The Ephesians Story (Part 6)

It was a rich moment for God when He wrapped all this up. He did it with delight. He looks back on it with…it was a high moment in the life of God, and He has never begrudged that moment since. And all I can do is end with the first half of verse 8. All of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 came out of the riches of His grace. That’s twice the word grace is mentioned, nine or 11 times, in the lavishness of His grace to the praise of the glory of His grace. Saints, He did this in grace. He did it with richness. He did it joyously, and He did it lavishly. All these graces were lavished on us. And I’m going to end with a cake. You put a little topping on it; you put a little of that nice, tasty stuff in between the layers, and you just have a little bit, and you just barely cover that cake. Well, when the Lord Jesus Christ chose you and adopted you before the foundations of the world, marked you off in Christ, took a part of Christ and made it you. How’s that? Took a part of Christ and made it you. Made sure your sins are covered. Made sure your trespasses are covered. Made sure His Son’s blood was shed before He even created. Made sure that you have all the blessings of the heavenly places, and most of all, just made sure you were in Christ. He took the whole pot and poured it out over the cake until there was more of the filling and the covering than there was cake, and He just lavished His grace on you. I would consider you to be one very blessed, important person in the eyes of God, to the praise of the glory of His grace. Amen and amen. Hallelujah.

I’m going to read a little bit of Ephesians to you, and I have put a lot of things in parentheses, and I’m going to skip all the parentheses, because that’s where you got off the subject. But here’s my point. If I start telling you I’m not going to read the next verse and so on so forth, you’ll get really confused. So, I’m not going to make any effort to explain or defend what I’ve done here. I’m going to read this and believe it or not, it’ll make perfect sense. Now, brothers and sisters, anytime you can make Ephesians make perfect sense, you have done something. One of the longest lines in the history of literature is in Ephesians. It starts, I think, in verse three and goes all the way through chapter 2. One unbroken sentence. Well, the man ought to go back to school and learn how to write. Nobody should write a three-page sentence. And he’s like a skyrocket; he’s shooting off everywhere. I’d like to explain to you what he has to say, and I can’t do that following every verse. You think you understood that? Okay. Whether you agree with it or not is not the point. I’m going to read this, and it turns out kind of beautiful. It would have started off with point one, which I would like to make to the following people. Truth is relative and absolute.

Ephesians 1, and I’m going to begin reading with verse 18. You may or may not be able to follow me after that. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of the Lord’s calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, in the holy ones. And we looked at that last night. It was great. Say amen. …and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might, which He brought about in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the Father’s right hand in heavenly places. For above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

You who were dead in your trespasses and sins. God, being rich in mercy because of His great love, which He loved us, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For we are His masterpiece created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Now, I’m always at a loss and will probably spend the rest of my life struggling to define things for you and for myself in this great adventure of the spiritual realm. In Ephesians 1, we find it’s almost impossible for the human mind, even in its best moments, to realize that we existed before creation. Yes, the most important part of you existed before creation. That you were marked off in Christ before the foundation of the ages. You were there. You were part of Him. You were the best and holiest part of Him, and a little chip of Him was marked off and designated and put your name, and you were in Christ, and that’s where you were, and that’s where you spent eternity. And when time came along, you kept on being in Him.

And one day, you were born, and He saved you, and He dropped that portion of Himself in you. And now you are in Him and He is in you, which is really kind of neat. Ain’t that wonderful? And the other thing is that right now you also exist in Him after the ages, after creation is over with; you presently are in Him. And Gene said it so well: remembering those days that we will have. He remembered the days we will have with Him. And so, I have tried to illustrate this, and nobody ever understands this. So, I will illustrate it to you again and again and again. This is the Edwardian theory. You got it? This is the Edwardian theory.

We will imagine this is God, and in Him is eternity, and in Him is space-time, that is, dimension and mass. You’re all familiar with Einstein’s theory of relativity, which states that mass must exist and be present for there to be space and time. Remove mass, and space disappears, and time disappears. You understand? Now, if time begins here, and that means the creation of mass, the creation of the physical, you understand that – the physical realm – you’re living in it. Space and time came into existence at the same moment.

Then there comes a day when God removes space and time, removes mass, and space ceases to exist. Time ceases to exist, and you’re back into the eternals. So, here’s the beginning of physical creation. Here’s the end of physical creation. We think that you and I, and God, are traveling along through here, watching what happens next. God’s looking at you and saying, you know, you better behave, Gene, or I’m going to send you straight to hell. And so, we think He’s going along, here getting up every morning, worrying about you, worrying about you, and worrying about whether you’ll make the right decision, but that’s not where He is. Let me show you where He is. He’s back here before creation, and He’s right here at the beginning of creation, and He’s with Moses going through the Red Sea. They may not make it yet. He’s at Calvary, and He’s here with us. Brother Kevin told me something… the gentleman who is a scientist, Stephen Hawking, said that when time and space came into existence, that is when matter came into existence, which was as difficult for us to grasp as it was that it all came into existence from beginning to end; it’s all there, that it’s not unfolding like a rug or a drama. That it is all there. We’re just a leaf floating through it, but it’s already all taken place. Hard to understand.

Now, that’s a scientist explaining to us matter. Okay. So, the Lord is out here before creation. I know you’re understanding all of this. He’s in creation, and He is folding along on this leaf with us, and He’s also inhabiting and He has already inhabited tomorrow and next week and next month and next year, and honest to Pete, He is even at the end of creation right now.

Now, let me explain how this is really simple. All you have to do is understand that this is God, this is your Lord, and creation is in Him. Colossians: all things were created in Him. So, you say, well, that’s the alpha of God and here’s the omega of God, but it’s still God, and He’s as conscious over here as He is over here. He’s as conscious at the beginning as He is at the end. Ain’t that simple? Listen to this. You understand that? So, He’s standing at the end. He’s standing in the middle. Standing at the beginning, He’s standing before the beginning. And here’s the Edwardian theory that finally gets Calvin and Arminius together. Those of you who believe you can lose it and those of you who believe you can’t, all that stuff. Here’s the Edwardian theory. The Edwardian theory is that the Lord stood at the end of creation, at the end of time. He looked around and He saw that Susan made it. Saw that Gene made it. It’s still not clear about Judy. That Judy made it. Kevin made it. Donna made it. So, He says, “Well, that’s wonderful. They made it.”  Therefore… now He’s out here…let me just now, before I blow your mind here, all creation is in Him, and He is as much the omega as He is the alpha. He has seen the end from the beginning, and He has seen the beginning from the end. He is down here, and He saw the consummation of the age. He saw which one of us made it. He said, “That’s great. I’ll choose you.” And so, He chose us based on the fact that He’s already been down here and saw who made it, sir.

You don’t like that, huh? Well, I want you to prove it wrong. That sure beats Calvin or beats Arminius, too. No, if we can see Him, and of course it goes on beyond; if we can see His encompassing, His encompassment of all things, and that we are in Him, that we can see that He can stand at the beginning and the end and make His choices clearly, and at the same time, He chose us. He made sure we made it, or at least He knew we made it. Now, that’s the Edwardian theory. I’ll come back to you in just a minute, brother, but I want to just continue a little bit further.

It’s hard for me to realize that I existed in Him and He marked me off in Christ before the foundation of the world. It’s hard for me to realize that He’s already seen me here at the end. It’s hard for me to understand that I existed before creation and that, because I am in Him, I exist at the end of the ages. I can get a hold of the fact that I exist now. I’m talking about your spirit; I’m not talking about your body. I’m not even clear about your soul, but your spirit existed, and that’s the best part of you, by the way; that’s the part you have to be concerned about. But I’ll tell you, if I have a difficult time seeing that I existed here and I have a difficult time seeing that I exist here at the end, and the Father sees me both at the beginning and the end at the same time and can call me holy and blameless. But I can see myself now, but I really worry here; I worry almost as much as Susan does. Susan is not fit for the kingdom of God. She’s not worthy. She’s pitiful. I’m just so bad. And all that stuff.