Ephesians: Fitted to be His fullness

Now we're going to look together, first of all, in Hebrews chapter 9. Now I'm going to continue looking at a little bit of the ministry of the Spirit of God in the life of the Lord Jesus and His sacrifice, and then we're going to be looking more into the future, and then seeing how we are being fitted for our place with Him in that future. So Hebrews chapter 9, and we're just going to really pick out a phrase out of the verse, but verse 14 says, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God? So if in Luke chapter 4, we saw how the Spirit of God filled Him and fitted Him for fulfilling the ministry that God had given to Him in this world, when we come to the cross, this is perhaps the only reference to the Spirit's ministry involved in Calvary. And I don't know about you, but I would have to confess that it's only been very rarely, if ever, I have tried to think about, where was the Spirit of God at Calvary? We think about the Lord, we think about His sorrow, we think about all that He went through, and at times our minds go to the Father, and we think about the Father and His grief, and what it meant for God to put upon His own beloved Son the burden of our guilt.

What was the Spirit doing in all that? What did He have to do with it? And so this verse gives us the answer for that, and shows us that the Holy Spirit was completely involved in the work of the cross. It says, Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God. Now I suppose for most of us, the most difficulty that we have when we think about the cross is this whole issue about God and sin.

And I have heard explanations, you know, that God could not be associated with sin, God could not be in contact with sin, and so it was not the Father and the Son, it's God and Christ as a man. That explanation goes so far, but it really just pushes the problem off to a little bit further out of the horizon, and maybe a little bit safer from our minds. What was the Spirit? Was the Spirit still in Christ when He was suffering for sin? What about the deity of Christ? Was He somehow cut in half, separated from Himself in His bearing of sin? There are things that I can't explain, and I can't go there.

All that I can see is that God encompassed the problem of sin, and He overcame it in and through His Son. And so to me, it's a very beautiful and touching thing to think that in those moments in the deepest suffering of the Lord Jesus, when He offered Himself, presented Himself to God in all His innocence, in all His purity, His sinlessness, the Holy Spirit was empowering Him to fulfill this. And so one of the things that I remember quite a number of years ago, a dear older brother who was in his worship, he was speaking about what we are able to do by faith in our appreciation of the cross.

We were never there. We never saw anything of it, and yet it has become so real to us, it affects us, touches us very deeply. And he attributed it to the Spirit.

We weren't there, but the Spirit was there. And the Spirit of God within us, as He leads us into our appreciation of the Lord Jesus and of the work of the cross, the One who was there and who was involved in it Himself, as He conveys that reality to us. And this is one thing that I have appreciated about the Spirit's ministry, is that the Spirit of God makes spiritual experience real to us.

This is how we know God as our Father. He is within us, crying out, Abba, Father, conveying that reality of the conscious relationship. And so we see this brought out very touchingly here in Hebrews chapter 9, and so we can see then that the Spirit was very much involved in every aspect of the Lord, right up including His death.

Let's go to Isaiah chapter 11. And if it's baffling for us to try to understand why or how it was that the Spirit of God would indwell the Lord Jesus in His manhood here on the earth, what about when He comes in all the splendor, all the glory and majesty of His deity, and He comes into the world and He overcomes all the enemies and He sets up the kingdom of God. Isaiah chapter 11 gives us a glimpse again of the Spirit's involvement in this.

Isaiah 11 and 1, this is really a glimpse into the millennial kingdom of Christ. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord, and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.

And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. But with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth, and so on, and his judgment upon the wicked. Verse 5, righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

Then verse 6 down to verse 8, we have this beautiful description of a creation at peace. We have the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the little kid goat, the calf and the young lion, the cow and the bear, and their little ones playing together, lying down together. Wouldn't you like to see that? There have been a few rare glimpses of animal behavior that it seems totally out of the norm for them, and it's a marvel to those who study the animals and just what's there inherently in them, but we don't see that today.

All we see is the terrible distortion that we think is normal of death, predators, grief, sorrow, suffering, death. This has become the normal, except it isn't normal. One day the Lord Jesus Christ, in coming into the world in all his awesome power, he is going to establish what is of God in the world, and everything is going to be in harmony with him.

Now I want you to try to capture this idea that what it means to be full of something is that that influence permeates and controls, and so if we are going to be filled with the Spirit of God, we are going to be filled with the influence of all that he is. We get a glimpse of that here in this passage. Wisdom, understanding, fairness, faithfulness, compassion, consideration, care.

Or we can go to Galatians chapter 5, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. How much are we experiencing of this? How much are we enjoying of the fullness that the Holy Spirit of God is capable of bringing into our lives? And so I want you just to think about this idea, and verse 9 gives us this little summary. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full, full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

And again, I would love to be here. I would love to be farming in the millennium. I would love to see how a world, an earth, under the blessing of God, how life could be lived.

Now, I don't think we're going to miss out on anything. Don't feel let down that, you know, we're going to be stuck in heaven when all this is going on on earth. I'm not so sure we're going to be stuck in heaven.

There is an interaction between heaven and earth. I would suggest to you that once the Lord is manifested in all the glory of his deity and power in this world, that God will no longer be a hidden deity. There will be manifested glory of God to the earth.

Now, how much involvement we have, there's a lot of things I don't know. But I don't think we're going to miss out on anything. We're going to have greater eternal blessing that is waiting for us.

Now, what I want you to think about, and we're going to go to Ephesians chapter 1 now, is just to think about this fact that as God has this great purpose, and we're going to read about this in Ephesians 1, we are associated with the Lord Jesus in this great purpose. So Ephesians 1, we're just going to have to touch a few of the phrases that are here. I'm sure a lot of it is quite familiar.

Verse 3 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all or every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. Now, the verses that follow give to us some of the character of those blessings, chosen that we should be holy without blame before him in love. That's a tremendous blessing to experience.

Holy, blameless, in his love. Verse 5, predestined to sonship. All that we can appreciate and enjoy of the beautiful relationship between the Father and the Son, all that perfection of love, all that intimacy and joy and fellowship, we're going to be brought into that very realm.

It's not going to be just the Son in the glory of the Kingdom of God to come. It's going to be the Son and the sons. The Son and his brethren, as Romans chapter 8 touches on.

And so he has predestined us to sonship by Jesus Christ to himself. Then verse 7, of course, speaks about forgiveness. Verse 9, we're going to notice some of these verses here.

Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure which he has purposed in himself, that in the dispensation... Now, we would actually be better if we used the word stewardship or administration for that word dispensation. I don't know how many of you were like me. When I was growing up, I used to hear about dispensational teaching a lot.

And we heard about the seven dispensations. And I grew up with the impression that the dispensation was a time period, a certain time period. Well, that may be a secondary meaning that can be derived from it.

But the word just means a stewardship, a management. In fact, you might be shocked to know that we have a very, very familiar word in English that we use all the time that is this word just dragged out of Greek into English. It's the word economy.

That's what this word is, the word economy. And so we hear about the economy all the time, the management of the economy. Well, the word economy just comes from two words in Greek brought together, the management of a household, the rule or management of a household.

And so this is talking about an administration, the administration of the fullness of times. Now, that's the millennium and then on into the eternal ages. And so here's God has made known to us the secret of his will.

That is, in the administration of the fullness of times, he's going to gather together or head up in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him. And then verse 12 says that we should be to the praise of his glory. Now, I'm going to take you to the last two verses.

This is now speaking about God's power, demonstrated in raising Christ out from the dead and setting him at his own right hand. Verse 22 says, and has put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all. So I want you to think about that last phrase first.

What is God's purpose? Now, maybe I should just backtrack here and get you to think once again about what it means to be full or filled. If you heard that somebody was filled with joy, if you were filled with joy, what would you feel like? Well, you'd say I would feel joyful. If you were filled with peace, well, we have a word for that.

We say peaceful. If you were filled with fear, you would be fearful. So that highlights this concept that to be full or filled with something is that that influence controls.

It dominates. It overcomes everything else, and it's in control. Now, there's an interesting verse in Romans 15 and 13, talking about the future again.

It says, now the God of hope, the God of hope. In anticipation of what God is going to do, now the God of hope fill you, fill you with all joy and peace in believing. So the only thing we have to do with that is our faith, our laying hold of, our resting upon.

Now, the God, this is something that God wants to do for us. Now, the God of hope fill you with all joy, with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit's involved in that too.

Okay, now we're looking into the future. Here's God's plan to make Christ head over everything, so he's going to be in control. And here's this description of him, who fills all in all.

What does that mean? That means that what Christ is in his nature, in his character, in his goodness, his faithfulness, his purity, his righteousness, that that's going to permeate everything. And everything is going to be in harmony with all that he is. Now, I don't have any problem with that.

I don't have any problem imagining that God is going to do this. And that Christ is worthy and capable of being that head over all things and everything under his administration, everything in harmony. It's the phrase that's connected to that, that boggles my mind.

He is this over all things to the church, which is his body. The fullness of him, the fullness of him who fills all in all. The fullness of him.

Now, what does that mean? Well, it means that we fill him. Or you could put it another way, we fulfill him. And you might say, how, how, in what way? Well, God actually gave us the secret.

He actually laid it out in the very beginning. And I'm just going to take your mind back there for a moment, back to when God created everything. Genesis chapter 1, God displayed his power, his wisdom in the vastness of the creation.

And then as the earth is formed and all the different kinds of life are formed upon it, then last of all, he makes this unique creature. He makes us. He says, let's make man in our image, after our likeness.

And so if we only had Genesis 1, we would assume, from the language of it, because it says he made them male and female, that Adam and Eve were both created instantaneously, like everything else was, and that the first moment that they came into consciousness, they were just both there. But chapter 2 lets us know that that isn't the way it happened, that God initially placed Adam alone in domination over the whole creation. And as Adam began to do his administering, as he began to name all the creatures, and he is describing them, he's, there's something that dawns upon him.

There's nobody here for me. There's nobody here like me. And it says specifically that God said, it is not good that the man should be alone.

There was no one there corresponding to him. And so then God puts him to sleep and takes part of him and makes another person, and then presents her to him. And as he looks upon her, he can recognize, he can acknowledge, he knows, this is, she's part of me.

She is flesh of my flesh. She is born of my born. And he names her woman because she's taken out of man.

And so there is a completeness. Why was that necessary? Well, as created in the image of God, God is not solitary. God is one.

But God is plurality in oneness. And so there is in God relationship. There is mutual love.

There is mutual companionship. There is fellowship. There is enjoyment together.

And that has, as God has created us with that same character and attributes, he has done it so that we need someone else to complete us. We need relationship with others for us to experience fulfillment. And one of the saddest things for many people is isolation, loneliness.

We function better, we flourish when there is relationship enjoyed. And so let's think then about this again, glimpse into the future. Now, there's one thing that's very markedly different in that in the Millennial Kingdom, Christ is not going to be the only man alive in the world.

There's many other human beings. Israel is going to be brought back to God. The nations, there's going to be many people in the world.

And so the question comes to my mind, why does he need the church? Why is the church given a special, unique relationship to Christ? Well, it's very clear when we come to chapter five, that it is in this relationship as the bridegroom and the bride. And so in chapter one, we're given this amazing glimpse. And if I could put it this way, as God bestows upon his son, all the glory and the blessings, the father loves the son and has given all things into his hand, the scriptures say, Psalm 2, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the outermost parts of the earth for your possession.

He's going to give him everything. But I want to say that the church is going to be God's supreme gift to his son. Just as it is in the natural realm for a man, the greatest fulfillment and joy and blessing for the man is to have a companion with him to share life together.

And so we are for Christ in the millennial kingdom and on into the ages to come, we are going to be his greatest gift, his greatest blessing, his greatest joy and satisfaction. And that should be thrilling to us, what we are for Christ. Let's go into chapter two.

In chapter two, I'm going to come back into chapter one and connect the references to the spirit here. But in chapter two, the emphasis is not so much what we are going to be for Christ as what we, along with Christ, are going to be for God. Verse 18, Ephesians 2 and 18.

For through him that is Christ, we both have access by one spirit unto the father. Now, therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God. Now, of course, that means we are in his family and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom all the building fitly framed together grows unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together for an habitation of God through the spirit.

Now, if I were to ask you, what is God's greatest desire? What does God want? What would it be? Well, the Lord answered at least part of that in John chapter four when he was speaking with the woman of Samaria. And he says that the father seeks worshipers. He seeks people to worship him who can worship him in spirit and in truth.

What does that mean? People who can correspond to him. People who are like him, that he can have unhindered fellowship with, that he can enjoy them and they can enjoy him, and they can worship him and acknowledge him as he deserves to be acknowledged. But these verses that I've just read bring another aspect of this, which again is very difficult for us to get our minds around.

Not only are we going to be like priests, sun priests in the sanctuary of God, we are going to be the sanctuary of God. Now, I don't know, can you understand that? We are going to be his temple. Now, when we think of a temple, we usually think of some wonderful massive structure that's a separated structure made out of stone and maybe very ornate and so on.

But as God said a long time ago, what house are you going to build me? I fill the heavens. What kind of place are you going to make for me? God could never be satisfied with something that is merely material. He wants something that is living, and he expressed that.

I am going to dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God. They shall be my sons and daughters.

And so God desires worshippers, and God wants a people gathered together forming his dwelling place, his holy temple. And that is what we are going to be for God. So to me, this is just amazing and absolutely thrilling to think about.

We are going to be for Christ what is his greatest joy and fulfillment. We are going to be for God what is his deepest longing and purpose. And so when we come to chapter three, and there's so many references relating to this, I'm just going to have to read these verses with you and see how they fit together.

In chapter three from verse 14 down, he says, For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man. And so immediately, again, you see that the Spirit of God is at the very core, the very center of this. Now, I didn't take time to go back into chapter one and remind you that the Spirit is the seal, God's seal to us, that we are his forever.

He is also the earnest or the pledge of the inheritance. In other words, the Holy Spirit is going to bring us to this perfection to this completeness where we are going to be suited to be the bride of Christ, and where we are going to be suited to be the very temple of God forever. Now, you might say, well, he's got a lot of work to do.

The emphasis of chapter three is that he wants us to experience a significant measure of this now. Yes, there is a day coming when everything in the whole creation is going to be in harmony with Christ. Today, the world is not experiencing that benefit.

But God wants to work in you and in me, and he wants us to drive the benefit of the presence of Christ enthroned in our hearts. And so just as in chapter one, his intention is to make Christ supreme over everything and everything filled with him, what's it say here? To be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. So I want to link those two ideas from chapter one with this.

What does it mean for Christ to dwell in my heart? Well, it means, first of all, that Christ will be supreme there, that I will be submissive to him in everything. It also means that he will be at rest there, at home there, that there's nothing in my life, nothing in my desires, nothing in my habits and my behavior that is contradictory to him, that is out of fellowship or companionship with what he is, so that he's enthroned and at home in my heart. Now, what is the outcome of that? Because each one of these clauses, they're called purpose clauses, each one enables the next to be fulfilled.

Strengthened so that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, so that you, being rooted and grounded in love. Now, this is telling us that if Christ is in control of our hearts, then love is going to be in control of our hearts. And we're going to be beginning to grow in this new life.

We're going to be rooted. In other words, we're deriving our source of life out of this divine love. And we're also going to be, our lives are going to be established on the foundation of this love.

So love is the source of life, and love is the strength and stability of life. Now, if you just stop to think about it in the natural realm, just put it in your family context. This shouldn't be hard to understand.

When dad and mom love each other, live for each other, and live for the children, love them, care for them, that child is going to flourish. That child is going to be confident. That child is going to be stable and strong in his or her life.

Life is meant to be lived with the foundation and the source of love itself. And what I want to just say here is that we are hindering the Spirit of God. I am hindering the Spirit of God.

I am limiting the ministry of the Spirit of God in my life by my insubjection to this love, my unwillingness to let this love control me in my relationships to others. Have you decided there are certain people you don't need to care about? That you can just wipe them out of your periphery and they don't exist as far as you're concerned? That you don't have to love them, care about them, honor them, respect them? You are violating the very character of the life that is in you by the Spirit of God. And so this is what I see as being the restriction or the hindrance here.

But God intends for us to be strengthened in our inner spiritual life so that Christ might become enthroned and that his love might begin to develop and transform us into what he is like. And in that way, that we may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height. Now, you can look at this strictly as understanding, but I think it is more than just understanding the length and breadth and depth.

It's actually entering into it, laying hold of it, laying hold of our inheritance. And then verse 19, again, brings us to this tremendous climax. And to know the love of Christ.

And so if you want to be spiritual, and if you want to enjoy the Lord without caring for others around you, it's not going to work. We cannot have a deepening, developing relationship with the Lord and deny or reject his love that goes out to others. It must be in harmony with it, in submission to it.

And in the measure that we come to know the love of Christ, that's when we are going to become filled. Notice the final outcome? That you might be filled with all the fullness of God. And so this tells us that this love relationship is the very core of our eternal inheritance.

This is what is there for us. His love. His very life being enjoyed and experienced.

Now, it says, To him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. This again is a reference to the Holy Spirit and his zeal, his desire to enable this to be experienced. Now, just the last verse.

I just want you to notice what it says here. To him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. And so this brings me to this final climax.

God wants to be known. God wants to be displayed and enjoyed. And he wants to be known to the rest of the creation as the kind of God he is by what is manifested in us in the church by Christ Jesus.

And so what we are for Christ, we're going to be his bride. What we are for God, we are going to be the manifestation of the glory of God personally. We are going to be his temple, his dwelling.

And so I think we should be filled with joy. We should be filled with peace. We should be filled with hope as we enter into the purpose of God for us.

Let's pray. Our Father, we bow in thy presence and acknowledge the wonder of thy love. And as we think of the gracious work of thy spirit within us, how often we must hinder what he would yearn to lead us into.

And so we pray that we might be responsive to the gracious moving of thy spirit within our hearts, within our minds, to lead us to seek thee more and more, to live in the companionship of the Lord Jesus, to fulfill his love, to truly act as part of his body, doing his things, fulfilling his service. And so we pray for, by blessing upon the gospel, we pray for the assembly here, that you would strengthen us, keep us, sustain us, that you would bless according to each need. And our Father, that we might be able to be instruments of your grace.

So we entrust ourselves into your hand in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.