Identification Truths

Okay, we had moved down to, I think we finished question six, right? And we're talking about the prayer of the Lord Jesus to the Father, right before he goes to the cross. And it's instructive for us in the sense that it reveals an awful lot about How do I say this? It reveals a lot of what later on Paul begins to articulate and expand in his epistles. The Lord Jesus is asking the Father for this right now. And we're kind of able to look over his shoulder and listen to what he has to say to his Father. And I guess I'm of a mind that If the Lord Jesus would be in a discussion with His Father about these issues, is there a possibility that any of them wouldn't be reality in a believer's life? What do you think? Or are they all absolute certainties just because this is a discussion between the two of them, when He asks things, that that's the way they're going to be? Or that's the way that they are?

Have you noticed that a lot of this language looks like it's structured in the past tense? I have given them, I think it was in Greek class, or it was in our Thursday night study that Craig Case, we talked, I forget, what was the name of that tense? What did he call it?

It was an aorist tense, but it really had to do with issues in the present, but it's described as though it's so certain that these things are going to happen that they're written in the past tense. Do you understand what I mean by that? That the certainty of what the Lord Jesus is talking about is such that even though it hasn't happened yet, it's written in a tense as though it already has happened. That's how certain it is that it's going to be. I forget what he called it, but there's kind of a weird name. I was in a Greek class at that time, and I had never heard of it. I don't think Craig, who was teaching the class, had ever heard of it. He had to call him Aloy.

So, let's look at verse 21. Actually, we talked about this on Thursday night. But, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." Now, the question I had in my notes was, in verse 21 he talks of oneness with him and the Father. And I ask you to look up the following verses and indicate what kind of oneness is mentioned in the verses.

Ephesians 4.3, Somebody read the verse, Ephesians 4, 3. One of you really quick page turners. Indeed. Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel. Where are you? Oh!

So what kind of unity are we talking about there? The unity of the Spirit. Notice it's a capital S. The Spirit is the unifying factor and the reason is that the same Holy Spirit indwells every believer. So you have the third person of the Trinity indwelling each believer for the purpose of unity. Remember last week we talked about the unity between the Father and the Son and now the Spirit and now the Spirit is in you and where are you positioned? You're in Christ, right? Okay.

So, Ephesians 4.13. Somebody read that. Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Okay, so we have a unity of faith trust, confidence, and hope. What would you describe a unity of the faith? That we all are in lockstep with the doctrines of Holly Hills Bible Church? What is a unity of the faith?

Well, maybe ask it a better way. Is there room in the grace of God for, how many does Vern say, 12,000 denominations? I don't know. Is there room for that? Is it okay with God that there are all these different splintered, you know? No, I mean this verse specifically talks about the unity of the faith, which is the whole summation of the doctrines of Christianity. Now, does Holly Hills have a corner on the doctrine? What do you think?

Craig says we do. Are we closer than the guys down the street? So what does the unity of the faith mean? The study note here in mine says that until we all come in unity in the faith, that is, until all Christians attain spiritual maturity. Interesting. Okay. And since believers are constantly being added to the Church, this objective will not be realized until the Lord returns. Yeah, I think that's true. We're all to speak of the same righteousness. We're all to plead the same blood. We're all born of the same promise. We're all children, whether we're babes in Christ or mature children by faith. All of that's the same.

Now, what I find interesting about A place like Holly Hills, this isn't a criticism, it's just an observation. You come in the door of a place like this, and like Craig Case says, there aren't very many on-ramps in Holly Hills. So you come in the door, right? And there's a whole language that's spoken in this place that isn't spoken anyplace else.

Example, our course. What other church do you hear the word identification? Position, condition, you know, all those kinds of words. And so you learn some of these things, and it's true that knowledge puffs you up, right? It just does. And so you begin to think that you're somehow better or separate or more knowledgeable and that kind of thing, but what's the faith designed to do, according to this Ephesians verse? Grow. And what is the perfect man? What is that? What's the word perfection mean? Complete dead. What does the word perfection mean?

Think about this. We talked about this on Thursday. It's our fault. Okay. How about this? You're meant to do what you're meant to do. When you create something, whether it be something, you create a story or you create something, material or whatever, you have a specific purpose in mind for doing it, right? And unless it comes into the fullness of the design that you've created, it's not perfect, right? So the perfection of the believer is to enter in and become the fullness of what the design was. Who's the design?

Christ. Yeah. So, our verse says that the knowledge of the Son of God, intimate knowledge of the Son of God, translates into a perfect man. And here's the description of the perfect man. The measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So, with your identity, your identification, or your oneness, or your union with Christ, the purpose of the Spirit is to conform you to his image, which means you come into the fullness or you come into perfection, what you're designed to be. See that?

Acts 4.32 What I'm after there is the oneness of heart. One of the reasons that you study the Word of God and that you hang around with other believers is that as you grow in the knowledge and grace, as you begin to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus, there's one heart about Him and one heart about each other.

Colossians 2.2. Now we've had everybody in the front row read. Now it's time for you in the second row to read. I thought so.

Colossians 2.2. But even after that, we had suffered before and were shamefully treated, as you know, at Philippi. We were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention. Uh-oh. That's not the verse I was looking for. Are you at the Philippines? Is there coffee out there? You want to go back and sit by her? Please.

What a phrase, knit together in love. You talk about union and oneness, look at that. Knit together in love. You know that believers can't help but love one another. They can't help it. Why? Not a hard question. Because we're united to the one who is the lover. We have his very life. And the very core and essence of God is to love.

Back to Ephesians 4.3. Now let's see if we can get there without stopping off somewhere else.

Ephesians 4.3, endeavoring to keep the union of the Spirit and the bond of peace. What I had down there was the bond of peace.

And there's a bond of peace between believers and amongst the whole body of Christ. And what's interesting about that is that outsiders can't interfere with that. Have you ever thought about that? that the bond of peace that we have amongst each other can't be usurped by somebody on the outside.

We may ruffle feathers on the inside, and most of us pay attention to the news and political activities and stuff, but really, from inside the body of Christ, none of that matters. None of it matters. Does it matter who the president is? Does it matter who's blowing who up? Does it matter what the turmoil of the world is going on in the world?

Does it matter that, I don't know, does it matter that CU lost yesterday by a huge... no. I just found out yesterday that a friend of mine, a good acquaintance of me, who is the congressional person from the District of California, is probably going to go to jail for 10 years.

You know, I don't know if any of you have been, probably a lot of you have been around someone who knows that they're going to die and they're kind of in a hospice situation that they begin to withdraw from the world. They just begin to, because they recognize they're leaving. would that believers would be the same way? That we would begin to withdraw because we're leaving. I mean, we've left. We don't belong in the world.

1 Corinthians 1.10. Okay, second row. Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, and that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? When you said, you know, we're knit together, it doesn't matter, you're bonded too. Why are there so many divisions? Yeah, why are there? 12,000 denominations. Yeah, why do you think that's so? The focus is off. I think if it's Christ with the focus, it shouldn't matter. I mean, this goes back to one of those long-standing questions. Like I've got the answers. You know, it goes back to, you know, if you think somebody has, you know, a wrong doctor, i.e. we have our friends who... Sure. Sure. Yeah.

You know, do you... I mean, we've chosen to leave that alone and, you know, just fellowship. Create fellowship with them. Oh, in the beginning of Galatians where Paul said, if anybody preaches any other gospel other than what I preach, it's going to be a curse? Yeah. Sure. Well, let me ask a question.

Do you think that all of these have to go together? Be operative simultaneously? Or do you use your friends and... Gee, I hope they don't hear the tape. You love them. You enjoy fellowshipping with them even though you don't have a unity of doctrine. But you have the same Christ. go somewhere, or they go out on this limb, and they would view you as going out over on this limb. Yeah. So, but that, you know, it was the Galatians were the kind of monkey-wrenching things. Yeah.

That, you know, or, you know, somebody else was not, you know, talking identification, position, condition. Right. You know, now I feel compelled to you know, inform and tell people. But not, you know, I think, we also, we just talked about this, you know, it's still, it comes from the hungry heart, you know, that's the one who's going to, I think it was Caroline, it was Caroline I was talking to about that, up in Alaska. Right. You know, and it is, it's the hungry heart who, you know, you might give them the book, the green letters, but, you know, ten years later they may pick it back up. And it makes sense to them, yeah. I'll give you my answer.

What I think is the critical issue within believers. The whole issue of John 17 is to inform believers about their union with the God of the universe. and because we're sentient beings, you understand what I mean by sentient? We can think, we can act and interact, we have the ability to feel and to know other human beings. Because we're sentient beings, and God is a sentient being, his desire is that we would know him and enter into a one-on-one, intimate, personal fellowship with him.

And for him to want it that way beyond my comprehension, but that's the sum and substance of everything that he does. Each believer conditionally has one goal in his life, and that's to be conformed to the image of Christ. There's no other goal. It isn't that you be spiritually astute, or all of these other things. The issue is to be conformed to the image of Christ, right? Romans 8, 28 and 29. So you know that fact and you recognize that the Spirit of God is working towards that one goal.

And in 2 Corinthians 3.18 you find out that the way in which He does it is by revealing Christ to you. So here you are studying the Word and you are learning facts, but through those facts you're coming into this intimate knowledge of the second person of the Trinity. And that beholding of Him has an effect on you. and the effect on you is being transformed from glory to glory into the very image of Christ.

If all believers, one, knew that, and two, as we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, we begin to think the same thoughts. We begin to understand what this unity of the faith is. We begin to understand that the oneness of God is the same. Now, if I sit down and talk to another believer You know, one of the first things I do is try to determine how well does he know Christ, intimately.

Not how well he knows about him, how well does he know him. You understand the difference? I could tell you all about my wife Donna, and you would have a bunch of knowledge about her. But until you met her, you wouldn't know her, right? You can study Shakespeare and all of his plays till you're blue in the face, but you never met Bill, right? But through the Word of God, you get to meet Christ. And that meeting of Him transforms you and gives you the oneness that we're talking about. I think that issue is the one issue that's very seldom talked about in Christianity. We're too busy being religious. We're not busy learning of Christ. Who is this man?

And so God sets up the entire Word and gives us the Spirit for that purpose, that we might know Christ. and we might walk with him. Vern Peterman comes to this church four and a half years ago, however he came, and he spends a couple of days with Hal Molloy, and then we hire him and he comes back and then he spends a bunch more time with Hal Molloy.

Other than one small thing, they disagreed on nothing and they'd never met before. Never. Why is that? Hal didn't go to any seminaries that he went to. They didn't know each other before he responded to our application. Why is that? Well, I think it's because both of those guys have something interesting about them. They love the Word of God, they're focused on knowing Christ, and they're growing in Him. And so when they sit down and begin to talk about Christ, you can't say, well, Christ is 50% charismatic and 50% fundamental, because He's not. So the issue is Christ Himself.

And that's kind of what this, you know, identification is all about. That's really what it's about. I really agree with that, because, you know, when I came here, it seemed like, automatically, like I didn't know people, but I automatically knew them, because we're, like, the same mind, or something. I don't know, it just happened that way, but all the other places I was, you know, jumping, leaving, and going to a new place, Well, I finally came to the understanding that I didn't tell them, oh, it's identification, it's all this vocabulary. But I said, whenever I said it, people were asking, young believers especially, were asking, what's God's will for me? I don't know.

I'm searching for that. to know Christ, to be conformed to Him. And that made them... they just jumped back for so much. Oh, that's a scary thought. Yeah, and it's like, no, no. It's got to be something religious. It can't be that. Yeah, it's like, do nothing but know Christ. And, no. It was amazing how that was so... It was like four other words. Yeah, it's foreign. Yeah, it really is. Okay, so, question eight. In this prayer, how does Christ describe a union between Him and us? Oh no, easy question. The same union is between God and the Holy Spirit? Or between the Father and the Son.

See that? The Father and the Son have this union that we look at and read about and think it's sort of unique to them. What we don't really get our arms around is that, okay, it's unique to them, but guess what they've done? They've invited us in. and not just to be observers.

Our union with Christ is the same kind of union that He has with the Father. In 1 John it says that we have fellowship with the Father and with you and with His Son. Not only the union, there is so much in this one. This is the most amazing glimpse, and then our dedication with Him.

It's talking about us too. you know, in 11, that we may be one. In verse 13, that they may have my joy made full in themselves. Verse 19, sanctified, that they may be one even as thou, in verse 21, that they may all be one even as thou, for there are me and I in them, that they may also be in us. Verse 22, that they may be one just as we are one. Verse 23, I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfected in unity. Isn't that something? Once you get identification, and you now realize this, this thing is just a millennium picture of what we have.

Yeah, and you know it's interesting, whenever it's really important to the Lord, He repeats it a lot of times. And He repeated it a ton here. How important is it? Not only that, well, important that we get this idea. It's huge. Well, this is one of the only really, I guess, portion of the Scripture where we get the one-on-one between the two. And then in that intimacy, it shows our intimacy. That's something I can't even comprehend. I know, that's cool.

But the great thing about having the Spirit of God in you is the fact that you see something like that and you look at God and you say, I don't get this. I agree with you, thank you very much, but I don't understand it. Guess what? Guess what the Spirit's going to do?

He's going to take you into it, so you get it. You do understand it, and not only understand it, but it's the reality of your life, because that's what he wants. Somebody in this class already knows the answer to it, and she has to be quiet. It's a trick question. What do you think the highest union in existence is? Let's see if you get it. Come on. Can I answer it? Please, go.

Oh, you already know. I don't know why, but I put Trinity. Trinity's good, but that's not it. We were just talking about the Trinity. Think about union now. One in with Christ. One in with Christ, that's good, but that's not it. Anybody else? Christ in the Father? No, that's good, but that isn't it either. It's the closest union. Here it is. It's the hypostatic union between the second person of the Trinity and a man. That Christ is both 100% God and 100% man. There's a unity there that there's nothing like that anywhere. I'm going to have to look up hypostatic. What highest? Highest union or the most tiny? The highest union possible in existence. Hypostatic. Yeah, that's a good word. That's a good word to study. Is it because it was a pivotal union? Well, think about this.

Between a human being and God. And the divine. There's a union. Christ has so united himself as being a man, as the second person of the Trinity, that he never will be separated from that. That's what he is now. He's a man. And there's a union there between the Creator, God, and a man, a human being. Sitting on the throne of God right now in the heavenlies is a human being. Not an angel, not any other creature, it's a human being. But he's also God. And so there's a union between what appears to be two entities, which it isn't, because he's 100% God and he's 100% man, united. There's no greater example of union, I think, than that. That word is hard to find. I think it's a brethren word.

My notes say, the human nature, complete in all its fullness, and the divine nature, complete in all its attributes, are united in one glorious person. The Lord will have union between Himself and His people to correspond in all respects with this union. The same union that exists between human nature and divine nature exists between you and Christ. See that?

Is there a group of verses that you would use to illustrate that capsulization? I would, and I don't know where it is, but I can quote the verse. Members of his body, members of his flesh, and members of his bones. Anybody remember where that was? You're talking about the union between Christ and... There's a couple of verses in the first part of Colossians that in Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily and we are complete in Him. That may be a verse that describes that the best, maybe not. In Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead in a body. And then it says, and you're complete in Him. I'll think about that. I'm sure there's others. I think there's two or three verses that deal with that issue in the first part of Colossians.

I don't want to spend the time looking them up. There is a love union between the Father and the Son, the union of affection and mutual delight. There is a union of will between the Father and the Son. They are diverse persons, but they never differ in thought or aim or object or motive. I do have a verse for that, I think.

John 5.19, Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do. Whatever things he does, those also does the Son in the same manner.

Now think about that in terms of the practical application of your unity and my unity with Christ in the Godhead. entails that very same point of view. That you can literally, as you are matured in Christ and conform, that you would say the same thing, that I never do anything of myself, I only do what my Father's desire is. And when you study the Gospel of John, you find that the overriding motivation in Christ's whole existence here was to do the Father's will, to His own expense. Well, if you're united to Christ, with the same life, the same purpose, the same aims, the same goals, where are you going to end up? That same viewpoint. That doing the Father's will will be more important to you than even self-preservation.

See that? It seems kind of far-fetched, but that comes with the life. That's the way the life functions. And so you see believers functioning like that and you think, oh gee, that's extraordinary. No, it's not. It's normal. It's normal, because that's the way Christ is.

So imagine, we'll put your name in there. You are a diverse person, but you will never differ from the Father and the Son in thought, in aim, in end or object or motive. How cool would that be? Now if you're carnal, it sounds restrictive. I've got my free will. What you don't get is that doing all those things is when you're really free. The Lord Jesus was totally free to do what? To do his Father's will. And that was his freedom. Not only that, he said, it's my food. It's the thing that sustains me, is to do my Father's will. That's tough for Americans to grab, isn't it? That's right.

When that fellowship breaks, he cries. Well, you know, Wayne, that's a great point, because as you grow spiritually, and as a believer grows in intimacy with Christ, that's a love union. And so you become increasingly more sensitive to the things that begin to cause you to be separated, or you're very... without even You don't have to think about all the things that would cause a separation of that fellowship, you just know them. You know what's not pleasing, and you stay away from it, because you don't want to do anything to break that fellowship. The conditional part of it, yeah. But that's what spiritual growth and growing in intimacy with Christ is all about, from person to person.

I don't, you know, I shouldn't use me as an example, but people that have great marriages don't go about doing things that are going to disrupt the marriage. Well, why wouldn't they? Because it says so somewhere in the book, page 7, I shouldn't be doing this? No. They love their wife. And they don't want to do anything to harm them.

Now all they've got to do is teach their kids that same... About the parents? No, about the kids to the parents. Well, I mean, how old do they have to be before they really understand, they get mature in the love of the family? It takes a while. They don't know that at first. Yeah, they find out that, gee, my mom and dad really did love me.

Son of a gun. Yeah, can I move back home? You know, it's amazing in my experience It takes something more than just living in that particular part of the furniture. I'll use my family as an example. My mother and dad were together for 60 some odd years. They had one child that did have a divorce. She married a fellow whose family stayed together for in his sixties some odd years. But he had a divorce. And so the examples sometimes are very, very tough to teach. And doing it with his hand doesn't always necessarily guarantee that it's going to work out that way.

And we as believers, as we grow in the knowledge and grace and the love of Christ, we're learning about what that family is all about. As we grow, not only do we desire more, but because we desire more, we instinctively reject what's not of that family.

And it isn't because somebody gave us a list of rules. If you live in your family with your wife based on rules, you haven't got a chance. The refrigerator list doesn't work. It just doesn't. and you're there by the grace of God. Well, it's the same intimacy that you... As soon as I say that, look who leaves. I'm out of here. I'm not buying a bit of that.

As soon as the believers begin to understand what spiritual growth really is, which is to behold the glory of the Son of God, and all that goes with that, you begin to understand what a love relationship with the God of the universe really is. His intensity of his love towards you is way over what your response is going to be, but you learn to enjoy it anyway. To expect to be blessed even though you're not worthy is a great secret. Question 10.

Are there consequences flowing from our union with Christ? And then I gave some verses. 2017 is the Lord Jesus says, stop claiming to me for I have not yet ascended to my father. But go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my father and to your father and to my God and to your God. So the question was, are there consequences flowing out of our union with Christ? And what are the consequences in this verse? It's two relationships.

Now this doesn't seem like a big deal to us, but if you're a Jew, at this time in history, this is huge. For the Lord Jesus Christ to say to them, you go tell my brethren that I am ascending to my Father and to your Father. The to your Father was the real surprise.

Because they looked at Jehovah as their God. And who did the Jews think their Father was? Abraham. See? My God and your God and my Father and your Father. So there are consequences flowing from our union with Christ. One is the Fatherhood of God and not Fatherhood in name only and not Father as Creator, but Father in the same sense that Father and Son with the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father. See that?

Romans 8.17. is we are heirs of God and fellow or joint heirs with Christ. What does that mean? We don't have much trouble recognizing that Christ is the heir of God, meaning what? He gets something he didn't have before? Suffered the cross? What does it mean to be an heir? You're a beneficiary of all that your father has, right? All that your father has. So what does the father have in this deal? Got it all. What's that?

Which we do. It's not an if that if you don't suffer you don't get inheritance. It's an if of certainty, which is a can be translated since. And so an outgrowth or consequences of our union with Him is the fact that we're heirs. Now, exactly in one word, what's the prize? What do you get for being an heir? When they read the will, what do you get? Give me one word. Glory. There it is. That's what you get. You get glory. And whose glory is it? It's God's glory. The sum total of his intrinsic attributes, you get. You get them all.

Ephesians 2.18. For through him we have both are accessed in one spirit to the Father. And that access is also mentioned in Romans 5.

Romans 5.2 says, By whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we permanently stand.

Now, most religions of the world are designed to give you a set of requirements in order that at some point in time you may be able to gain access to a deity. Right? Isn't that the way they function? That here are the 4,000 things that you can do that at the end, in the end game, you will have some sort of access to deity. What does this say? You already got it. You already got it. You don't have access as a subject of the king.

I'm a real fan of all of those movies that were made in the 50s and 60s with like Robin Hood type movies and Ivanhoe and all that kind of stuff where they have a king and he's sitting up there and the guys come in and they bow. The Ten Commandments was like that. You had to come in to Pharaoh and you had access to him and you had to conduct yourself in a certain manner. But if you look at all of those, sitting up there next to the king is the queen and usually one of their kids who's kind of a smart aleck, right? Well, that kid knows he's got access, right? He knows his father loves him, right? And he knows he belongs up there.

Guess where you belong? Up there! You don't come in this way, you're up there. And that's the access that you have, because he's your father. Do you see that? It's a family relationship, and access you have is into the family quarters, not into the courtyard. Verse 19 says, So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household. I mean, think about your privilege.

It's the same as Christ has with the Father. Yeah, exactly. Exactly the same. I mean it's like... What's that? Imagine you can run down and jump in your father's lap and just stay there. Don't ever have to leave. Very cool. And your father, by the way, happens to be the God of the universe. No big deal.

1 John 4, 12, 13, and 16. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13. By this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us his Spirit.

16. And we have come to know, and have believed, the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. because you have intimacy and union with Christ, these are the things that are conferred upon you. This is what you have. You hear me complain all the time that the problem with Christians is they don't know what they have. Well, you know, so far I don't hear any of you complaining.

1 Corinthians 13.12 Then I shall know fully, just as I also have been known fully, or have been fully known. Now, explain what that means. Then, I shall know fully, and I will know on the same level as I also have been fully known. Christ knows our position, but we don't fully realize it.

Yeah, that's right. I think this talks about when we go to be with Him and we stand before Him face to face. Think about that. Think about that as a benefit for getting before Him sooner rather than later. That you are positionally known as a son of God with all the attributes. You're loved by God, all of the positional truths. At the moment in which you stand face to face with Him, you will enter into all that you already are in Him. You will now know. And you won't ever have to learn. Even though you will expand for all eternity in Christ, but you will now fully apprehend your position. Because your position will be Him. And because you're just like Him, you have it all instantly. Isn't that something? I've often thought this, and this is one of those weird thoughts that runs around in my mind.

God doesn't think sequentially. Do you understand what I mean by that? He doesn't have this thought, and then the next thought, and then the next thought. He doesn't think like that. He has all knowledge, all present in his mind at the same time, all the time. Do you understand that? I'm wondering if we're going to be like that. If we will be knowledgeable like that, or are we still going to think sequentially? I don't know. We have the mind of Christ, so we might be able to just...

I think that's the great reward, that for all eternity, unending will be this expanding ability to contain more of who God is. And that will never stop. I don't know, I can't describe eternity. Eternity sounds like endless time, but I don't think it is. Rather than it expanding out, I like what Hal does. He said eternity comes in and it's all now. I like that view better than an expanding universe. You bring it all together and it's all now.

John 1.16. For of His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace." What a source of enjoyment that is. Of His fullness we have all received. We could spend the next ten years and never exhaust just the beginning of what His fullness means, and then it says you have received it. You got it all. Did the second bell go off? Not yet. Are we okay? We've still got a couple minutes.

In verse 21, do you think he is praying for a union to be created that didn't exist, or the realization of one that already exists? And the verse is that they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou sent me. Is he praying for something to come into existence, or something that already existed? It's because he's talking about believers. and that there's something that is already true. Would you say you can describe what was the Greek tense that you were trying to figure out?

Yeah. Yeah, the Lord's Prayer is not the origin of the union in which He speaks or the cause of it. What he's talking about is the fruit and result of this union. He's not praying that the union might be established between himself and his people, which didn't exist, but that that union which was always in the mind and purpose of God. See, here's the thing.

If God determines purpose in his mind, it's reality. Does that make sense to you? In other words, There's a verse that says that God knew you in Christ before the foundations of eternity. Oh, really? Well, if God knew you, it isn't that he knew what you would do. He knew you personally. He knew Craig. Knew him as a person in Christ. And I've read this little thing to you before. Just to lay it out again.

I won't read the whole thing. back there in eternity before anything had been brought into being, environed in the pure essence of divine love, light and love, in the mind of the Father, the heart of the Son, and the hands of the Spirit, by and for His love, God conceived you." So what he's really talking about here is something that's always been in the mind of God, and always been about you. Now, in time-space reality, It happens when you believe, but then he says, well, wait a minute, you were on the cross with my son 2,000 years ago. What was that? He's speaking from an eternal standpoint. He's always known you in Christ. You've always been his son. And there's no chance that you could lose it. No chance. Because it's his plan, not yours. You see that? I mean, that's a hard one to take in, isn't it? You thought last week things got cool. That's right. That's right.

The purpose was in God's mind from before creation. I put the union didn't happen until the cross. That's for the union actually. Time has kind of obliterated at that point because it's always in Him. Once you're in Him, then it's eternal. I think you're right in terms of time and space, but Christ is designated the Lamb slain from the foundations of eternity. I think maybe the way to look at it, so it isn't as confusing as it is to you, is the fact that once it's in the Father's mind, it's reality. Now, through time, you know, you get born, you get procreated in Adam, you're born, you come into the family you're in. But at some point in time, you believe on the person and work of Christ and you are placed into Christ, identified with Him. Well, and then you read in the Word of God, well, the Father's always known you there. Okay. You know, okay. I didn't get there until last week, but okay. You understand?

What about non-believers? Did he know them? Yeah, that's a good question. Were they in his mind as this unbelief? His language about that is that he wishes that none would perish, that all should come to the saving knowledge of Christ, but not all do. There's some kind of lack of control there. Oh, I see what you mean. Miles Stanford used to say this... Like a free will for them, but not for us. Well, free will is a whole other debate as to whether we even have it. Miles Stanford used to say that as a non-believer walks up to the gates of heaven, there's a big sign over the gate that says, whosoever will may come.

And so you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you enter in, you look and the back of the sign says, chosen from the foundations of eternity. So from your perspective as a non-believer, there's only one issue. Do you believe or not? There's no other issue. There's no predestination issue. There's no nothing. It's do you believe in the person and work of Christ. And when you don't, you exercise your will not to. It isn't passive, it's active.

We'll pick up at 12 next week and then go into it. Father, how we thank you for, boy, the blessings that we have in your son are just overwhelming. I guess I pray that we would be mindful of them and mindful of him, and that we would eagerly desire to behold the glory of your son. We pray in his precious name. Amen.