Loved With Everlasting Love - Part 5 — Paris Reidhead

The Father's Purpose, the Son's Provision, and the Spirit's Perfection

Aspect of his character set forth in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. I'm not going to endeavor to review the ground we've covered other than to remind you that God as Father planned and purposed our salvation before the foundation of the world.

God as Son provided everything that the Father purposed and planned in the fullness of time. And now God the Holy Spirit is ready, waiting, willing to perfect in us everything that the Father purposed and the Son provided.

But, whereas God in his sovereignty can command sinners to repent, and does, he beseeches his brethren to present their bodies a living sacrifice. Total different attitude and approach to the I beseech you, I beg of you, I implore you, said Paul in Romans 12, 1 and 2.

By these mercies, it's as though behind Paul is the Lord Jesus holding out his nail-pierced hands, present your body a living sacrifice. No command here. The Sovereign is now dealing with us as his loving children.

And when it comes to the church at Ephesus, these that have been brought so recently out of groveling before the shrine of Diana of the Ephesians, and all the immorality and brutality, cruelty of that worship, he says, I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love unto all the saints, and I cease not to give thanks for you.

I'm terribly grateful for what's happened, said Paul. Oh, I'm so grateful. It's wonderful. I give thanks for you. Making mention of you in my prayers, that's a little weak. It's much stronger than that.

To another church, he said, I am praying for you night and day, travailing. And there's something of that in this as well. In other words, once we've come out of death into life, once we've repented and received Christ as our Savior and Lord, then the approach to us as his children is entirely different.

No longer is it one of a sovereign commanding his subjects. It's a father entreating his children and interceding for his children. What's he praying for? What is Paul praying for the church at Ephesus?

The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation

What is the Lord Jesus, our great High Priest, praying for us today? Because Paul's prayers are but an echo of Christ's prayer. And what is Christ praying for today, for you, because he ever lives to make intercession for you today, for me, the Lord Jesus is praying, that the eyes of our understanding may be opened, that we may know the things that are ours to know in Christ.

As he did for the church in Corinth in that first letter, chapter 2, verses 9 and 10, I hath not seen nor hear heard, neither hath it entered into the mind of man the things that God had prepared for them that love him.

But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit which he hath given us. And so Paul is adding to that another aspect, and he's saying, I'm praying for you that the God of our Lord Jesus, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, that the eyes of your understanding may be opened, that you may know the things that God has prepared for them that love him.

Because unless you know what is yours, you have very little grounds for expecting it to become yours. When you are told by the court that you've been named a residual legatee for an estate, you're interested in finding out what it is that's been bequeathed to you.

If your neighbor gets such a letter and says you are one of the heirs of a certain estate, you're interested in a way what they may have received. Probably, well, I don't know why we should be so interested, but we usually are when we find some friend of ours has been named in an estate.

But it doesn't really affect you. It's not going to change your way of life. It's not going to meet your problems or your needs, because it's their bequeathment, not yours. So he's praying that you, as an heir of all things through Christ, may listen to the divinely appointed court representative, who it is that's going to read the will to you and explain to you what it is you've inherited.

The eye hath not seen. You can read the scripture, that's splendid. Memorize the scripture, that's splendid. But it's much simpler for a tape recorder to do that than it is for you or for me. All you need to do is read it into the tape recorder and it'll repeat it back over and over again without error.

So it isn't just enough for the eye to read. It isn't just enough for the ear to hear. It isn't just enough for the mind to repeat. That's what it's saying. Eye hath not seen, or ear heard, neither hath it entered into the mind of man.

This is not mechanical. That's what he's saying. In this manner of understanding the things that God has prepared for them that love him is revelation. The words are all there. The truth is there. It's all set forth.

But it's one thing to read it and it's another thing to understand it. Because we're not just dealing with dollars and cents, houses and lands. We're quite adept at comprehending that. But when we're talking about having been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ, that's a dimension with which we have very little previous familiarity.

We don't talk that language too well. We don't understand the terms of reference. And so if all we had was just the will, and here it is, this is the will in the Testament, called the New Will, the New Testament.

But how excited are you about that? You have it. This is what he bequeathed. But has that gotten, oh, filled with anticipation? Well, not for the most part. You don't look that excited about it right now.

But I'll tell you, if you'll go to ask the Holy Spirit to become to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him, that the eyes of your understanding may be opened, then the things which God has prepared for them that love him, that eye can't see, nor ear hear, nor mind perceive, are made clear and are made real.

By whom? By the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So he's entreating us and begging us and imploring us to become sensitive to the fact that God the Holy Spirit wants to be the one who unveils or just explains this will.

That's your response. What is your response? Lord, open the eyes of my understanding. Be unto me, blessed Holy Spirit, the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ. That's your response.

That's your petition. That's your prayer on a daily basis, not just once, but every day. Lord, show me today something more. You see, we can't take it all in. It's so marvelous. It's so wonderful, the things that God has prepared for them that love him.

But everything he's prepared is essential for our happiness in time and for our going through time in a way that's going to glorify him. Many of us, I'm afraid, are going to get through into out of time and into eternity.

Redeemed, yes. But when we stand before him at the Bema, there may be a few tears, maybe more than a few, maybe a lot of tears. I have a feeling there's going to be tears in heaven. Otherwise, what's he got to wipe away?

Remember it says he's gonna wipe away all our tears? Well, if we don't have them, what's he got to wipe away? You know what I think the tears are going to be about? How indifferent we've been to the things that God has prepared for them that love him.

How content we've been to go along with only a fraction of one of our inheritance. To limp along through time without even having concern enough to go to him and say, Blessed Spirit of God, be unto me the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Christ.

Now, the sovereign God could have done it some other way. He could have taken you as his child by the nape of the neck and held you up there and cuffed you back and forth a few times and said, Now this is yours and this is yours and this is yours.

Now take it because you need it. But in his sovereignty, he decided not to do it that way. That's not how he does it. You see, a sovereign God has the right to decide what he will, what he won't do. He has a right to choose the method.

And so he has chosen as a method with his children of giving in the Scripture a statement such as Paul is making to the church at Ephesus. Hey, you guys up there at Ephesus. You know, it's great that you're converted.

It's wonderful that you're forgiven. We're all so happy to hear that you're pardoned and you're justified. Hey, you're brethren, we love you and we hear you love us and that's a bigger miracle. It's easy for us to love you, but it's a miracle that you could love us.

We're thrilled about that. But unless you should sit down right there and say, Hey, I got everything there is to get. I'm forgiven. I'm pardoned. I'm justified. I got news for you. Everything you've got's good, but you haven't gotten all the good yet.

There's a lot more you don't have than you have that you know about. So I wanted you to know that you're on my prayer list since I heard you were converted. Did you hear that? The Lord Jesus said, I'm not praying for the unconverted.

I'm not praying for the world. To his father in John 17, he said, I'm praying for them you've given me out of love. Why? Because it's going to be so very easy for them to come into pardon and come into forgiveness and come into the assurance of eternal life and sit there diddly-squat and say, Isn't this wonderful?

So I'm praying for them. I'm praying for them what? That the eyes of their understanding may be open and that they may realize that God the Holy Spirit wants to be unto them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ.

To show them the things that the Father purposed before the foundation of the world and the things the Son provided at Calvary. To quicken them with expectation, to show them their need, to stimulate them to meet the conditions.

And that's what the high priest is praying for. Well if you understand that, then you realize that it's extremely important for us to have that attitude of expectancy. Frederick Faber said that in words that I am not able to quote the actual phrase.

He was a great poet and I'm not. But Frederick Faber said, Some people outlive their thirst and their hunger for God. They've met him, they've taken as it were the cup of pardon and the cup of forgiveness and they've never been thirsty again.

And it would be so wonderful if as long as we breathe, long as we're alive, we could have this about the things of the Lord. Instead of that, no, no, let's never outlive our excitement at that which God has prepared for them that love him.

That's what he's praying for the church at Ephesus. That the eyes of their understanding may be opened, that they may know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies far above all principality 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 gave him to behead over all things to the church the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

Every word in the Greek language that has to do with power is in that, those few verses. God absolutely exhausted the language he chose to give us the New Testament in telling us about this. Now here we see the sovereignty of God revealed.

Christ's Resurrection, Ascension, and Sovereign Victory

In what? In verse 20. God's sovereignty is revealed in raising Christ from the dead. Now we know at Calvary there was conflict. We know that when the Lord Jesus reached out and drew me and drew you to himself and became in the eyes of his father you and me, saddled as it were with our guilt and our uncleanness, identified with us in our sin, made to be what we were, that from that moment that he identified himself with us, the father could no longer look upon him as his son but he had to look upon him as us.

And that meant that because he was laden with your guilt in mind, your corruption in mind, though he himself was laden with it in that sense it was laid upon him, but we yet without sin. But in as much as he identified himself with you, he was exposed now to conflict in from two directions.

From hell, from the pit, because he had my guilt and yours on him, everything that Satan wanted to do to us and could do to us because of our sin, he now could do to Christ. Prior to that the Lord Jesus in conflict said, I saw Satan fall as lightning from heaven.

He was cast out. But now because the Lord Jesus has identified with your sin and with mine, he's subject to what Satan can do. Those three hours on the cross and those that hours prior when he was scourged was in effect what Satan was wanting to do to God when he said, I will put my throne above the throne of the Most High.

Now God the Son, the God by whom the world was made, is standing there, hanging there if you please, suspended between heaven and earth. The father's eyes averted because he is laden with my sin and he's subject to everything that Satan can do.

So for those three hours are three hours in which hell attacks heaven, in which Satan sees Christ as God and does to him everything that he wanted to do when he raised his voice and said, I'll put my throne above the throne of the Most High.

And so the Lord Jesus is there, subject, can't fight back because he's now there as me and as you and we have no grounds for any defense. He's identified with our sin. And then there is a another aspect of that conflict and that is God from heaven looking down upon his son and seeing his son as me and having to bring the cup of his wrath and the cup of his judgment against sin, as it were, to the Lord Jesus and hold it there.

Now when there's not another arrow in the quiver of hell to be shot into the Lord Jesus, another spear to be thrown, another fist to be raised to buffet the Son of God, when there's not another drop in the cup of God's wrath against sin, when the Lord Jesus is drained into its last bitter dregs, he can cry out, it's finished.

That twofold battle is now over. Hell has done everything it can to God and God has done everything his justice demands that he do to me, to man. It is finished. He releases his spirit and he dies. So resurrection is victory.

The third day that God-life which cannot die returns again to that broken and bruised and marked body and the Lord Jesus bursts again the bonds that had been placed around him and returns again in resurrection life, in resurrection victory.

In this is seen and demonstrated the sovereignty of God. God sovereignly permitted his Son to be subjected to everything that Satan could do to man and to God. God sovereignly chose to deal with his Son as his justice demanded he deal with you and with me.

This was a sovereign act of a sovereign God. He chose to do it. He accepted his Son as our substitute and our representative. And the Lord Jesus, I said, that day when he burst the bonds that had held him in death and came forth in resurrection triumph, said two things.

He said to hell, the power of hell is broken, the power of death is broken. And he said to the Father, the law has been vindicated, the law has been satisfied, the law has been justified. Now God can be merciful to sinners and hell no longer has any hold upon the redeemed.

A twofold victory. Showing again, I say, in the raising of Christ from the dead, the sovereign power of God. But in verse 21, not only has he been raised from the dead and brought again into life, but he has set at his own right hand in the heavenlies.

His ascension, causing Christ to ascend to his own right hand, is the sovereign act of God. Because now there is a man, because in his incarnation he was mortal, he was subject to death because he had a body and a personality like ours.

But now he's been raised in immortality, never subjected, yet he is raised in a body, a resurrection body that carries with it the marks of his suffering. The sword wound in his side, the nail wounds in his hands, as he said to Thomas, put forth your hand into my side, put forth your finger into the nail wounds in my hand.

And that resurrection body has been raised in ascension glory to the right hand of the Father. At the right hand means that he has authority, that he has power. The third thing we see about the sovereignty of God is that he has put all things under Christ's feet.

He is in charge of everything. He governs and controls and rules the universe now because having conquered sin and conquered death, conquered hell, the Father has been pleased to put all things in his hands.

Thus we see the sovereignty of God manifest in what is done to Christ in raising him from the dead and in bringing him to his own right hand and putting all power in his hands and giving him to be the headship over the church.

Resurrection Power Given to Believers

Well, that's marvelous. That's wonderful. Our hearts rejoice at what's happened to Christ, but how does it affect you? How does it affect me? That's the thing we're concerned about. God in his sovereignty, in his sovereign power, did this.

Are you going to now deny him the right to continue to exercise his sovereignty? Are you going to stagger in unbelief when you see what he has done? I want you to go back to verse 19. We are to have the eyes of our understanding enlightened that we may know, in verse 19, what is the exceeding greatness of his power.

Is that what it says? Surely. Is that where it stops? No. The exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe. Now we're dealing with another dimension. God in his sovereignty is saying to us that you who now believe, you who are those that have repented of your sin and savingly embraced Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Savior, you who believe, have had the same power that raised up Christ from the dead, that brought him to the right hand of the throne, that gave him all authority in heaven and earth, and made him the head over all the church.

That very same power is the power that brought you out of death unto life. It's the power to usward who believe. Power toward us that believe. Now what does he want us to do? Just to know that that's the power?

Is that all? But that's important. He wants you to understand that the same power that awakened you to your crimes against God, that convinced you or convicted you of the enormity of those crimes, that quickened your heart to repentance, stirred your heart with faith, enabled you to savingly reach through 2 ,000 years and embrace the Son of God, that same power that justified you in heaven, regenerated you in your heart, and witnessed to you that you were born of God, that power was not some weak little effulgence that had sort of wafted away, but it's the very same power that raised up Christ from the dead.

I can say it another way. It took just as much of God's power to bring you out of death into life as it did to raise Christ from the dead. That's why that Scotsman who released from his feudal Lord and given the opportunity of taking his own name upon his conversion, decided that he would take a name that was his testimony.

And so he took the name Livingstone. We know David Livingstone. In other words, said the father of David Livingstone, you think this is a light matter, being born into the family of God and coming out of death into life?

You think you have the power to do it? Great. Prove it. You go out into the field, find that boulder brooding above the black dirt, and stand there and in your eloquence give to it all that you know. And when through the power of your personality and your eloquence you're able to turn that granite into quivering, throbbing, feeling flesh, then you know you're ready to bring people out of death into life.

And until that happens, you'd better realize that it's a miracle. It's the supernatural work of Almighty God that takes the dead and makes them alive. The very power that raised up Christ from the dead is the power that brought Ephesians groveling before Diana to the place that they were faithful brethren.

That's a miracle. But when God claimed, saved my soul, cleansed and made me whole, it took a miracle, a miracle of grace. That's what he's saying. That's what he's telling us. Now he is saying something more than that.

That the same power that raised up Christ from the dead, required to bring you out of death into the life, is the power that is now available to you in your life and your ministry and your service for Christ.

That's what you've got to understand. What did the Lord Jesus say after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you? You shall what? You shall receive power. What's the power he's talking about? You shall receive power.

It's interesting. Precisely so. There is indeed. What we have to see in the light of this is that when God sent us forth to serve, he wasn't sending us forth in just our zeal and our enthusiasm and our talent and our ability.

All of those things are all right. But he said that the very same power that raised up Christ from the dead was to be ours in our ministries. Remember the Lord Jesus made it very, very clear. Without me you can do nothing.

Oh I am with you always, even unto... See the problem is, we sometimes get the idea that salvation is a scheme, is a decision, is a ritual, is words we say or speak, or it's a system of scripture or system of doctrine.

And all of these things have their place in their value. But you know what salvation is? Salvation is a person. Salvation is a person. He that hath the Son hath life, because life is in the Son. That's why Paul in the church at Corinth in that second letter, 13 and 5, said prove your own self.

Know you not your own selves? How that Christ be in you? Salvation is a person. That's the important thing to understand. Now, the very power that raised up Christ from the dead is the power that is to be enabling us to live those good works Elijah's called our attention to, to enable us to witness, to enable us to work.

Whatever responsibility Christ gives us now, because of this identification with Christ, we have access to that same that same power. So it's extremely important for us not to go down to the second verse, the first verse of the second chapter.

Union With Christ in Death, Resurrection, and Exaltation

Many of you have King James versions. How many of you have a King James version? Good enough for Paul, it's good enough for us. Not that I have any objection, but I just like it for this reason. You notice the first two words of the second chapter?

And you. Now and is a conjunction, and I always thought that the function of a conjunction is to conjunct. And starting a new paragraph with and doesn't really strike me as being the best use of a conjunction.

But if you realize that the the chapter headings were not inspired, that was put through by the King James committee that had translated in English and they had it just in running text. And the man who did Ephesians, we're told, was called to go to France.

And on the road from London to Dover to take the boat to France, he was putting in the chapter divisions. And you can tell when the coach hit a chuckle, because that's where the chapters were. And he just didn't bother erasing it, let it stand.

That must be the reason here. I wouldn't be surprised. I don't want to claim that. Maybe it's just read head metaphysics. But at any rate, and you. That belongs there. It's right. It's okay. No problem with it.

Except it refers to what's preceded. Now in my Bible, maybe in some of yours, because I've been talking to you for many years, maybe in some of yours you have it. But I have a line down, a circle around and you and a line down the edge of the page and up to the 20th verse.

And then I tuck the point in right after him and said him. And the point is of that line is right there. Any of you have it in your Bibles that way? Oh for pretty sakes, get it in there. You need it. You know how you read it?

That way? Listen to it. Which he wrought in Christ when he raised him and you from the dead. And set him and you at his own right hand in the heavenlies. Far above all principality and power and might and dominion in every name that is named.

You see? You say, hey what right do you have to run lines down and tuck in points of arrows? Who do you think you are? Well I've been trying to figure that out for a long time but I don't have any problem with that right here at this point.

Because in the second chapter and the fifth verse and the sixth verse, he repeated it. Oh I'm so delighted when the Lord repeats it so that I can get a vindication for my pet theory. Now I'm saying that the and you refers to everything that preceded it.

And I'm also going to try to prove that to you from verses five and six. Read it again now. Which he wrought in Christ when he raised him and you from the dead. And set him and you at his own right hand in the heavenlies.

Our union with Christ means that that's where the Father sees us. Because we were in union with him in his death, in his burial, in his resurrection. We're also in union with him in his central and in his enthronement.

Now are you ready for verses five and six of the second chapter? Even when we were dead in sins hath what? Quickened us together with Christ and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ.

How do you like that? Is that pretty good? Now do you see why the Paul prayed that the Ephesian believers have their eyes, their understanding open? What did he say in verse three of the first chapter?

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. Well alright there you go. I guess that's right. I don't know but I think that's right.

Now here we have another element. Here we've got another element. We have the fact that since we were united with Christ in his death. When the Father looked at the Lord Jesus on the cross, you remember we've said this before, he saw two people.

Christ on the front of it and to help me is I have to keep it simple. You know kiss is my whole approach. You know a kiss means don't you keep it simple stupid. That's the way I have to have it. So I have here Christ on the outside of the cross but I'm united with him, crucified with him.

Well Romans 6, 6 tells us this, knowing this that our old man is crucified with Christ. And Galatians 2, 20 said I am crucified with Christ. So I'm not making anything up out of whole cloths. I'm crucified with him and in Romans 6, 4 therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death.

Baptism picture of our union with Christ in his death. We're buried with him by baptism into death. And here in Ephesians 2, 5 we are quickened together with him when two people in the tomb, Christ and you.

Two people quickened, Christ and you. Two people raised, Christ and you. Two people ascended into the heavenlies to sit down, Christ and you. Now do you see why they need to have somebody that's going to open their eyes?

Because he's blessed them with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies but you don't begin to enjoy those spiritual blessings till you understand that you're in the heavenlies now. We're all delighted about the fact you know I'm going to heaven someday but how about today?

How about now? In this week by and by I can be right now. For as far as the practical effect of it is concerned that's what he wants you to have. The realization that when your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, went to the cross you went with him.

You were crucified with him. You were buried with him. You were quickened with him. You were raised with him. You were seated with him in heaven. Now that's the place from which we are to minister. Our sovereign God planned this.

Our sovereign God decided this. He it is. Before the foundation of the world worked it all out and Christ in the fullness of time accomplished it, provided it, and now the Holy Spirit wants to make it effectively real, perfected in you.

Do I don't understand it? Of course you don't. I told you at the beginning I have not seen or heard who wants to argue with God. He said it. He said you don't understand it. But don't be worried about it.

Don't be excited about it. You don't have to understand. Friends you don't even understand electricity. But that doesn't keep you from using it. It never defined electricity. We don't know what it is.

But we use it. So you don't understand how mechanics. I'm frank to say I don't know how. But I don't have to know how. All I have to do is just say blessed God of all grace. I don't understand. But I do have sense enough as a little child, if you say I was crucified with Christ, that the body of sin or this inherited, this thing I brought into the Christian life of traits, tendencies, attitudes, habits of thought, learned responses, can be nullified.

The body of sin might be nullified and destroyed. Okay I don't understand how but Lord I'm so glad that you make it real. We'll talk about how later. Right now I need the that, not the how. Do you understand?

I'm pragmatic about this. I don't need to understand how a magnet works. All I need to understand is that there are times when it's terribly useful. And I hope that the physicists understand that it works.

But it won't surprise me if they don't. Until they come up with a good definition of electricity, I'm not expecting. Until they come up with the definition of electricity, I'm not expecting too much from them.

But they're still doing a lot for us. Whatever it is, they found out how to use it and that's real good. Have you found out how to use your union with Christ? Crucified with him to have victory over yourself.

Victory Over the Flesh, the World, and the Devil

Your attitudes and your habits and your traits and your disposition. Have you found out how your union with Christ gives you victory over the world? All that's in the world is the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

It's not of the Father, it's of the world. You're crucified with him to have victory over yourself and buried with him to have victory over the world. You got another enemy. You got the world, you got yourself, the flesh, the world, and the devil.

So what did he do? Well, we were raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenlies. That's where he took us. He's there, we're there in him. We're here, he's here in us. So don't you see what the Father's plan was?

One Lord Jesus at the right hand of the Father and all of the redeemed in him. All of the redeemed on earth and the Lord Jesus in each of them. Why? So that you can enforce his victory at the little crossroads of your place of responsibility in life.

That's why. That's why. Yes, he put you there. You're at a crossroads. You're the policeman. You put on the whole armor of God. Helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, Lloyd's girdle bow of truth, sandals, preparation of the gospel of priests, shield of faith, sword of the Spirit.

And he said, this is your crossroads, your home, your business, your family, your friends. And what are you there for? You're there to see the traffic runs right. And when you discover that you got some dogs of hell are around and the powers of darkness are there, what do you have a right to do?

Stand there, raise your hand, blow the whistle and say, stop in the name of Jesus Christ, son of the living God. What does it say in Revelation? How did they overcome this one? The apostle said, if you resist the devil he will flee from you.

Whom resist? Steadfast in the faith. How did they overcome it? By the word of their testimony and the blood of the lamb. Our union with Christ in his death and burial and resurrection and our ascension with him.

He's in us here. We're in him there. And so he's enforcing his victory here through us. What were these people up at Ephesus? What kind of a situation was it? Who was Diana? Diana was the successor to all of the goddesses in their early morality.

Nimrod, his father's wife.