Sunday Report
God’s grace flows to us and in us. This is most amazing! Pondering our reality, what actually is going on in us is staggering!
More staggering than a predictable eclipse of the sun, orders of magnitude greater and unseen is… grace. It is not so much what the Creator has done, gazing at the sun’s halo; it is what the Creator is now doing! Have you seen the Son’s halo?
Our three “L”s form a nucleus of Spiritual identity. They speak to the essential Life of Jesus Christ, God’s Love shared in us and the Holy Spirit’s Light to guide our glorification in Jesus producing His fruit.
God is! He is the “I AM” and has bought us into His eternal family. This is our new family name and we need training. What He has begun He will continue to perform.
Righteousness and sanctification and redemption sum up the wisdom God gives because we are in His Son, Christ Jesus. This is declared for us in 1Cor. 1:30, above … and He is in us.
Our three “L”s form a nucleus of Spiritual identity. They speak to the essential Life of Jesus Christ, God’s Love shared in us and the Holy Spirit’s Light to guide our glorification in Jesus producing His fruit.
Redemption makes possible God’s love in our hearts. All we are and all we have is because God is love. We are his because He made us, we are His because He bought us and we are His because we responded to His grace giving ourselves back to him in faith He provides. Paul put it this way, everything from Him, nothing from us.
Our three “L”s form a nucleus of Spiritual identity. They speak to the essential Life of Jesus Christ, God’s Love shared in us and the Holy Spirit’s Light to guide our glorification in Jesus producing His fruit.
In our last discussion of Christ’s Life in us, we described our created center in the knowledge of Jesus, receiving supernatural resources to grow God’s grace. Love, Life and Light are all part of our singular wholeness in Christ but each contributes qualitatively to our culture of Jesus’ grace in us. We want to now turn to “Light” and see how God illumines our natural soul and uses His word of truth.
LIFE is the second thread in our BodyLife trilogy of “L”s. We are speaking, of course, of Jesus’ resurrected LIFE in us. This common term in the evangelical community has lost its cutting edge. The living Life of our resurrected Jesus is literal. Not a mystic concept or theological idea, Jesus dwells in believers, Colossians 1:27, 2Cor. 1:22, Romans 8:1cf.
This truth is absolute! Do we see Jesus in believers or do we hear them pleading for Jesus’ help? No wonder Christianity is viewed as mystic and off the wall! How would you answer this? Valid or not?
We spoke to the issue of BodyLife in our last GN. BodyLife is an organic reality flowing out of every believer. A new life has been created inside our body and joined to God’s own Spirit becoming our new identity.
Problem! We are so rooted in our fleshly body we end up walking in flesh while living in our new spirit/Spirit. God’s resurrection power is thereby unavailable except in putting to death sin in the body … Jesus already nailed it to His cross! We need to nail it to His cross also, using His resurrection power. Jesus paved the way for us to get it done.
Looking at the above picture, you are struck by the massive trees next to two small persons walking on a narrow trail bridge. If these two people are believers, they have within them something much greater than trees. In the shadow of giant redwoods, dwarfing the two small clay vessels, God created again with resurrection power, life in these two people. This is what is meant to be ‘’born again.’’
Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:24 our new self is created in the likeness or image of God in true righteousness and holiness. The word created here conveys the same meaning used in Genesis when God created man and breathed life into Him. This time, John tells us in John 1, we are born of God Himself. God’s amazing grace purchased us, so once again, we are His possession. The first time we were His by creation but this time we are His because He bought us and we gave our heart and life to Him. This time, we are lifted above terrestrial soil and made citizens in God’s eternal Kingdom. While serving on this clay ball, already sin cursed, these two believers walk in the light of resurrection power.
Faith is one of the most pivotal elements in the life of God’s people since it determines destiny and qualitative growth in our created existence of grace. We are Drilling Down faith.
When I was a boy, we drove our 1935 two-tone grey Plymouth through a redwood tree. They had a one way road through one of these behemoths in northern California. A few redwoods are still alive today “who” were just beginning life when Jesus was born. It is hard to imagine how massive these ancients become. I wonder how large we can grow our faith?
We took a look at this verse last time as an introduction to faith. It suggests by context both living and walking are different, living does not necessarily equate to walking. The scriptural record is clear, our faith links the resurrection power of Jesus to both living and walking. Faith not only establishes us in righteousness but also provides the power to bring Jesus into our very soul so that we can live and walk in the Spirit.
The question becomes, why do we want to move mountains and mulberry trees? Faith not only moves mountains, it does much more, it makes us righteousness. The task of making us righteous is greater than moving mountains and this is exactly what we are called to do. We have been given the power to be righteous by faith.
Greetings from San Francisco,
I apologize for the seeming demise of Grace Notes. It was nice to hear some actually missed it! Hopefully, we will tack to a recovery.
Our near term is a little bumpy as physical circumstances are in a bit of flux. But we know “all things” are moving toward a good closure somewhere down the road. I have re-located my VA “stuff” to a local storage facility in McLean. Daughter Kimi will be getting her DVM this spring, relocating from Pullman, WA to Alaska where she and husband Fred have their old home. They are already planning their move. Dr. Kimi will begin her new vet practice in Christochina, AK. :)
Meantime, my trip to Ethiopia is looming with tickets bought and dates firmed. I’ll be gone for two weeks only on this October trip, 10/03 thru 10/20. My itinerary will be sent to me shortly. Our initial focus is expositional content pastoral directed.
Jesus Christ is our creator. In order to create, you would have to exist before your creation. It is hard to think of existence before time but this is exactly the heritage of 2Corinthians 5:17 believers described in these great pages and prayers of the apostle in Ephesians.
We are in a journey from temporal creation into an eternal setting deeded those who live in God’s immortal love.
Lavished in us are riches of God’s grace whereby we participate in a plan uniting both heaven and earth, in the fullness of time, all things in Christ, Eph. 1:7cf. This doctrine and its application are travel tools to prepare us for God’s eternal glory.
Paul has layered steps into the fullness of God from the posture of prayer. We have been looking at each step starting at the bottom, the fullness of God, and moving up, one step at a time, back to the top, leaving a staircase for our understanding into God’s love. Last time we looked at faith. It is our door allowing Christ to “dwell in our hearts” allowing us to experience the fullness of God.
Now we want to look more closely to what the apostle Paul means by dwelling in our hearts. The word he uses in the Greek is a compound word meaning House (οικοs) and down against (κατα). It is not uncommon in Greek to combine a preposition into a word in order to convey a nuance or emphasize a meaning. In this instant, the emphases is not just living in a house or dwelling in it but with the κατα formed into the front of the word, Paul emphasizes the full weight of God’s presence is meant to impact our soul-self. He is saying Christ may come against our heart so that we can know the full content of Jesus’ presence within our soul-self.
Paul layers steps into the fullness of God from the posture of prayer. We examined rooted and grounded in the previous layer; its a similar couplet used in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Col 2:7. But here, in Ephesians, its one deliberate layering of God’s requisites, including, knowing the love of Christ surpassing knowledge, the breadth and depths, having the strength to contain Christ, being rooted and grounded and now the dwelling residence of Christ by Faith within our hearts. Here, in this layer, to know the fullness of God as a personal experience faith is vital.
The dwelling presence of Jesus within our heart is accomplished by unlocking faith. But this unlocking is accomplished in strengthening with power through the Holy Spirit, Eph. 3:16. But for the moment we are looking through glasses of faith and will look at strengthening with power another time.
Our life in Christ operates in two scriptural modes. One is grace, the other is faith. Grace is God’s love to us and faith is our response. It is God’s power making them effective.
We launched our In Christ discussion from a verse platform written by Paul to the saints in Corinth,1Corinthians 1:30:
And because of him (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption,
We observed these “carnal Christians” are in Christ Jesus. This relationship in Christ Jesus brings a wisdom defined as righteousness, sanctification and redemption. We identified these “wisdoms” being associated with the work of the Father, the Holy Spirit and Jesus the Son, operating in our life. Spiritual wisdom is God’s grace cultivated by our faith. Grace is a spiritual capacity but faith is our soul’s ability to receive and apply it.
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus,
who became to us the wisdom of God,
righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”-1Corinthians 1:30-31.
Our life in Christ operates in two scriptural modes. One is grace, the other is faith. Grace is God’s love to us and faith is our response. It is God’s power that makes both effective.
“But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1Corinthians 1:23-24).”
We have been called by God to be His visible power and wisdom. This is literal context for our verse. Humbling thought? Humbling and sobering!
But, it is absolutely true, we are to be visible containers of God’s power and wisdom (2Corinthians 4:11). And what does this power and wisdom wisdom look like? It is righteousness, sanctification and redemption, or to put it another way, it is the resurrected person of Jesus Christ seen in us. It is Jesus Himself, in us, bearing His fruit of righteousness, sanctification and redemption through us, in our life. We need to soak ourselves in this reality!! This is why we added verse 31, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.
Our life in Christ operates in two scriptural modes. One is grace, the other is faith. Grace is God’s love to us and faith is our response. It is God’s power that makes both effective.
We have been drilling down the terms in 1 Corinthians 1:30 giving us an In Christ Jesus focus. We considered wisdom from a human point of view, i.e., being able to discern God’s truth. Then, we considered righteousness as the vital 2 Corinthians 5:17 union of a believer with God. Righteousness is God the Father’s nature birthed into each of His adopted children. Last week we reviewed sanctification as God’s purpose for us in Christ Jesus and our own purposeful commitment making His righteousness in us visible to others. Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Now we come redemption, the third term in our verse. The verse puts it this way. “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom of God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.” Jesus Christ became to us the wisdom of God. Wisdom is made known to us through righteousness, sanctification and redemption. This is God’s wisdom coming through Jesus Christ because we are in Him. Our wisdom focus is from our human perspective but the verse’s concern is righteousness, sanctification and redemption in Christ Jesus.
Our union in Christ is much more than an association with Jesus. An association with Jesus is, in essence, having a “position” in Christ because we are justified. This popular seminary explanation of being in Christ tells us little, it is limited and lacking (l&l). When you hear, “It is our ‘position’ in Christ”, it is a hollow sound ringing out a warning. The noise is academia creating structure for the church where Christ’s life is not seen yielding His power in resurrected lives.
We are not challenging the validity of our position in Christ, it is most certainly true and does speak to our justification. Like many things containing truth, we get a warped sense of our identity when this is all we hear. We would go so far as to say, it actually vitiates our effectiveness, creating a skeleton without any tissue and mussel.
Justification will be more central to our discussion on righteousness in Christ, but we need to provide some mediation for our harsh observation. Yes, we are judged righteous through God’s sacrifice of Jesus for our sin, as expressed in the Greek aorist tense (Romans 5:1), telling us it was a completed act. It is also expressed in Romans 3:24 in the continuous present tense, telling us justification is also ongoing for the believer who is justified once and forever in the aorist tense. In other words, our justification or our “no condemnation” in Christ (Rom. 8:1) is also our resurrected Lord living in our mortal bodies giving ongoing righteous life, justifying us as sure as He is in us and we are in Him. So, while we are positionally, in Him justified, He is also working his righteous work in us so that the essence of who we are is also being expressed through our polluted souls as we are glorifying Him. No, we are not talking about sanctification, this is in addition to sanctification.
There are two scriptural descriptions for the modes in which our life in Christ operates. One is grace and the other is faith. Grace is God’s ministry of love to us and faith is our response to God’s love and grace. It is God’s power, however, providing context for love-grace and faith.
Last week we looked at discernment-wisdom as our response to God’s provision of love-grace. The same principal of love-grace and faith apply as we switch our focus to righteousness. Love and grace are constant companions for believers in Christ. No one can snatch us out of the Father’s hand (John 10-29). Love and grace are fundamental to our relationship in Christ and the fullness of our faith. Our faith effects (not affects) knowledge, wisdom, behavior and hope including the smile on our face.
Grace and faith are context shepherding our focus on righteousness. Because of God we are in Christ who became our righteousness. We alluded last week to the relationship between justification and righteousness.
There are two scriptural descriptions for the modes in which our life in Christ operates. One is grace and the other is faith. Grace is God’s ministry of love to us and faith is our response to God’s love. It is God’s power, however, providing context for love-grace and faith.
Last week we looked at discernment as our response to God’s provision of wisdom. God’s wisdom is contained within His measure of grace. Discernment is a skill set we have responding to God’s grace. In other words, discernment is God’s grace upon grace as we acquire God’s wisdom in faith.
Faith is “willing” our soul into action. Notice, discernment is a skill set we acquire through action we take. “Our powers of discernment have been trained by constant practice” is the way the writer to the Hebrews put it in 5:14. Our “will” is key in responding to God’s grace. Some default to mind’s reason and let “facts” rule our behavior. Others default to feelings or our heart’s desire to prejudice what we do. Our soul follows what we ”will” it to do. Either way, it is our responsibility.
Our union in Christ is much more than an association with Jesus. An association with Jesus is, in essence, having a “position” in Christ because we are justified. This popular seminary explanation of being in Christ tells us little; it is limited and lacking (l&l). When you hear, “It is our ‘position’ in Christ”, it is a hollow sound ringing out a warning. The noise is academia creating structure for the church where Christ’s life is not seen yielding His power in resurrected lives.
We are not challenging the validity of our position in Christ; it is most certainly true and does speak to our justification. Like many things containing truth, we get a warped sense of our identity when this is all we hear. We would go so far as to say, it actually vitiates our effectiveness, creating a skeleton without any tissue and muscle.
Justification will be more central to our discussion on righteousness in Christ, but we need to provide some mediation for our harsh observation. Yes, we are judged righteous through God’s sacrifice of Jesus for our sin, as expressed in the Greek aorist tense (Romans 5:1), telling us it was a completed act. It is also expressed in Romans 3:24 in the continuous present tense, telling us justification is also ongoing for the believer who is justified once and forever in the aorist tense. In other words, our justification or our “no condemnation” in Christ (Rom. 8:1) is also our resurrected Lord living in our mortal bodies giving ongoing righteous life, justifying us as sure as He is in us and we are in Him.
