THE ETERNAL SUPREMACY OF CHRIST (Eph 1:20-23)

TWELVE 5 CHURCH

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through the new member class this new member class is not a guarantee that you're going to that you're going to be a member it is not a promise from you because you attend that you're a member it is the first step towards what we take very seriously here which is covenant membership and so if you want to be a part of that let us know and and so what we'll do next week right after service as we as we have quinone a feast in that process we will we'll try and eat really quick and then we'll head over to the house and and we'll go through that class together and kind of give you some maybe answer some questions about what what makes 12 5 12 5 what we believe to be a biblical church and so next week sunday april 30th we will have that but before we start our service every sunday we always we seek to try and pray for another local body of believers we do this as a reminder that we are not we're not alone that that 12 -5 is not on an island by itself but there are saints all over the community that are gathering this morning and worshiping the

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Lord and we long for those churches to to be used by God mightily and today we want to pray for Harvest Baptist in Paragould the this they just recently in the past couple of years built a new building as you can see if you're driving over to Paragould you see it kind of near Green County Tech and and I know a number of families that go there

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Harvest I think was originally Eastside Baptist so some of you may have some connections there and relationships but I just want to pray for them this morning as they gather and they worship the

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Lord that that God would be honored so if you wouldn't mind pray with me for Harvest dear

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Heavenly Father we come to you this morning and we thank you for not leaving us to ourselves we thank you for other brothers and sisters throughout the community all over the world that that uniformly together on this day gather together as you've prescribed for us to do and and come before you in worship so I pray for our brothers and sisters at Harvest Lord I pray for their leadership

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I pray that they would preach the full counsel of God that they would boldly proclaim the truth that they would equip the saints for the good work

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I pray for the saints that are there gathered I pray that you would work in their midst and in their hearts and bring about awakening and revival in their midst that you may use them for your kingdom purposes this morning

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Lord strengthen them encourage them I pray this morning as they gather to worship that they would not leave with all of um programs in awe of an experience but in awe of you with a greater deeper knowledge of you and love for you

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Father I pray that for us this morning as we gather for the same and I pray that they would experience the great love that we have towards them this morning in Christ's name amen but we have come together as a people this morning because we have tasted and seen that the

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Lord is good amen we have tasted and seen and we long to be here we long to come into the presence of the

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Lord together corporately and if you've come this morning for any other reason than because you've tasted and seen that the

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Lord is good if you've come for any other purpose this morning then I pray that you too would come to the knowledge of the

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Savior to see that he alone can satisfy right to see that he alone can fill that longing in your soul and in your heart just as the prophet

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Isaiah says here in our call to worship which comes from Isaiah 55 please stand with me in a in a read and response of this text

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Isaiah says come all who are thirsty and you who have no money come buy wine and milk without money and without cost why spend money on what is not bread listen listen to me and eat what is good and you will delight in the richest affair give ear and come to me

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I will make an everlasting covenant with you my faithful love promised to David let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts and all of God's people said amen well this feast that we that we speak of cannot be purchased it cannot be bought by your efforts or bought by your good deeds it cannot be earned by your church attendance because the greatest thing that we have to offer to the great creator is his filthy rags before him isn't it we have nothing to bring oh but when we see our own moral bankruptcy as a people as a created finite being in light of the abundance of God's free gift of grace we experience life everlasting don't we life abundantly and I pray that our hearts this morning are bursting forth as we as we look to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith and worship

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I know this feels like a somber moment I can see it on our faces we're just getting ready to wake up we're just getting our bearings here but this is something to celebrate this is something joyous God has brought us together for a taste of what it's going to be in eternity and glory to worship the creator in spirit and truth and we get together this morning and do that very thing so praise the

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Lord amen God we come before you this morning to worship and honor your holy name we thank you for your word this morning we thank you for bringing everybody here to praise you and God as we just sing corporately to you ask you to accept this offering of praise fathers we lift our voices our hands to worship and praise the mighty

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God we thank you we worship the

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God is our

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God we sing to the

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God who saves He sings to the God who always takes away

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Though He rose up from that cross And He rose up from that grave

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My God is still rolling stones away There's joy in the house of the

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Lord There's joy in the house of the Lord today And we won't be quiet When we shout out

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Your praise There's joy in the house of the Lord Our God is surely in this place

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We won't be breakers

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Now we're royalty We were the prisoners

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And now we're running free We are forgiven

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Accepted, redeemed by His grace Let the house of the

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Lord sing praise We were the breakers Now we're royalty

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We were the prisoners And now we're running free

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We are forgiven Accepted, redeemed by His grace

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There's joy in the house of the Lord today And we won't be quiet When we shout out

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Your praise There's joy in the house of the Lord Our God is surely in this place

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We won't be quiet When we shout out Your praise

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Bless Your name,

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O God Still the eye of man The dark to the setting sun

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The joy in the sound Your glory far exceeds

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All human thought So let each blood fount

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Bless Your name, O God Your name will be revealed

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As generations sing

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Your name is here You're strong and mighty

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For God, Your precious

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Lord Your love and Your mercy

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Rounds 25 and the same You hear our praise,

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Your gracious name Your works are great

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In Your power Christ descends

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And You will reign forever Good is the

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Lord And greatly to be praised How great

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God, He is greatly to be praised, amen

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He deserves all of our worship this morning, amen Our scripture reading this morning comes from Psalm 67

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May God be gracious to us and bless us And make

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His face shine upon us That Your way be known on earth

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We're saving power among all nations Let the peoples praise

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You O God, let all the peoples praise You Let the nations be glad and sing for joy

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For You judge the peoples with equity And guide the nations upon earth

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Let the peoples praise You, O God Let all the peoples praise

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You The earth has yielded its increase God, our

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God, shall bless us, amen God shall bless us Let all the ends of the earth fear

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Him Praise the

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Lord His mercy is more

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Stronger than darkness And deeper than water

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My sins they are made His mercy is more

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When a person's burden Has become so heavy

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For some temperance God has made He welcomes and leads

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The vilest of poor My sins they are made

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His mercy is more His mercy is more

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Stronger than darkness And deeper than water

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My sins they are made His mercy is more

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His kindness lavished on us

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His blood was the pain His life was the cost

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He stood beneath the dead We could never afford

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My sins they are made His mercy is more

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His mercy is more

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Stronger than darkness My sins they are made

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His mercy is more Praise the Lord His mercy is more

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Stronger than darkness My sins they are made

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His mercy is more Jesus, I love

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You And of all the sins

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I resent You My gracious Redeemer Savior, my

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Jesus Savior, Savior I sing

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Great is Thy faithfulness Lord, I do

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There is no shadow of turning with Thee No changes, no mercies

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I see Great is

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Thy faithfulness

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Thank You that You've allowed us to be here this morning That You put it on our hearts to join the Body of Christ To be here and worship

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Your Name, Father To hear from Your Word God, we ask now that the Holy Spirit would open our ears

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To hear what You have for us, Father God And I pray that You would open our mouths to sing praise to You, God Because You are worthy

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I ask now as we continue this time of worship and giving Lord God, that You would be honored in the giving that we do

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And the work of our hands, may it bring You joy Father, not just here in this building

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But every day as we go out And all that we do Would bring You glory and honor, Father Thank You for this church body,

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God So You'd be all glory and honor and praise forever and ever Amen Well, as the guys are passing around the basket here

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Go ahead and open up your copy of God's Word To Ephesians chapter 1 Ephesians chapter 1

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And we're going to start reading in verse 15 Where we have been looking over the past couple of weeks

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At Paul's prayer as he wraps up this chapter And today we're going to be focusing primarily on verses 20 -23

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Where we see the Apostle Paul wrapping up this prayer This great thought and his prayer towards the saints there in Ephesus And those who are going to read this letter

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He wraps it up with a Christological doxology Simply a praise and honor to Christ This is how the

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Apostle Paul ends it So let's start reading there in verse 15 as we read the entirety of the prayer Paul says

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For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus And your love toward all the saints

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I do not cease to give thanks for you Remembering you in my prayers

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That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ The Father of glory May give you the spirit of wisdom

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And of revelation and the knowledge of Him Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened

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That you may know what is the hope to which He has called you What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints

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And what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe According to the working of His great might

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That He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead And seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places

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Far above all rule and authority And power and dominion

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And above every name that is named Not only in this age but also in the one to come

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And He put all things under His feet And gave Him as head over all things to the church

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Which is His body The fullness of Him who fills all in all

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This is the reading of God's holy inspired word The writings of the

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Apostle Paul But under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit So let's stop

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Let's pause as we do every week after the reading of God's word Let's bow our heads in humility to our great

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God And ask that He would allow us to see this clearly Dear Heavenly Father Thank you

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Thank you for giving us your word Father thank you for not leaving us to ourselves

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To guess and to wonder who the creator is But God you have provided for us

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All that we need for life and godliness So Father I ask right now that you

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You would mold us through your word For you promised that your word never returns void

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And always accomplishes what it sets out to do So Father I pray this morning as we hear it

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As we look at it as we ponder on it That we would see it clearly Father guard my words from error

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Father guard their ears from error Help us to be true

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To what you have said Through your inspired word

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Help us to be doers of the word Not just hearers only Or mold us as a people

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Form us as a people God I pray this morning as we see your word That we would be in awe of you

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That we would see our savior Jesus Christ For the glorious majestic savior

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Sovereign supreme lord of all the universe That he is God help us to see it Help us to know it

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Help us not to just intellectually affirm that that is true But to know it deep within our souls

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As Paul prayed here In Christ's name, amen Well over the past Well it's been over 500 years

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Since men of God The reformers If you like to keep up with church history

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The reason that we're gathered today as Protestants They stood against Roman Catholicism and the papacy

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And claiming that there is but one head of the church One And it is not the pope

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It is not a council It is not a king

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That is the head of the church It is as Paul says here in our text today And all of scripture testifies to the fact

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That it is Jesus Christ alone Which is what they fought for And we now

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Protestants Reap the benefits of that great battle that they fought All those years ago

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And continue to fight even today We have been severed from the bondage and the lie

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That was birthed straight out of the pits of hell Right into the walls of the Vatican We've been delivered from it

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We now get together today Knowing who the head of the church is

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Instead of where men seek to usurp that authority That headship that is

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Christ and Christ alone While sitting on their throne of pride Something to celebrate, right?

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Praise God for this We've been delivered from this This is a great victory for the gospel

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This is a great victory for the church here on earth However, just like with any sin in our lives

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We fight these battles to gain victory on one front Only to have the enemy, sin

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Creep up and attack us on another front Isn't that the pattern of sin in your life?

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What do I mean by that? What does this mean? What I'm saying is I don't know of any

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Protestant churches And when I say Protestant churches I'm referring to evangelical biblical churches, right?

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We're not talking about the fringe ones out there That want to be Roman Catholic lite I'm talking about real evangelical gospel believing churches

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But I don't know any of those who are tempted To look to the Pope as the head of the church, do you? We've been delivered from that We've defeated that sin in our midst

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Yet in a very practical way by default Treat our senior pastor as such

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You see what I mean? We defeat one front and sin creeps up its ugly head in another

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We treat our bishop as such We treat our elder board as such

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We treat our congregational authority as such We see the propensity in man

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Showing itself through the people of Israel In 1 Samuel chapter 8 If you're familiar with the story

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God has given Israel judges Judges to help establish law and rule

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And for God to speak to his people They had no need of a king

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People of Israel had no need of a king Because they had a king It was God Almighty They had a king

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They had a perfect king However, the people of Israel wanted to be Just like the other nations

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Demanding that they have a king Like the other nations And what does

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God do? God warns them through Samuel If you remember the story Samuel, he goes to the

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Lord And God says, hey, a king Here's what's going to happen I want you to tell the people A king is going to take, take, take

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He's going to take your sons for battle He's going to take your daughters as cooks He's going to take your grain He's going to take your wine

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He is going to take, take, take Just like all the other kings do And then by the time he gets to the end

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Of explaining to Samuel This is what you need to tell the people of Israel He says, and in that day You will cry out because of your king

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Whom you have chosen for yourselves But the Lord will not answer you in that day You've chosen a king for yourself

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And he is going to take, take, take And I'm not going to hear Because you've chosen him over me

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And even though the people of Israel were warned They still demanded an earthly king, didn't they? They heard the words of God And they said that, that's not enough

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We believe you as the creator We believe you as God But we need, we need someone to look to So God gives it to them

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And we saw how that worked out, didn't we? What God told them was true

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It was take, take, take But thankfully in God's goodness

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In God's kind graciousness for his people He gave us a picture through that process

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He gives us a picture of King David Well, I say a picture of King David It really gives us a picture through King David He gives us the picture of a king

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The king The king of kings The one that would come and not take, take, take

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But give, give, give To give of his own life

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To give of his own righteousness To give of his love This beautiful picture, this

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This is the king that Paul is referring to here in our text King Jesus Look at our text here in verse 20

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Says that he worked This is a text we dealt with last week briefly At the end of what we were explaining with what he was praying

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But what he's referring to, that he worked in Christ Is the power of God This is the power of God that worked in Christ When he raised him from the dead

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Now I love what Steve Lawson, Dr. Steve Lawson says here He says this is not a dead head

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This is a living head But he says when Christ, when he raised him from the dead

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When the power of God raised Christ from the dead Says he seated him He seated him at his right hand

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In the heavenly places There's some imagery here, imagine with me

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Let's get this into our minds As we set up the picture of what this looks like The creator of all the universe

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The everlasting God that has been forever Has no beginning, has no end

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The triune God in perfect union Totally self -sufficient in and of himself

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit And in the fullness of time As the writer of Hebrews says

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God the Son condescends He lays down his prerogatives

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His rightful position to become like man The creator of all

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Becomes like the very creature that he himself created He felt hunger, pain

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He's tempted in every way He lives according to his own law

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Only to be reviled, hated, beaten, spat upon, ridiculed

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And ultimately murdered Can you imagine it with me? I know you know the story, but bear with me

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Let's get it in our heads here The creator of everything Ultimately murdered, buried

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And now here we're at what Paul is talking about And by the power of God Raised from the dead

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And victoriously returns to the Father Victoriously returns to the

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Father And as God the Son Comes into the throne room of God Can you imagine it in your mind?

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Think about it for a second Think of the greatest throne room that you could fathom on earth Think of the greatest kingdom that you could even begin to get your brain wrapped around And multiply that by infinity

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This is the throne room of God And God the Son enters into this throne room

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Where the creator reigns

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And here's Jesus Saying, Father Those that you had chosen

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Those that you had set your love upon before the foundation of the world I have purchased them by blood ransom

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And what does the Father do? Seats him

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At his right hand Seats him at his right hand

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What does this mean? Does this mean that Jesus is physically sitting on a physical throne

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Beside the Father in heaven? Is that what it means? I honestly don't know what that looks like I can't even begin to fathom what that looks like But I do know what it means

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What the principle behind it is That throne room is what?

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It's a position of authority It's the position of authority Sovereignty Omniscience Omnipresent Aseity Impassibility Impeccability Incomprehensibility I could go on and on forever

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But that's the throne room of God Where he reigns

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This is where the holy almighty creator reigns over all And this is where Jesus is

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And when Paul says that he has placed him at his right hand He's referring to a position of ultimate authority

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To be placed at the right hand That imagery isn't necessarily just Jesus sitting on an actual throne

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At the right side of God the Father That imagery is one of God the Father Giving him ultimate authority

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Over his kingdom So the question is

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What jurisdiction is under this kingdom reign? Paul answers this, doesn't he?

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Look at verse 21 He says Far above Now in the original language here

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This word that's being used Gives us this idea of exceedingly

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When I say that We're limited, right? We always talk about that here The English language is just limited

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We just don't have words for things So when we say far and above Then we have categories, right?

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I can say Maybe like right here Like the apostle Paul is right here

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And like Jesus is way up here But that's not the imagery that it gives us

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It gives us an infinite imagery When he says far and above It's exceedingly above It's in a completely different category altogether

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If every human If every creature Is on that chart at different levels

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Then Jesus isn't even on that chart Jesus encompasses that chart

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And is completely separate from it We have to get that into our brain

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Jesus isn't just the better elder brother No, he is the sovereign king

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That is far above and completely detached He is exceedingly above And what is he exceedingly above?

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He's exceedingly above all rule All authority

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All power All dominion Catch that?

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All? Not some rule He's not over most rule

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It's all All authority All power and dominion

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He says he's far above all rule And authority And power And dominion And Above Above what?

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What's it say? You gotta look into your Bibles, right? Above every name

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Above every name that is named You know there's significance in a name, isn't there?

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We take that for granted, but there's meaning in names And he's far above any other name that is named

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Jesus And I think sometimes we get fixated on that name

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And we think, oh, the name Jesus actually has power in it Well, yes

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But it's the essence of who that name is That has the power It's not just lip service to the name

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That's why a lost person can come And try and produce something in the name of Jesus And they say the word

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But there's no power behind it Because it's the essence of the name And that is who

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Jesus is He is the name that is above every name And this means every president This means every king

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This means every celebrity Every nation Every entity Both in the physical realm, mind you

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And the spiritual realm So Christ's jurisdiction of authority

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Here's the thing According to Paul here, it has no boundaries He reigns over those in hell right now

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And through eternity He reigns over Satan himself

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He is the king of Satan They're not fighting a dualistic battle

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Oh, I wonder who's gonna win No He's the king

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Satan has to obey him He can't do anything without the permission of the king

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He reigns Not only does his jurisdiction have no boundaries

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His reign has no time limit The reign of our

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Savior Our sovereign Lord has no time limit Look at the text again In verse 21 It says far above all rule and authority

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And power and dominion And above every name that is named Not only in this age

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But also in the one to come This statement

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Has monumental ramifications for us Christians today This is vital

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This is important for us to grasp Because what Paul is saying is Is that this ultimate authority

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And reign of Christ is not only something To look forward to in the next age

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And what does he mean by the next age? He's referring to Christ coming, isn't he? Christ will come

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And we will go into the next age Right? The age to come And sometimes

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We look at that and we say Oh, well I have great hope in the future But it's something for us to rest in In the here and now

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That's why this statement is so important Something for us to rest in in the here and now

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The present age We refer to this as the church age That's what we're in, right?

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We're in the church age We see this actually practically in Paul's letter to Titus Flip over there with me

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Turn back It's near the end of the New Testament there Getting close In the pastoral epistles

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But it's a small letter to Titus And I want you to look at Titus chapter 2 We're going to look at verses 11 through 13

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Here in Titus chapter 2 Starting in verse 11 Paul says

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For the grace of God has appeared Bringing salvation for all people

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What's he referring to? Christ Right? This is Jesus The grace of God has appeared

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This is Jesus that he's speaking of Verse 12 Training us To Renounce ungodliness

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And worldly passions And to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives In the present age

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Okay? This is the church age

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This is where we're at right now Verse 13 Waiting for our blessed hope

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And appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ So what is

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Paul saying here in this text? We can renounce ungodly, worldly passions

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We can live upright, godly, self -controlled lives

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In the here and now Because Jesus Christ reigns And Paul here in Titus When he's telling

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Titus He's saying Listen Here and now This present age You can have confidence to live this life of godliness

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You can have confidence to live A holy life and pursue

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Holy living and obedience to Christ right now But you're also looking for the hope

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Of what's to come The future age, right? The return of Christ But this present age is before the return of Christ We're in that and we're waiting

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But there's hope in it There's a beauty in what we can rest in In Christ Because he reigns

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And he's given us victory To live that life Now Let's be honest for a second

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Okay Sometimes it doesn't feel like he reigns as king now, does it? Sometimes it doesn't feel like he reigns as king

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But Paul says that God has In verse 22 of our text Put all things under his feet

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Fixate on that word, all We have brothers out there that like to say all means all, right?

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All Under his feet The writer of Hebrews quoted

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Psalm 8 in reference to this In Hebrews chapter 2 verse 8 he says

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Putting everything in subjection under his feet Speaking of Christ And then the writer of Hebrews says

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Now And putting everything in subjection to him He left A few things outside his control

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Is that what it says? He says

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Now and putting everything in subjection to him He left Nothing Outside of his control

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But then the writer of Hebrews acknowledges what we feel At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to him

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At present, in this moment, we don't see it Now is the writer of Hebrews contradicting himself?

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Or is he telling us that we simply don't see this reality?

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Of course we don't see this reality We can't see spiritual realities in full in this moment

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Because we are in the physical realm, right? We've talked about that before We can't see these spiritual realities completely

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But here's the thing It doesn't matter if you don't see it That matters

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At all It doesn't matter if you can't experience it It doesn't matter if you don't like it

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Doesn't matter All that matters Is if scripture says it's true

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That's all there is, right? And as we've seen today It obviously does

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It tells us that Jesus reigns now In this moment As we speak, as king

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Christ reigns supreme over all of creation There is not a molecule out of place

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I forgot the Puritan that said it But there was a great Puritan In speaking of Christ's supremacy over everything

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He says, Christ sits on the throne right now Looks at everything created and says, mine

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There's beauty in that, isn't there? Look back with me at verse 22 That we just read

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And he put all things Under his feet Now some of your translations actually say

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He put all things in subjection Under his feet And I gotta be honest,

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I like that translation Because, here's the thing It emphasizes this word subjection

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Which in the Greek is I always gotta give you a

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Greek lesson every Sunday, right? And this is a combination of two Greek words

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And hypo refers to something that is under To help you get your brain wrapped around it

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It's where we get our word hypothermia And what happens when you have hypothermia?

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Your temperature drops below Where it should be And so this word hypo

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Combined with tosso Refers to putting something into order Something under And placed in order when combined with these

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And together these two words were actually a military term A military term that was referring to Lining up underneath a superior officer

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It's interesting that Paul uses that phrasing, right? Lining up under a superior officer

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So when he says there in the text And put all things in subjection under his feet

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Everything, all, is lining up in order

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Behind a superior officer And it's no wonder that Paul uses a military term

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Because this imagery of putting something in subjection under his feet Was common practice of a king of that day

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And in the Old Testament Because if you were with us Wednesday night I shared this analogy with you

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And you may remember it But back then A kingdom would go in and conquer another kingdom

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They would bring them into subjection Under their rule and reign

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And what would be done is The king of that defeated kingdom Would be brought into the throne room

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Of the victorious king And laid on the ground in front of him And the victorious king would prop his feet up on The defeated king

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As a sign of supremacy And sovereignty And the fact that he has defeated

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And this is the imagery that Paul gives us with Jesus? But if you think about it

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This is precisely what God has done with Christ He has drugged the defeated kings of this earth

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And this universe All of the spiritual and physical realm He has defeated them

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And drug them into the throne room And forced them to the ground And now Christ uses them as his footstool

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As a sign of his supreme reign Now what's sad is

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Is in their pride and blindness They don't even see it yet, do they? How many kings and rulers do you know

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That are fully cognizant of the fact that they're on the ground In front of the reigning king of the universe

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With his feet propped up over them? Very few know and realize this

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So how can we see this truth playing out today? How can we be so assured of this and see it?

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Well look at verse 22 with me again There in our passage in Ephesians 1 And he put all things under his feet

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And gave him as head Over all things to the church

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In verse 23 he explains that Which is his body

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The fullness of him who fills all in all Here Paul gives us the imagery of the church

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Being the body of Christ Which we've seen throughout scripture We see it in places like Colossians 1 .18

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Where Paul says and he, speaking of Jesus As the head of the body, the church

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You see Jesus reigns as king over all earthly entities He reigns as king over the governments

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He reigns as king over every organization Every tribe, every nation, every tongue

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Every spiritual being Every principality, every entity in this universe

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And what do all of those things have in common that he reigns over? Their institutions

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The things that he has put into place You see the governments were created by God for a purpose, weren't they?

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They have a purpose God created them for that purpose Satan and his demons were created by God for a purpose

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Right? They have a purpose Every nation of people was created by God for a purpose

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And here's the thing about all of those entities, all of those institutions That purpose will be fulfilled

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And those institutions will cease They will be no more

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But when scripture speaks of the church It doesn't speak of the church as an institution

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But as an organism Something categorically different A body

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Speaks of it as the body The body of the reigning king Here on earth

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Verse 23 Which is his body The fullness of him who fills all in all

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The church doesn't get some of Jesus We get the fullness of him

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The one that fills each one of us And he is the head of that body

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He is the source of life to that body He is the one who reigns supreme over the church

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It's his body to do with as he pleases It must obey him

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I'm not the head of the church I'm standing up here in this pulpit But I'm not the head of this church

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By any means Far from it I'm not even in that category Jeremiah is not the head of this church

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This congregation as a whole is not the head of this church No bishop is the head of a church

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No elder board is the head of a church No committee is the head of a church No man made entity in this world is the head of the church

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Christ is the head of the church alone He reigns

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It is his body to do with as he pleases He is the good shepherd You and I are merely body parts to be used for his good pleasure

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However he sees fit in his perfect wisdom and sovereignty How arrogant of us to think for a moment

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That we have say in what this body should and shouldn't do How arrogant of us to say

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This is what the church needs Because this is what will reach the community This is what will reach the world

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How dare us He's already told us what he wants from this body It's in his word, obey it

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Believe in it, it has power He reigns supreme No man, no group

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But Christ He is the good shepherd But we, like the people of Israel, we long for a leader, don't we?

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We long for a leader just like the rest of the world It's just in our nature

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We look to institutions and we see CEOs Great CEOs running that corporation

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With such power and might And such leadership qualities We see a president, oh that's my president

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We can't really say much anymore, can we? But that's my president What a man of stature that has so much power

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We see kings and rulers And we seek to recreate this model Thinking that it will deliver us

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That it will give us what it is that we think the church should accomplish If we could just get a soul type of preacher in here

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Then we could get 12 .5 to grow, couldn't we? If we could just get somebody that's a little more dynamic

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And a lot smarter, then we'd be alright And definitely taller That's what we long for Some leadership qualities

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A voice that people want to follow We want a Moses model We want a

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Moses Then the church could really impact the world I bet we'd have a lot of baptisms then, wouldn't we?

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Utter, just like the people of Israel All the while forgetting that God has given us a

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Moses model He gave us one Except for the one that he has given us

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Is one with the true and better Moses Jesus Christ, our supreme head

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The holy, perfect son of God The one that reigns The one that has defeated death

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We have no need of an earthly king We have no need to look to man to be led

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If you see a man that says, follow me Run What you want is you want men like the apostle

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Paul that says Imitate me As I imitate Christ Not imitate me

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Period Imitate me as I imitate Christ Because Christ is the head

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He reigns supreme This gives us great encouragement, doesn't it?

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It changes the dynamic of what God is building here Because God is building his church And the gates of hell will not prevail against it

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We don't need all of the programs and the plans and the leaders And all the fancy things

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We need to be obedient to Christ That's what we long for as a people

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Because he is the head of the church In this age And the age to come

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Forever And the church is his body That's beautiful, amen

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One of the best ways for us to see that we are the body of Christ Is through the ordinance of the

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Lord's Supper As we do every single week We prepare our hearts to come to the table

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And partake of these elements as Christ has prescribed As he has laid out for us

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But a taste of the wine and a taste of the bread That represents his blood and his body

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And shows us the oneness that we, the church, the body of Christ have In sharing with him

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And we get to rest in that This is a time of worship It's not a time of penance

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This is not a time of, oh, woe is me, I've not been good this week I don't deserve to go to the table

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Oh no, this is a time of, praise God, I'm not good But my savior is and I take part in him

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And his righteousness is imputed on my behalf Given to me

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We rest in it The head of the church The supreme ruler of all the universe

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We have part in him So let's pray now that God will prepare our hearts for worship

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I want to say here real quick first I want everyone to know You know the routine, we come around, take the elements, go back to your seats

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And you can partake as a family, as an individual, pray together But I want you to know, me and Pastor Jeremiah are always up here

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If you want to pray with us, if you need to talk through something with us, we're here If you just want to fall on your face before the

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Lord and pray during this time You are welcome to do that This is a time where we can freely come together

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And go to the Lord and it's a continued element of worship And so as the spirit leads, as long as it's not detracting and distracting

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You are welcome to this So let's pray Dear Heavenly Father, Lord we thank you

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Father that you, you alone are the head of the church That you reign supreme

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God as we partake in these elements I pray that we would rest in the righteousness of Christ That we would be comforted in the unity that we have with one another in Christ And that we would be encouraged for the future

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For you told us to continue to partake of these elements in this way Until you returned again

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And bring about that new age Age of glory

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Where we get to experientially and physically and spiritually

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See the already reign of our Savior We thank you in Christ's name,