Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 688 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: I had a thought that just has repeatedly come to my mind in the last couple of days and it's not a complicated one, but it's important. And, it really is rooted in the book of Ephesians--book of Ephesians. Paul, at this point in his ministry was in prison in Rome. He couldn't go where he wanted to do. He couldn't travel around to the churches. All he could do was pray and write letters. Thank God, he could do that because we have 'em today, and they've been such a blessing to us.

But I can just...you can sense as Paul writes letters like this, just what was on his heart. There was just such a fullness of realization of the things that God had revealed to him about what Christ had done and he just longed to impart that to people. And you know, in the course of this book he discusses how Christians ought to live and how we ought to walk together in love and unity and how we ought to overcome sin and live the new life that God has given to us...how to relate to one another as husbands and wives and children and parents, and all of those issues. He discusses things like the warfare that we're engaged in with the powers of darkness. All of that is very definitely in mind in what Paul is saying because that's the realm we live in. That's what we have to contend with every single day.

But I am so thankful that Paul didn't start there. Paul started with three incredible chapters that really could be summed up in one phrase--it's "our position in Christ." Now you know when we...well let me read the scripture that I guess is most central, and I'll begin in verse 2 where he points out the condition we were in apart from Christ. It's, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient." (NIV).

There's more to sin, there's more to what we see in the world than simply human beings who are messing up. We've got a power--there's a real power that is ruling and controlling and active in blinding and just leading men on in their sin. "...The spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also..."--All of us, Paul includes himself--"All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of..."--But because we changed our minds and we've prayed and we sought God and we worked real...no, it doesn't say that.

( laughter ).

"But because of his great love for us..." That's the heart of it all is God looks upon his creatures who are in this sin-blinded condition, not with anger, not with, oh God, why don't you do better? But with compassion, with love. You know Jesus, when He came into the world, what did He say? He said, I didn't come to condemn the world but that the world through me might be saved. Or, it was said of him, He came into the world, not to condemn it but that the world through Him might be saved. And that's the heart of God towards His sin-blinded creatures.

Now it's a whole different story when God makes sin-blinded creatures aware of their condition and of His salvation, and they harden their hearts and say, no. Now you've got a different scenario. But here you have a God of love who sees the condition that we've gotten ourselves into through sin, and His heart responds not with anger, not with condemnation, not with thunderbolts of judgment, but with mercy.

"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgression--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus." Now you want to know what our position is in a nutshell? We are seated with Him in heavenly places! What a place of honor! What a place of privilege! What an unimaginable thing for someone like us who was just lost in sin and had no hope without Christ, to be elevated, not just to be sort of helped along, but I mean, to be elevated to a throne, is just unimaginable, grace and love and mercy. But I believe with all my heart that Paul saw this as the foundation.

Now, think about a place of honor and a place of prestige as we as human beings think of it. Don't we think of that as something that we have to earn? We have to really deserve. We have to do something to merit that situation. We have to achieve some great thing and, as a result of our efforts to achieve, we arrive at this place of honor.

Now you think about what's happening this morning in the sports world. You've got Lance Armstrong going for his seventh 'Tour de France' and he's right now, I suppose, pedaling up and down--mostly up--in the Pyrenees trying to hold off everybody else and win this great crown. And he's gonna stand on the podium at the end and the whole world will be, yeah, Lance, for this great achievement that he's won. And certainly it is from a human standpoint. And of course, you've got Tiger Woods trying to hold off all these great names at the British Open. I suppose he's teed off by now. Hopefully, he's not too teed off.

( laughter ).

( laughing ).

But anyway, you understand what I mean...that in every human realm, places of honor are given as a result of achievement. But here we have an entirely different scenario. Now what if the Gospel message were, look what Jesus did, look at the place of honor He achieved? Now what I want you to do is, if you'll work real hard and you get real dedicated and you just put forth this great spiritual effort, someday you can sit on that throne. Is that the message of the Gospel?

>> Congregation: No.

>> Brother Phil Enlow: No! The message of the Gospel is that God has taken you, when you didn't even know anything about it...has raised you up by His love and by His grace and has placed you upon a throne.

( congregational praise ).

We are there the moment we come to faith in Jesus Christ, the moment we are sealed with His Spirit, that is our position as far as God is concerned. He does not see us as worms crawling in the mud, living in sin. He sees us as His children. And we occupy a place of honor and a place of power in Him.

And our problem is we don't know that. We don't understand it. I know with all my heart that's exactly what was in Paul's heart. Oh, how he longed to impart that knowledge to his people, to his brothers who were struggling there in the great city of Ephesus, a city given to idolatry, and he knew they'd come from this natural world and that all they knew was what human beings did and how they thought. And Paul just longed to say, oh, if you just understood what Christ has done for you....

What a difference it is--what a difference it is if we are able to approach the things that we face in our lives from a position of being on a throne and all of those things are beneath us. They are well within our power through Christ to handle and to deal with. And on the other hand saying, oh my God, everything looks terrible. It looks hopeless. Here I am. I'm on my own. I've got to somehow hang on by my fingernails and make it.

But you know even though intellectually I believe most of us who have been around here any length of time, we know this. We understand what God has done for us. We understand our position in Christ. I fear that we don't live that way! We live in ignorance. We live looking at the circumstances, looking at all the things that befall us and fearing and succumbing to the whisperings of the devil. Oh, things are hopeless. Things are desperate. You're just gonna fail. You're gonna fall. Something is gonna happen to mess all of this up and it's all up to you somehow to hang on and figure it all out.

But oh, Paul's message was what God has done for us through Christ. He has seated us. I just pray that God will help me in the days to come to more readily recognize...as I was coming into the service, my mind went to different ones and I saw them and I felt like I could see what was happening in lives. As the devil was just talking to people and beating them down and working on their minds and their hearts and causing them to come to a place of despair and hopelessness. Oh God, You've set this wonderful kingdom before me but I can never handle it. I can't do this. And oh, what the message of the Gospel is, that Christ has done it.

( congregational amens ).

Christ has done it. When we get into His ship, we're in a ship the devil can't sink!

( congregational amens ).

There's nothing that will interfere with what God has purposed to do. You know, you could go through this whole three chapters and I'm not gonna do that. But Paul starts the same way that we started this service this morning, praising God. "Praise be to..."--Verse 3 of chapter 1--"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us...."

Look at the past tense. God has made every provision for us. He's already done it. He did it long before you and I were here. He did it in spite of the fact that we had to come the way of a sinner...that we came as needy helpless sinners, not deserving His love, not deserving His favor. But He looked down the stream of time and He saw you, and He saw you, and He saw me, and He saw our need and His heart was moved with compassion, and said I'm gonna do what it takes. I'm gonna make a perfect provision that doesn't depend on their strength, doesn't depend on what they're able to do in their own selves. I'm gonna save them by My own...by My own plan and power.

He's "...blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him..."--after we worked real hard. No--"...He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with..."--our work and faithfulness. No--"...In accordance with his pleasure and will." You're gonna see at every point it's not based on us, it's based upon what He has purposed to do. Thank God for that! I would have no reason to stand up here this morning if it were based on me, because I am nothing in myself but a failure. But oh, He has raised me up and made me His child.

( congregational praise ).

'He' has done it! He has done it. I praise Him. You wonder why we can praise God, this morning? We're not praising Him 'cause we're somebody, we're praising Him because of what He's done. Oh, praise God! "To the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." That's Jesus. "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with..."--the way we've worked? No.--"...In accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding."

You don't think God understands your situation? I tell you what, we have a God...He is the God of 'all' wisdom, 'all' understanding. He understands everything perfectly. He can look down into the deepest recesses of your heart and mind. He knows all the things that nobody else knows about you. Do you think He has slipped up? Do you think in His provision for our salvation that He has failed to anticipate some need in the lives of one who'd put their trust in Him? No. There's nothing that He has failed. His wisdom, His understanding is able to take it all in and do what is needed to help us. Praise God!

"...All wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ." Now is there any purpose that God is able to form that He is not able to carry out? Is there somebody that's gonna be able to step in and say, no, God, You can't do that? I've got more power than You do and I'm gonna win this contest. No! There's none that can do that.

"If God is for us..."--the scripture says--"...who can be against us?" I mean it's ridiculous. How in the world could somebody presume to oppose God in what he has purposed to do? Thank God! This gives me rest and hope this morning! He purposed in Christ to do what? "To be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment..."--See he's looking down past our day--"...To bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will..."--It always goes back to Him, and what He wants, and what He's chosen to do.

"...In order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory." And so forth, he goes on and talks about how He's sealed us with His spirit when we believed in Him, and He's guaranteed by that seal the finished job that He's purposed to bring about. That seal is the guarantee! We're not there yet. There's many things we have yet to experience in our lives, but the outcome is already certain. There are many battles to be fought but the war has been won. Praise God!

And so it's, "For this reason..."--Paul says in verse 15--"...ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints...." Do you think Paul was excited? Boy I'll tell you what, he was really excited by this truth.

"...and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms." Don't you know the devil would have done anything within his power to do, to prevent that from happening? The Lord allowed the powers of darkness to put His Son to death on the cross for our sins. He suffered in our place. He allowed Him to have to submit to that. But oh, when that third day came, what happened? There was a mighty power of God that reached out into that grave and raised Him to newness of life. And it was a life that no devil could destroy.

And He didn't stop there. After He'd spent time with His disciples, eating and drinking and talking with 'em over a period of 40 days, His feet left the ground and He ascended to heaven. And oh, what a message Peter had to preach on the day of Pentecost. The same Jesus that you crucified, God has raised Him up to a throne. He's above all the powers and principalities of this world. God's power did that.

( congregational amens ).

Oh, it put them on a place where they had to say, whose side are we on? That was the message of that day. But oh, think of the power that it took and every devil in hell screaming and writhing in torment, watching this happen...couldn't do a thing to stop it.

( congregational amens ).

But what relevance does this have for us today? The relevance is that it's that same power that He has released to bring us to that place. It's the same power. "That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms..."--And where is that? It's--"...far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come." I mean, is He number one?

( laughter ).

Praise God! "And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church...." That's a wonderful phrase, isn't it? I believe in the King James it says, "to the church." But that's what it means. What He achieved...through all this that He went through, what He achieved was not just for Himself. So He could say, hey, look what I did. You can do it too. No, it was for us. It opened the gateway for God to be able to reach His power and for it to flow down to lost, unworthy sinners, to blot out their sins, to give 'em the gift of eternal life and to raise them up too.

( congregational praise ).

He didn't just have His Son in mind. He had many sons in mind--many sons and daughters. And I believe there's many of 'em sitting right here this morning. And we need to know where we stand with God. God placed all things under His feet. Gave Him to be the head or, "appointed him to be head over everything for the church." (NIV). That's who it's for.

"...Which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." Oh, one of the great truths of this is the oneness of Christ with His people. God does not see it as Christ and the church as though they're separate things. He sees them as all one body in Him. Oh, think how strange it would be if someone were to walk up to you and ask you how you're doing and you'd say, my head is just great.

( laughter ).

I'll tell you what, my head is so full of power and life and health and joy and peace and I'm doing just wonderful, but my body is falling apart.

( laughter ).

My hands can't get along.

( laughter ).

I hurt everywhere. I'm weak, and my feet don't know what they're doing. They stumble every time they try to walk. No! God sees us as one.

( congregational amens ).

And everything He's done in and through His Son, He means for that power, that influence, to flow all the way down to the health of the body. How could He be concerned about the head and not the body--not the least member of the body? God is longing that we should know where we stand in Christ or where we sit, in this case. Because there He is, seated on that throne and there the powers of darkness are all down beneath Him. He has authority over them. But what God is saying, is that He's not the only one sitting there. He's not the only one that occupies that throne...that we are sitting there with Him.

( congregational amens ).

Praise God! Does that give us a little different perspective when we look at the problems and the issues of life? We can fight from a position of victory, if we understand, if we remember. When the devil's screaming in our head and we're tired, we're worn out, or we're in the middle of a battle or a storm, remember I'm seated with Him in heavenly places. He has done it. I didn't earn this.

( congregational amens ).

But oh, I believe that that same power that raised Him up from the dead can bring me through this. He has already guaranteed the result by the gift of His Spirit. Oh, I just praise God this morning.

I know you know the perfect illustration in the Scriptures 'cause how many times have we used it? And that was the Lord saying, "Let's go to the other side." And how the disciples were looking at their position, in a human negative way when they got out on the lake and the storm began to rage. They said, our position is a desperate one. We're going to perish. Oh there's no hope. We have a storm that's about to swamp our boat and there's nothing we can do about it. Oh, Lord Jesus, don't You care? Master, don't You care that we're perishing? Aren't You concerned? Aren't You worried?

How were they looking at the circumstance that the Lord had allowed to happen? How were they interpreting it? What was their position in their minds? That's where our problem comes. We can all agree with this theologically. There it is, you can't argue with that. God's Word has said it. But you know my prayer, my increasing prayer is that God will take this Book and make it real in the 22nd...21st century, whatever this is. And if the 22nd century comes around, He'll make it real then too, but I'm not gonna...not planning to be there, at least not here on earth.

But praise God! I'll tell you God means for this Book to work today. It wasn't just written for a bunch of special people way back then. It was written for us, because the promise...it said on the day of Pentecost, the promise is, to whom? To you, to your children, to them that are afar off, to all that the Lord our God will call. That means us. That means that everything that God has done, He has had you and me, and all of our needs, and all of our problems, and all the things that threaten to swamp our boat, He's already planned for it. He's already guaranteed that He's gonna take us all the way through.

And so the burden of my heart was, for those who are struggling, those who are in a place where you just...it's darkness all around you, you feel fear, you feel all of the things that we as human beings feel when we face things that we can't control. They really press in upon our souls and oh, the devil is screaming all of his negative lies into our minds. That we will be able to remember, that in spite of it all, in spite of how it appears, we are, nonetheless seated with Him in Christ, in heavenly places, that we have every right to claim our place as sons of God.

Now if anybody happens to hear this, I'm not preaching dominion theology. We haven't been called to this earth to drive the devil out of the world and take over. What we're talking about here is the salvation of sinners. It's calling people out of the condition that he described here and fitting them for another world and enabling us to come through in triumph and to be formed by the very things that we experience, to be shaped by them.

But the devil...that's all the devil can do, because there's solid gold there. He [God] put it there. It's like that faith, like that precious faith. It may go through the fire but it doesn't hurt the gold. The only thing it hurts is the stuff that messes up the gold and just causes it not to be pure.

But, oh, I praise God! I pray that the Lord will help every one of us every time we're in some situation. Let this be the watchword of our hearts. I am! That's my position. I 'am' seated with Christ in heavenly places. Devil, you can't talk me off this throne. I have power over you. I have power to say no to you. I have power to call upon God and expect Him to help me and to strengthen me and if I mess up I can come to Him and find help and forgiveness. There's a throne that's based, not upon what I deserve, but it's based upon grace.

( congregational praise ).

It's never based on what I deserve. But oh, for those who come to Him and their desire is to serve Him and to overcome, His hand is ever extended. We have been made His child for time and for eternity. We have been raised to this position. We go through our lives, we rarely feel like we're there. See, this isn't talking about feelings, but this is talking about a spiritual fact. He didn't just raise us up and kind of nudge us into gear and say, all right now you go. He raised us all the way up in Jesus to a throne.

Oh, I praise God! I just pray that God will help us to exercise the authority of that throne over the things that would swamp our boat and help us to stand in faith and to give glory to God. What a difference it makes in your life if you'll just constantly...if every time something happens, you're in great fear and great consternation because you think oh, everything is in jeopardy. Oh, I'm in terrible, pitiable condition. Oh, I'm in danger of just losing out here. I'm in danger. The devil's gonna win. There's no devil in hell that can beat somebody who has put their trust in Jesus Christ...

( congregational amens ).

...because He has put us upon a throne. That is our position. Do you see now the wisdom that God gave to Paul, who was later on about to explain and exhort the Christians about all the ways...how they ought to live, how they ought to do and how they needed to overcome in this? But how he started with this. Oh, praise God! If we start on the throne, we can walk. If we start on the throne, we can stand, because it's not in us, it's not in our power, but it's in the mighty power of God that is at work within us.

The more we are ignorant of that, the more we're blind to that, the more we're gonna be blown about and made to fear. But God wants to take that fear away from us. Boy, that's one of the glorious promises that was given prior to the birth of Jesus. There was an expression about how God wanted His people to serve Him without fear. Now it certainly doesn't mean without a reverential fear for God, but it does mean that He wants us to be able to serve Him without being afraid of the devil and afraid that we're gonna lose out and somehow it's all gonna just go away because of our failure and because of circumstances, because somebody is somehow more powerful than God is. There's no one. If He has set His love upon you and He has reached out and touched your life and you have trusted in Christ, you are in a safe ship.

( congregational amens ).

The good ship of Zion 'will' reach the harbor. It will reach it. Praise God! I appreciate the fact that God has placed us on the same throne that Jesus occupies. It's not just that He's there, we're there with Him. Praise God!

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