Living Hope

Philip Miller: Jesus is the summation of the cosmic story, not just the Jewish story and the Gentile story, but the cosmic story. In Jesus, sin is conquered. In Jesus, death is defeated. In Jesus, Satan is vanquished.

Larry McCarthy: Welcome to Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I’m Pastor Larry McCarthy, and in today's program, we're discussing the entire Trinity’s role in our salvation. Pastor Philip, Jesus is the focal point of the cosmic story, yes?

Philip Miller: That is so true. I think sometimes people don't stop and think about all of history as a story, but it really is. The grand narrative of the cosmic story that began with creation, that fell into sin and disarray, that is being redeemed and will one day be restored in the end. That's the plot line of the story of history, and it's his story. It’s the story of Jesus, and Jesus is the hero.

If this were a fairy tale, we are not the heroes of the story. We are the damsel in distress. He's the one who gets on the horse and slays the dragon and climbs the tower and kisses us awake and sweeps us off our feet and rides off into the sunset. All we do is swoon. This is his story, and he's the hero. This is an amazing thing. We get to be a part of it. It’s changed our lives forever.

Larry McCarthy: It is amazing. Not only do we know the main character of the story, but we get to play a part in it as well. Let’s go now to the pulpit of the Moody Church. We’re in Ephesians chapter one, verses three through 14.

Philip Miller: When someone adopts a child, a son, a daughter, as their very own, they choose to give that child all the rights and privileges of blood kinship. All the rights and privileges. It is a legal status that is conferred upon the child. That child now has rights—rights to the family estate, rights to the inheritance. They are truly a part of the family. They bear the family name, they enjoy the family status, and they are entitled to the family inheritance.

Through Jesus Christ, Paul says, we have been adopted as sons of God. We are sons of God. Just a quick aside: ladies, this includes you too. I know it's hard to read language that doesn't have your gender in it, but listen to me on this. In the Greco-Roman world, only men inherited. Only sons could inherit property, which is why Paul deliberately chooses the word "sons." He's not excluding you; he's trying to show you that you are an heir. You're a son, you're an inheritor. This includes men and women. You are a legally adopted heir of God.

Just to be fair, in chapter five, Paul's going to refer to the church, men and women together, as the bride of Christ. Women need to realize they're sons, and men need to realize they are a bride. It goes both ways. End of aside. Here we are. The destiny that the Father has willed and has purposed from before the dawn of time was that we might be his own sons and heirs through Jesus Christ. As John says in John 1:12, yet to all who received him, Jesus, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

All of this, Paul says, is to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. Now, who is this beloved at the end of verse six? Who is it? It's Jesus, the Son of God. When did God use this word "beloved" of Jesus? It was at his baptism: "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."

Beloved is the word that the Father uses to describe the intimate, loving relationship that exists between the Father and the Son. As the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, now we too join into this love of God. We have been caught up into the love that subsists eternally between the Father and the Son. We are beloved in the beloved, and it is all to the praise of his glorious grace.

Friends, we are the undeserving. We are the unworthy. All of this is by grace. The Father has chosen you for adoption. He chose you, he picked you, he wanted you. In making you his own son, he is calling you beloved. He is drawing you to himself, and he has destined that you would be well-pleasing in his sight forever. You are his from before the dawn of time until beyond the ending of the world, and every moment in between. You are his forever and always. You are chosen by the Father. Amen.

You are redeemed by the Son as well. Verse seven: in him—that is, in the beloved, in Christ—we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight. Not only are we adopted as sons of God, we are now redeemed by the blood of Christ. Just as Israel, God's people in the Old Testament, were redeemed from bondage in Egypt through the blood of the Passover lamb, now we are redeemed from the bondage of sin, death, and Satan through the blood of the lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus died. When he died in our place and for our sake and bore all of our sin and shame on the cross, when he exchanged his life, his blood, for us on the cross and rose again to make us right with God forever, we have received now redemption through his blood. We have received forgiveness of our trespasses. We have been lavished with the riches of his grace. What rich extravagancy, what gracious blessing, what a wondrous story.

Who could have ever come up with such a beautiful moment of grace as the cross and the redemption of all humanity and the sacrifice of the love of Jesus? Who could come up with such an amazing story? Only the wisest, only the most insightful being in all the universe could have crafted this story of grace.

Verse nine: making known to us the mystery of his will, the Father's will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, that is, in Jesus, things in heaven and things on earth. Through the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ the Messiah, the Father has revealed the mystery of his will here on earth. All along, God has had a plan to bring all things to their proper end and fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

God is summing up the universe, as it were, in Jesus. Jesus is the summation of the Jewish story. All the Old Testament was pointing to Jesus. Every law, every sacrifice, every prophet, every priest, every king—it was all pointing to Messiah, to Jesus, the one who would come. Jesus is the summation not just of the Jewish story, but the Gentile story as well, the story of non-Jewish people. For all the nations must be blessed through the seed of Abraham. So one day every nation and people and tribe and language and tongue will gather around King Jesus in glory and worship him forever.

Not only that, Jesus is the summation of the cosmic story, not just the Jewish story and the Gentile story, but the cosmic story. In Jesus, sin is conquered. In Jesus, death is defeated. In Jesus, Satan is vanquished. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. In Christ, all things shall be made new. The whole universe will be set to rights and made beautiful again in the person of Jesus Christ.

Now this mystery that was hidden for ages is now freely available. We can see it. We didn't know who would be Messiah. We didn't know who would be Lord of the nations. We didn't know who would be King of the cosmos, but now we do. Jesus has revealed it all. The Father has made known the mystery of his will to unite all things in Christ.

It's already begun with you and me. By grace through faith in Christ's substitutionary death and resurrection on our behalf, you have been united in Christ. Christ is in you, and you are in Christ. You have been immersed into his life and you are now alive in union with Christ. The Son has redeemed you for union. God's plan all along was that you and I might be united with Christ, that his life might become our own, that we might come alive in him.

How else were you going to be holy and blameless in his sight? How else would you be a son and heir of the God of the universe? How else could you be beloved in him? If Galatians 2:20 is correct, that we have been crucified with Christ and it's no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us, and the life we now live by faith we live in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself up for us, then our lives are actually hidden in Christ (Colossians 3:3). Christ is in us, which is our hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). To be united in Christ means we are in Christ and Christ is in us.

What does that mean? Give me a picture to anchor to. If I have a cup and I put water in the cup, I understand Christ in me. Then I can imagine that cup if I dropped it in a bucket in the water; I can imagine the cup in the bucket in the water. I can imagine my life in Christ or Christ in me. How do I put those together? Plunge it all the way down until there's water in the cup and you're completely immersed in the life and love of Christ. This is the picture. You are filled to the brim with the life of Christ and your life is hidden in Christ. You're submerged and tethered to and filled by the life of Christ in union with him now and forever.

Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I’m Pastor Larry McCarthy. We're glad you're joining us today. I’m going to jump right in. I’ve got lots of questions today. Pastor Philip, the grace that we've received, you say we've been lavished, and it's extravagant, and that the depth of God's love is revealed through the sacrifice and through the grace. That seems almost like an understatement.

Philip Miller: The price tag that you're willing to pay for something shows you how much it's worth to you. I was a kid, we had this little kids' program when I was growing up, and one of the things they did that I've never forgotten is they literally pinned price tags on us. There was a little tag; it had our name on one side and you flipped it over, and on the other side it said, "Price: Jesus." That's how much our lives are worth to God the Father. He was willing to pay Jesus to redeem us.

The cost of his sacrifice—his life on our behalf, his sufferings on our behalf, not just physical sufferings, but emotional and spiritual and relational sufferings, being separated from his Father relationally on the cross where he faced nothing but the wrath for that time—this is an enormous cost that's been paid. If we really receive that and actually bring it all the way in, it changes the way we think about ourselves.

Sometimes we have this narrative like, "I'm worthless, I'm not worth much." On our own, that's true, but by the grace of God, we have been treasured to the skies. The Lord has been willing to pay his Son for us. What matters more: the way I think and value myself, or the way the King of Heaven values me? His opinion matters more. I don't have the right to outrank him. I've got to learn to see myself with the kind of nobility and dignity and worth and value that he does. I've got to learn to love what God loves.

Larry McCarthy: Listeners, you’ve got to hear that. More effort went into our salvation than in creating all the universe. He just spoke that into existence, but he sacrificed his Son for our salvation. That’s so good, Pastor Miller. I have lots of questions with this segment. You talked about being united with Christ. On a day-to-day basis, help us understand: what's the practical application of that? How am I united with Christ?

Philip Miller: First of all, it's what's true. We are united with Christ. Christ is in us, and we are in Christ. Our lives have been hidden in Christ. We belong to him and he is our life, which is amazing to think about. That reality is so deep and so profound. My identity has literally been radically changed and swallowed up, baptized in the life of Christ. I'm inseparable from him, which means, remember the statement that the Father made of Jesus the Son when he was baptized? "This is my son, my beloved, the one in whom I am well pleased."

If we are in Christ, those statements are true of us. We are sons, daughters of God. We have that kind of significance. We're beloved, we're secure in his love forever. He's well-pleased over our lives. We are satisfied in him. He is our delight. When we realize that's what's true, it means that we need to constantly refresh our memory on those realities.

There's all kinds of ways we tend to forget who we really are. It’s this daily, habitual reminding, looking at the promises of God, the scriptures, hearing his voice, the Spirit bearing witness to our spirit that he is our Father and we belong to him, we're his beloved children. We're going to forget it, so we have to constantly remind ourselves of that. That's why we read the scriptures, that's why we pray, that's why we journal, that's why we gather with Christian believers so that we can be reminded of who we are in Christ so we can live like ourselves.

Larry McCarthy: I'm sure many of our listeners are saying, "Okay, I hear you, and my cup is supposed to overflow because I'm living with Christ. But if I'm going to be honest, my cup is leaking. My cup's dry. I'm not overflowing." What word of encouragement do you have for us?

Philip Miller: You're referring back to that image: we are a cup that's been plunged into the life of Christ and Christ is in us and we are in him. That's the objective reality. But you're right; we don't always live in this experiential, day-to-day fullness. We do leak and we do forget. In my life, when I run driest is when I'm trying to live in my own strength. I'm trying to just keep going as if I have all the resources I need, and I just pour myself out but I'm not filling up.

Our lives are kind of like a pipe and there's two valves, one on the outflow and one on the input. When the outflow is wide open and we're just pouring ourselves out in the lives of others, if we don't have the input valve open at the top end of the pipe, we're going to just empty out and be dry. When we open both valves and we go to God needy and we ask him to fill us and pour his love and life into us and experience the abiding presence of his Spirit—that's what the abiding life is—abide in my word, abide in me, walk with the Spirit.

It's this openness to be full and filled and to come empty and desperate before God. Then, having been filled up, go pour myself out for the sake of others. But what I tend to do, and by default, is I go pour myself out to others and then I go to God and I'm like, "I'm good, I'm okay." But we've got to learn to be really needy with God. That's what he wants. He wants to fill us up, and then we go out in the world and pour ourselves out.

We’ve got to pay attention to things like, are we quenching the Spirit? Am I living in sin in such a way that's inhibiting the full reception of the love of Christ? Feelings are not facts, and we can feel like we don't have the love of God when in fact we do. Sometimes we just need to choose to live in faith in the fact that God does love us even when we don't feel it because it's factually true. All you have to do is look at the cross.

Larry McCarthy: I’ve got to keep moving, but I need to ask you: where do you start here? Is that a matter of prayer? You say it's a matter of supplication, that we just need to acknowledge that I'm empty and I need your filling, but is that where we start? Is it a prayer?

Philip Miller: I think so. I think we cry out to God. We just come to him and we are very honest about how empty, how broken, how messed up we are. I think the quicker we get to honesty with God and the quicker we confess our need, the quicker he's going to fill us up. Here's the reality too: we don't have 100% of God. That's why we have to wait for heaven.

So there's a sense in which the cup is always being emptied and it's never quite overflowing. It's there, but there's also a reason we have to be fully glorified and go to heaven. Experientially, we're never going to be all the way filled up until we're with him in paradise.

Larry McCarthy: But this abundant life, can we lose it? Does it wear off? What's our guarantee that we're going to continue to have this?

Philip Miller: The reality is, if we've been united with Christ, that is a permanent status. It can never be lost, never removed. Jesus says all that the Father gives to me I will keep; no one's going to snatch them out of my hand. That's a good promise. Of course, that also means that we persevere. We need to walk in obedience. That's what legitimate faith looks like; it always perseveres. Those truths go together: we are fully secure and we persevere in faith and those things belong together.

The key to all of that is the fact that we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit. This is where Paul's going next in this grand opening sentence in Ephesians. It's to the praise of the glory of God. The Father has chosen us, adopted us, called us to his very own. The Son has redeemed us and now the Holy Spirit comes as this beautiful, lavish gift and he seals us to belong to God forever. That language of sealing is permanent and it is lasting and it is the key to our security in Christ. That's where we're going next.

Larry McCarthy: That is so comforting, Pastor Philip, and I can't wait to explore how the Holy Spirit's sealing helps us to endure to the end. It's truly amazing how because of Jesus's sacrifice on that Old Rugged Cross that we're not only forgiven but also united with him by grace, becoming heirs to his eternal inheritance. Salvation isn't just a ticket to heaven; it's a call to a life of praise and response to God's incredible love.

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