.
Else is sung by Jacob.
Pepper 48.
Joseph.
Brings Ephraim of Manassas to Jacob to be blessed and going to just.
Look at one portion.
Verse 5.
And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine as Reuben and Simeon. They shall be mine. So he says their mind. Well, they certainly were. They were his grandsons. He says, no, I'm going to define us. They're mine, just like Ruben and Simeon are mine.
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Reuben and Simeon were not grandsons. They were his sons, his sons all.
Would have an equal share in the inheritance and they would pass their inheritance down to their children and it would be divided among their children, he said. That's not how it's going to be with Ikram and Manasseh. I'm going to bring them into the same place as all the rest of my sons. Just like Ruben and Simeon, they are going to be on the same.
Plane the same elevation as all of my sons and they are going to share the inheritance equally with their uncles.
Their minds, just like Ruben and Simeon, are mine. He brings them into the place of his son to have an equal share in the inheritance of those sons. And it's a beautiful picture of what Funship is. Yes, they were his children in that sense, grandchildren as part of the family. They were his. But he's specifying the waiter there is in a different sense.
They're his as full grown sons to share equally in the inheritance the children of God in the Old Testament.
Were gods, they're part of his family, they were born again, they were his children, but when we come to the blessings of Christianity, we have been brought into the place of sun adoption and as we get in Paul's doctrine.
Is not how we get into the family.
Adoption as we know it naturally in this world is how you get into a family that you weren't in before. Adoption in Scripture and Paul's doctrine is not how you get into the family, it's the place you have in the family.
And so Mr. Darby rightly translates it, not adoption, but sonship or Sun Place.
With the deadly is what the Greek word actually says. It's not something he came up with. It's really what it's tough to play, but just the connection with sons and children because John speaks of his children of God and Paul tends to they're not exclusively speaks whether the tongues of God sons as being said speaks of place and privilege. Children speak of the family, but in connection with John. So you pointed out that Church of Israel where a part of the family of God in John's ministry.
I I think it's a mistake. Just suppose when John speaks of us as being children of God, he's speaking nothing lesser than Paul and we should just focus on what all said. John speaks with a character nature of God and because of that he speaks with the family of God. And in John's gospel we have those eternal life is expressed in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his epistles. We post epistles especially, we have that eternal life now as expressed in the believer. We now have that common life we as that we're sharing DNA.
So we have been brought into the family's children of God. It's not a lesser truth in that sense. We we need to be very careful of pitting 1 Johnstock turn against Paul soccer and vice versa. We need both types of it's important because they're different things and that's also important to recognize. But I just have a question.
Uh, it's not really a question but something I think someone should clarify. What sense was God to God of the Lord Jesus Christ? Isn't he God already? In fact the Muslim will pick that up and chooses a fame. Umm you know, basically say that Jesus is not mine because God is his God. So maybe someone should explain in what sense he is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ as man, as a man, if God was his God.
Thought it was equal to God, right? And when it's he's a threat. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
You know, he was, he was the Son of God too on the cross, but as man, he could cry out to God. And when he's addressed his father, when he addresses God as his father, then his relationship with the Son, with the Father.
I was just thinking too of the Galatians 4 We might read verse four down to verse seven in connection with sonship, because there's a contrast between what the children of Israel had.
That you had and what we have in Christianity, Galatians 4 verse four. When the fullness of the time was come, God sent for His Son, made of the woman, made under the law to redeem them, that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons or the sonship. Because ye are sons. God has set forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying of a father. Therefore thou art no more servant, but a son.
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And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
So there you have in Paul's ministry the fact that you and I have sonship. We no longer called ourselves servants of God. Yes, we can do a work of service and so on, but God doesn't look at you and say you're a servant. He doesn't even look at you and say you're a saved Sinner. He says you're a Saint of God. And he addresses us. He gives us a higher place of favor as those that are sons.
And so we enjoy the favor of even.
What God has presented in connection with His own Son, He loves us as He loves His own Son and has given us a place of blessing and favor before Him as those that are sons.
Did you have a better, can you say that better? No, no, I, I think it's just important to see when it speaks to God about Lord Jesus Christ, Speaking of him in manhood, when it speaks to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Speaking of him, the Son. So, you know, I do think this is important. It may seem like, you know, one of those details that brethren like to get bogged down in, but I think it's important because today we here at the Lord constantly referred to as Jesus and there's a time and place.
Where he should be reposed to as Jesus because that's Jesus. He was that man that walked us up. So later in this book in the 4th chapter, we read in the 21St verse as the truth is in Jesus. So what does that expression mean? Is that just some general expression? What caused he said I am the way, the truth of the life. So the truth is in him. Well, I think it's Speaking of specifically his walk through this world as the man Jesus. He is the example and it fits perfectly in the context of the chapter here in the 4th, 4th chapter.
So I think it's important to, to realize that he's not just, umm, uh, things to quibble about, but nuances that create the full picture that that bring out the scripture and his clarity. Otherwise it becomes a very blurred and muddy picture. But God in his word is, uses these expressions with specific purpose and it's something that we can dig into to enjoy, not to.
To load it over others or find fault with the way that others say. But it's nice to recognize the distinctions and to learn as we speak. And we pray to use them correctly.
So when you said I sent them to my dog and your God, my father and your Father, he said my Father, that's a relationship from a past eternity that had no beginning, has no ending, was not new to that, but he says my God, that was a new relationship to him in incarnation.
When he says to us, your God, that's all we ever knew from birth. We may not have known God, we may not have acknowledged it, but nonetheless, as his creatures, He was our God.
That was an old relationship for us. When he says your father, that's a new relationship for us. So you get both old and new relationships for us and for him expressed in that verse.
Going back a bit to the to your comments earlier, Steven, when you first spoke about how the pistol Lephesian starts out being addressed to individuals and then almost immediately he takes up the subject of election and that he shows us as individuals. He chose you as an individual, the place that he assigned you and me to. He also chose that destiny that he would.
Place us into. So why does he start with that? I think there's a little foretaste of it even with Old Testament Saints, where the children of Israel were encouraged when they showed up three times of the year. And so the place for the Lord would place his name.
That they were to stand with their offering before the Lord and say a Syrian ready to perish was my father. If they were to go back to their very history of their father, the father of faith, and our father in that sense too of Abraham, and recall mentally in their spirit and soul where they had come from and how they got, where they got to into that land of Canaan. And this is not just an academic thing as as Nick has been.
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Saying about other truths, it's very important for a soul at the very beginning to get established as as a brother. Back in my early days in Maine, my brother came in and just gotten saved. And he said to an older brother in the meeting, I found the Lord and the brother Arnold, we used to call him, he says brother, that's wonderful. But just remember, you didn't find him. He found you and, and, and that's an important thing to see.
Because it leads your soul into a place where you say.
Why me?
You know, Joe complained in the bitterness of his soul. He was an upright and a righteous man, but God wanted to perfect that which concerned him, and he allowed some trial of his life.
And Job, as as Satan stated to the Lord.
You watch what happens when you touch him. You hedge him all about don't touch him. See what happens. Well, it kind of did happen. Joe kind of started to cry like a little girl in a spiritual sense.
And then, uh, I think it's about the 7th chapter. He says, why me? Why are you even bothering me? I'm not a whale. You said a watch on. I'll just leave me alone until I swallow down my spit. Why me? Well, she goes, God had a purpose. And many of us have received later in life, we can look back on our experiences before our salvation and we can identify with that 7th chapter of Joel, you feel like what is going on here somebody.
Is giving me a message that somebody is the Lord is seeking you out.
Then after you get saved and you say in a different sense, I mean there's really no no real. What's the answer to that? It's about this really distracted to do it and there's nothing in yourself. And so the foundation of worship and that's what God seeks. The Father's seeketh worshippers. The Lord Jesus told the woman at the well he seeks worshippers.
He has.
Millions of things that he created to do his bidding without fail. And it's a privilege if he gives us, you and me, something to serve him with.
What's worshipers? And you're never going to be in liberty and freedom as a worshiper before God if you have one. Shred in your heart that you deserve what you have because you don't. It's all because of what He did. The Lord Jesus of Calvary's cross and the Father looked at you and me going with hundreds of thousands of mothers down Broad Rd.
He said no, not you.
The rest of us brought us into His grace unimaginable blessings a little while ago. And you come on the Lord's Day morning, sit there.
Probably the answer to that, brother, is I wanted to. It's a wonderful thing. He's sovereign, did it because he wanted to. There's no other answer. Yeah. And it's a wonderful thing to go through life seeking to figure that out, what that purpose was.
In your life and mine, there is a purpose that he chose you and me and to go through life figuring it out in your own practical way and it's all connected here. It's.
Is the purpose that He has for each one of us. But there is no cause in us intrinsically that He chose us. We need to be very careful. We distinguish that. Otherwise we say we're a better stock than the rest. There was something in US that He chose us. No, He has a purpose and each one of us individually in our path, but it's not because we were from good.
Dark and I know sun had problems.
I'm from I fell in here and breathing.
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And now I'm seeing more like I say.
When joyful clouds fall kindly.
When sleep starts on here as well as when.
Rainforests.
Are dead.
Thou get thy name, dear Lord.
And give your brain and goddess and all I want to hear you, and we'll gain anything.
Spare time and goodnight swearing. Wow, I'm a dream, come along.
Joy.
Life against love and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Umm.
Oh.
The loving God and the Father.
Portion we've had before us we.
Are thankful that we enjoy the privileges of being the sons of God that have been brought into a position of blessing, one that we can come to Thee and call the have a father.
We thank these use the.
First verse of our chapter stated through the Saints that are at Ephesus.
You know that That's saying there's one that is holy.
Consecrated to God and sacred. And we pray that his sons and daughters of God.
Our lives would be not only enjoy the benefits of sonship that we would reflect that which would you tell us Saints of God which is.
Commit the remainder of the day in my hands and pray that all would be done. Thy honor, thy glory.
Thank you for though.
Ministry that has been given us and we've enjoyed this.
Ask all these things and we're getting precious Lord Jesus Christ, my beloved Christ, Amen.
They complemented 2.