Episode Transcript
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Pere able to remain standing. Please
do and turn your attention with me to
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Ephesians, Ephesians chapter one of verses
one through fourteen. Tonight I am going
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to be preaching on versus nine and
ten in particular. Ephesians is on page
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nine, hundred and seventy six.
If you happen to grab one of the
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Black Bibles from the cart and the
back nine seventy six. It's one of
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the letters that one of Jesus's Apostles, the Apostle Paul the wrote to this
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church and to us. So let's
give our attention to it and hear the
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word of God. Ephesians one,
versus three through fourteen. Blessed be the
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God and father of our Lord,
Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in
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Christ with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places, even as he chose us
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in him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be wholly and
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blameless before him. In love,
he predestined us for adoption as sons through
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Jesus Christ, according to the purpose
of his will, to the praise of
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his glorious grace with which he has
blessed us in the beloved in Him,
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we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to
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the riches of His grace which he
lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight,
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making known to us the mystery of
his will, according to his purpose,
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which he set forth in Christ as
a plan for the fullness of time
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to unite all things in him,
things in heaven and things on earth.
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In Him, we have obtained an
inheritance, having been predestined according to the
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purpose of him who works all things
according to the counsel of his will,
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so that we, who were first
to hope in Christ, might be to
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the praise of his glory. In
Him, you also, when you heard
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the word of truth, the Gospel
of your salvation and believed in him,
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were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance
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until we acquire possession of it,
to the praise of his glory. Amen,
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you may be seated. I you
ever come to the end of the
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story or the end of a movie
and missed the first part of it?
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It's difficult sometimes to understand what's going
on when when you're just catching the end,
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and Ephesians one ten is in some
ways a summary like that. Well,
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I was the first born among my
siblings, which meant I was the
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first to leave the nest. I
was the first to go away from home,
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go to college, and I remember
on the one of my first return
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trips home, my parents were really
eager to talk with me for two reasons.
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One, the Internet was pretty new
in our household and number two,
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I wasn't very good at calling them, so they wanted to find out what
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was going on. And we sat
down in the living room and we were
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talking and my mom wanted to get
us some drinks just so we could keep
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talking and we refreshed, I guess. So she left, as she says,
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don't say anything while I'm gone.
Well, as of course you would,
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and anyway, as I did,
always being a little bit obnoxious,
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obnoxious. So when we dad and
I was just sort of chatted about things
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and then when she came back in
the room, I said, I leaned
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in close to my dad and I
said, and that's why I think she's
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the one, and my mom draw
dropped and she was what are you talking
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about? It I left. I
use this trick to my advantage, right,
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I put her in this position by
not giving her the information, but
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just giving her the end, and
she was just a little and happy with
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me. If USIANS hundred and ten
is like that, it's a summary Verse
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and if you don't understand everything that's
come before it, it's going to be
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a little confusing. You'll be left
wondering what does this really mean? Let
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me read it to you again.
Verse Ten says as a plan. Now
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this is God revealing this as a
plan which he set forth in Christ,
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as a plan for the fullness of
time to unite all things in him,
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things in heaven and things on Earth, one of the world. Does that
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mean? Does it mean that Christ
as being set forth, that he is
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the plan for the fullness of time
to unite all things in him, things
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in heaven and things on earth?
That is a summary Statement. In fact,
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the word summary is used. That
word that I read is unite,
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could also be summarized or translated as
summarized or recapitulated. Everything is brought together
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in him, everything is summarized in
Christ. It's kind of an interesting way
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of thinking about Jesus. It's more
than interesting, it's actually really important.
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It's no joke. It's very serious. What he's saying here. But what
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does it mean? What does it
mean that everything is summarized in him?
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Well, the word summary here is
used like you might use, and it
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was used this time. Are used
in this way to describe the addition of
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numbers. So bankers would use this
term. For example, you would go
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through your column, let's say one
plus five plus ten plus fifteen plus.
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When you go down the column you
add up all the numbers and then at
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the head of the column it's a
recapitulation. You would put the sum of
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all the totals. Sort of a
banking term. It's also a term that's
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used in rhetoric, the summary or
the recapitulation on the reheading, you might
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say that happens at the end of
an address, where the various parts of
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the address are all brought together at
one point and summarized or reheaded as a
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way to say the things that were
stated at the beginning, the sort of
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the the the plan is now coming
into completion and all the parts are are
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brought together. So, to go
back to our math analogy, when it
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says that all things are united or
summed up in him, it means that
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every single one of those numbers finds
its place in him. There's not.
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You know, the total shouldn't be, let's say a hundred, but actually
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is ninety nine. Everything's included there. Every single value all the way down
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that list is included in that final
sum. That's what it's saying about Jesus.
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Only Jesus isn't putting together a few
numbers. He is uniting all things,
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which is as comprehensive as a term
as you can get. Now sometimes,
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when we say everything or all things, were talking about a limited set.
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If I say I want you to
get everything out of this room,
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clear the room, you might say, of people chairs, you would probably
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want some clarification. Right. What
exam? How much of everything do you
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mean? So we use it in
various ranges. The postle Paul here are,
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though, is using it in the
biggest, most comprehensive way that you
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can possibly think about it. Everything, all things, meaning everything, and
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we know this from things he will
say later on in the letter, but
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also what he says right here,
things in heaven and things on earth.
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It reminds you maybe of the language
at the beginning of the Bible when God
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created the Heaven and the Earth,
which I and most commentators take to mean
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these two realms of the material and
the immaterial, spiritual things that you can't
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see, like angels, for example, and physical things that you can see,
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like people. The spiritual realm and
all the things that exist in the
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spiritual realm that God created and all
the things in an earthly realm and the
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physical realm that God created, all
of it is coming together and summed up
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united somehow in him now when he
says when he says here as a plan
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for the fullness of time. There's
one other thing you need to understand before
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we start to unpack this a little
more, just sort of making sure we
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understand what these words mean. Time
here is not being used in the sense
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of a passage of minutes, like
five minutes went by, six minutes went
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by, although it's meant in a
sense, but a different word for time
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is being used here in the sense
of ages. So there's the sense of
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these moments in history, not just
this moment in that moment, but these
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defining things that happen, like we
might talk about the age of the renaissance
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or we might talk about the age
of bronze, or whatever we're using,
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and we sort of say these things
that history happen in history, these giant
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transformative things, all of these you
put them all together and they're being brought
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together and they're summed up in this
one thing which, of course, has
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a chronological aspect to it, but
it's sort of bigger than that. The
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concept is bigger than that, and
that's what he's saying here. I'm going
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back. It's two verse nine.
It says we are he is making known
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to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he
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set forth in Christ as a plan
for the fullness of time. Time is
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thought of in various ways in various
cultures, and some ancient Greek pilosopher's time
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was the sort of cycling thing that
just sort of kind of keeps coming back
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to itself. The Christian view of
time is very different. It's this progressive
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thing. It's moving forward, it
begins at one place and develops and advances
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and advances. It comes to a
place of fullness right. It's not just
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merely returning to a place that it
was before, but it's coming to his
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place of completeness, of consummation.
There's direction, there's movement, and something
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about Jesus makes it when he comes
and reveals the will of God, the
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Plan of God. It is described
as the fullness of time. That's defining
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then this age in which we live
now. It defines what we are and
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who we are and this moment in
history. That's a pretty significant thing.
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It's not just one thing after another, but these things, these ages,
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were advancing one after another. To
come to this particular point, I want
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to read to you a few verses
in Colossians. This is just a few
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pages over a Colossians chapter one,
where Paul says a few similar things about
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Jesus. A beginning in Verse Fifteen, we read he is the image of
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the invisible God, the firstborn of
all creation. This doesn't mean that he
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was created, but the as the
pre eminence of Firstborn. And here's the
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reason. For by him all things
were created in heaven and on Earth.
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Hear that language again, but here
it's talking about the beginning of time.
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By Him, by Jesus, all
things were created in heaven and on Earth,
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visible and invisible, whether thrones or
dominions, or rulers or authorities,
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all things were created through him and
for him, and he is before all
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things and in him all things hold
together. Then, at the end of
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time, something happened. In the
fullness of time this this one who created
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all things, was born, and
we read in verse eighteen he is the
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head of the body the church.
He is the beginning, the first,
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born from the dead that in everything
he might be pre eminent, for in
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him all the fullness of God was
pleased to dwell, and through him this
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is the verse I want you to
pay attention to now verse twenty, and
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through him, to reconcile to himself
all things, whether on earth or in
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heaven, making peace by the blood
of his cross. So what Paul is
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saying is that at the beginning of
time God spoke through the sun in this
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word, and the world was created, all things heavens and on the earth.
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Not a single thing was made that
wasn't made by the father through the
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sun, and this world that we
live in, everything from the ants to
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the leaves to our very own lives, all were created in him and through
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him, and in him all things
are holding together. And then what we
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read is then, at the end
of time, in the fullness of time,
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this same one through whom the world
was created and was sustained, is
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now reconciling him to himself all things, things in heaven and things on earth.
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Now, if you're tracking with me, this should be you should have
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a giant question mark right in the
middle of that story, right, because
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we've talked about the beginning, how
everything's united in him, in heaven and
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earth, and we've talked about the
end and we say, well, all
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things are reconciled to him. Well, if you know that word, reconcile,
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like you and your friend have a
hard time and you reconcile with them,
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it means that something bad won and
on in the middle there was something
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behind that question mark that wasn't so
good. What was how are we to
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understand this uniting all things in him, this mystery that's revealed in the fullness
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of time, as the fullness of
God is revealed in the world? These
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are very deep things. Well,
to understand this summary then, the end
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of the story, in a way, as it's being summarized here in Verse
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Ten, we have to understand the
story right. What happened? How did
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things get to this end? The
answer, of course, begins where we've
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began, in the beginning. We're
God, created the world, heavens and
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the Earth. And he made man, he put him in the world and
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was with him and dwelled with him. People. When God made us,
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he made us very good. The
Earth and the world was at peace.
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Man and animals live together, man
and man and man and woman live together
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in peace and harmony. Things were
good and when God created us, he
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entered into this relationship with us.
The relationship that was there was wonderful,
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pleasant and enjoyable. But, as
as we all know, sin came into
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the world. That conflict behind the
question mark came into the world when Adam
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and Eve disobeyed God, when they
took the perfection of righteousness and holiness and
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goodness, when they took their relationship
with the Lord and shammed something in the
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middle of it. The Sin and
this sin that came into the world was
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very significant thing. It's shattered the
world and you've experienced this in your lives.
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When you have a relationship that that
clashes and breaks, bad things happen.
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The sin that came into the world
was kind of like dropping a glass
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on the ground. It's shattered and
parts when everywhere in a way that you
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can't put it back together, you
can't go find this little piece, and
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that little piece and sort of glue
it all back together. Why? Because
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now there's pieces missing. The fact
is, not only as the glass broken,
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but we're broken. We're incapable of
putting it back together. We don't
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know what to do. And this
is our world now. We don't live
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in a world that is full of
peace, kindness and gentleness. Sure in
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some ways, but in much in
many ways, we look around and we
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see things that are described by words
like chaos, disorder, unrighteousness, brokenness,
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dissensions, fighting war, and then
all sorts of particular sins as well.
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This is why things are the way
they are in the world, why
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fellowship between two people is so easily
broken. It's why our relationships struggle,
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it's why we have difficulty in our
families, in our work and everything.
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And, to top it all off, chief of all, our relationship with
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God is the most confused. Born
into sin, we're born into this antagonism
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with God. We cling to creaturely
things instead of him. We worship the
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creation rather than the creature, or
could that rather than the creator? We
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exchange unnatural relations for natural ones.
We Join The Bandwagon of fools instead of
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listening to common sense. We refuse
the love of God, even when it's
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offered to US freely. This is
what happened with the fall. But you
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know what, as soon as man
fell, God did something that was really
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marvelous, and I hope you know
this story all the way already. God
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made a promise. He promised that
one day a son of the woman eve
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would be born into the world and
he would set all things right. He
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would come as a conqueror, he
would crush the head of the deceiver,
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of the liar, of the murderer, Satan. He would restore hope and
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humanity, he would restore our relationships
with God. And from there on,
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through the rest of the Bible,
we have a history of development from that
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point. If we have been in
the amend's Bible study, you hopefully are
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learning this well. As we think
about the various covenants that God has made
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through history, these various promises,
and which one is advancing to the next,
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advancing to the next, all leading
up to Jesus. And that's exactly
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what happened. From the way in
which God protected the sons and daughters of
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Adam and eve and brought them to
a place where one day he would name
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Abraham as someone to whom he would
grant, grant even even the world,
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to him heaven itself, and would
use him to bless his children over all
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over the world, from Abraham to
Moses to David, each moment growing and
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growing in anticipation for this chosen son, for this seed, for this one
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that would come in the fullness of
time and who would take all of this
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history, all of this movement,
and bring it to completion. And that
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completion is the completion or the fulfillment
of the promise, the promise that came
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in Genesis Three fifteen, when God
promised to send the Sun, a promise
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that came to Abraham, promised that
was made to Moses, a promise that
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was made to David. All of
these promises, and promises to us as
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well, are fulfilled then, in
Christ. What this means, then,
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is that we are at an extremely
important time in history. Christ has come,
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the consummation of all things has come, and this has all kinds of
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implications for our lives, doesn't it? Brothers and sisters? It means that
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this is not a time to grow
slack or lazy or be unprepared. It's
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not a time to stop and our
struggle against the flesh. It's not a
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time to lose hope when we're so
close to the end. Have you ever
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watched the Olympics and seeing somebody moving
towards the finish line and getting tired?
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You're saying, you know, Oh, you're so close, you've trained so
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hard, you're almost there. Go, go, go, oh. This
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is why the New Testament tells us, you know, run with endurance.
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Looking to Jesus, the author and
perfector of your faith, says in Hebrews,
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this is not the time to stop, this is not the time to
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get lazy. This is why Jesus
is telling these parables about being prepared,
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being ready, or use farming analogies, he talks about when the harvest is
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ready you, you go out,
you get the food, you that that
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has grown. It's not a time
to just sit around and wait for something
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else to happen. There's an urgency
to this. When we read that in
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the plan and that this plan,
in the fullness of time, has now
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been revealed in Christ to unite all
things in him, things in heaven and
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our things on earth, it should
give us a sense of urgency. It
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should give us a sense of safety
and security as well, it also points
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to us where our wisdom should be. Heinrich bulling, or one of the
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great reformers, has some wonderful thoughts
on this that I want to read to
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you. You know what wisdom is, right? Wisdom is just living well
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in the world. It's taking the
knowledge of true things and then using that
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for good things, to your advantage
in the advantage of others. For example,
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going back to plants, if you
know something about how to grow an
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orange tree, let's say you can
use that knowledge to grow an orange tree
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and then benefit from its food and
share it with others, just as something
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as simple as that. Well,
we think about wisdom, what it is
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to truly be wise, it means
understanding this world that we live in.
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Right. What time are we in? What is the end of these things?
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What is the goal? All of
these things are important parts of just
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regular decisionmaking. Right, if you
want to buy a car, you have
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to figure in what what's our goal
here? Are we trying to carry a
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bunch of kids or a bunch of
fertilizer, or we trying to save money?
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Or what? We know? What's
the goal? What's the end that
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we're after? What resources do we
have what particular time of life is.
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You know, you figure all these
things in and then you buy your car.
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Well, if that's wisdom, if
that's operating in a smart and thoughtful
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way, living well in the world, think now, in a really grand
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scale, right when we're trying to
think about true wisdom at its highest levels,
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we ought to think about the same
kind of things. Where are we?
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WHAT'S THE END? Bullinger says immature
Christians are embarrassed by the philosophy of
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the Bible, which they abandonto the
end despise as barberous and uneducated. They
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prefer ornate lies and pursue them with
such amazing zeal. But then he says,
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consider, however, the true philosophy
or theology or wisdom of the Scriptures.
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A long quote here, since it
is of considerable importance to know whether
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what we teach about life is ancient. He's talking about philosophies in general,
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whether it comes from a famous author
or has been approved by the assessments and
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imitation of the most noble people.
It is clear that no philosophy bigger or
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better than that of the Gospel will
ever appear, because it is so old
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that it dates before the beginning of
time. It was decreed from eternity and
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brought forth at a particular appointed time
by the son of God himself, who
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was certainly the greatest and holiest author
of all and accepted as such by the
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most holy people. No good person
ever noticed any lack of wisdom, learning,
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integrity, sincerity or judgment in him, least of all the divine prophets,
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who are also followers of this philosophy
and bore witness to the kind of
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people they were in the famous books
that they wrote and bequeathed to posterity.
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It therefore remains certain that the truth
of Christianity and the preaching of the grace
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of the Gospel is the true philosophy
before whatever has been produced by the wise
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men of the world, by Plato, Aristotle, Zeno or other unregenerate mortals
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of that kind, must give way. The truth of Christ conquers everything.
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Even in ancient times, Moses overcame
all the wise men of Egypt, as
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did Joseph, the son of Israel. Daniel too was set above the many
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grades of eastern sages, philosophers and
sophists and became the deputy of the world's
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most powerful monarch. So what then, if, at the end of time,
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God has surpassed all the wisdom and
eloquence of the whole world by the
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fullest preaching of the Cross and the
uneducated speech of fishermen or cellists? Blessed
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and praised be God forever, who
has made his truth triumph even today against
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the most powerful enemies of this world. To him be the glory forever.
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Amen. So there's blowlinger preaching it
right. You see what he's saying.
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He says, if you want to
think about okay, wisdom, how do
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I live my life? Rightly,
you are a fool to look at anything
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apart from this thing that Paul is
talking about. Why? Because it's talking
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about our chief and highest end,
to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
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It's talking about everything that has happened
in the fullness of time advancing and
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moving to this place. Apart from
him, your philosophy is a disaster.
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Apart from him, wisdom's only partial
and incomplete, like shattered pieces of glass
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broken on the floor, missing an
unknown. You put it together and you'll
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just never get a coherent system of
thought. You'll never be advancing. I
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mean you'll advance a little bit,
maybe you'll be able to buy a car
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or something like that, but in
the true things of life and the deep
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things of life, why it matters
that we do the things that we do
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and the things that really last and
the things that really matter, you'll have
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nothing. Apart from Christ. We
have nothing because in Christ, and in
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Christ only, has God revealed everything. Has He revealed the the a plan
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which he set forth from the beginning, namely to reconcile all things to himself
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through the blood of the cross.
It's not just Jesus, it's not just
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Jesus who was born, but it's
Jesus who was born and who died so
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that we could have all things in
him. So it's not just about having
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a coherent system of thought, though
that is of course critical for daily living,
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but it means that it's not just
at the level of thinking, but
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at the level of being. Apart
from him, all is lost, all
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is lost. Apart from Christ,
you have nothing useful, because all things
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useful and good are culminating in him, and anything that does not bow its
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heart to him will be crushed by
him in his in the weight of his
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goodness and the weight of his glory, He will crush all evil beneath his
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feet. And so instead of standing
up to him and saying I can take
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the king of the universe, we
bow before him and we say thank you
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for giving yourself to me, for
dying for me, so that I can
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be forgiven of my sins, so
that I can have salvation, fellowship with
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God, the gift of the spirit. Outside of Christ, we're like Adam
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and Eve, outside of the garden, blocked by his fiery angels guarding the
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very presence of the Lord. But
in Christ we are brought back in,
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but not just to the garden of
Eden, but to the Garden of Eden
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and its advanced form and it's consummated
form. We're not just brought back to
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the beginning, we're brought forward to
the end, where the glory of the
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Lord is made not just to belong
to a garden, but encompasses the heavens
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and the earth complete, as wide
and as big as you can possibly imagine.
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And that's why these messengers who are
sent by Christ, are testifying to
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us these are the blessings that you
have in him and in him alone,
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the righteousness of the law, the
justice required for sin, communion with God,
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sanctification, holiness, glorification, fellowship
of humanity, peace, holiness,
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everything good and wonderful comes together in
him. Apart from him, we try
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to piece it together, we take
a little bit of this, a little
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bit of that, and it never
works. But in him we have it
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all. So go to him,
go to him, find what you need
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in him and him alone. Seek
the Kingdom of Heaven and the King of
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Heaven First, and all the rest
will be added under you.
