The Position & Possessions of the Believer # 24-25 (Lesson 26)
Mike Doyle · Apr 8, 2007
Identification (2006-07), No. 27
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926023183326

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

OK. Last week we didn't finish up last week's question. So there's only a couple. And I don't know. I don't think I have any. I don't think I have any more of which would it would be the lesson. Believe it or not, I'm organized. I haven't messed this up in a while. Less than 25. And we had we had worked down through. We ended up talking about what the peace of God is and how it operates in a believer's life. That's kind of where we ended. The next question on the list was how would God comfort us? The verse that I used was 2 Thessalonians 2, 16 and 17. 16 and 17, but you will read that. To what? To 16 and 17.

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ, himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope like rice, comfort and strength in your hearts in every good work and word. So it's interesting in those verses there are some things that are given or presumed to be understood. One is that he loves us. Paul writes that we understand that and he's given us everlasting, my version says, consolation and good hope by grace, and we've been talking a lot about grace lately, and thereby comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work, every good word and work. Don't you find it interesting that no matter how Paul phrases it, it's always that God loves us, give an everlasting consolation and good hope and grace before he talks about good works and good words. If we understand that he loves us and that he justified us by the work of his son, which we talked a lot about on Friday night, we shouldn't have any conscience of sins before God. These are all for today. Anybody else? These are not what I'm covering right now. So I'll get to in a minute.

So why would. How would God comfort us? How would he do that? I just told you. I think the thing is, it's by grace. It is, you know, how, how would he do nothing again? It's the comfort is all from him. It's nothing we do. And I, you know, two things in here in the verse. One, it's eternal, which I like. And the other is by grace, which the only thing we can do is say thank you. So the comfort is all by him. And it's nothing other than us receiving it.

It's interesting, when you talk about God comforting us, can you personally tell me the last time He did? How many say, yeah, no problem, I can do it? There are not very many hands in here. The interesting thing about God comforting us is that through His Word, and through faith in His Word, we do know what His comfort is. The problem is we are always going to these problems thinking that they are problems when in fact they are blessings. They are designed specifically by God to get us to go to Him so He would comfort us.

So has God demonstrated that He personally is interested in your well-being? That's one of those questions that if you answer no, you feel like, oh I don't belong in this class. Has he though? Has God personally demonstrated to you that he is intimately interested in your well-being? Yeah or no?

There's a thing I read some years ago from J.B. Stoney. His take on this was that when we discover and enter into the intensity with which Christ is interested in us, it frees us to be interested in him. The problem I think comes in the fact that we are so interested in our own circumstances all the time that we seldom get away from those to get to the Lord. And the reason for that is that we are not yet convinced that He is minutely and very actively more interested in you than you even are aware of.

Just for an example. If you woke up tomorrow morning and you were overwhelmingly aware that every millisecond of your day Christ had orchestrated, ordained, and was intimately interested in and focused totally on your well-being, how would you react to that? This is the God of the universe, by the way. This isn't somebody who just happened along.

Would it not change your attitude about your interest in him. If you have nothing to be worried about about yourself, then you've got to be thinking about something. And if you know you're covered, then you're free to be interested in the things of the Lord. I'm persuaded that if there's anything that the Word of God portrays to us, it's that fact. That his intensity with which he is interested in us, in every part of our existence, And we just either don't believe it, don't know it. You know, we're from Missouri saying, well, you've got to show me. He's showing us all the time. You see?

When you get to Ephesians 1.3 and it says that we're blessed with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly sin Christ Jesus, did he leave anything out? We act like he did, don't we? I mean, we think that, oh, I have these circumstances in my life where Boy, if the Lord doesn't respond, I hope he's not busy today.

So, 1 Peter 5.7, casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. It's one reason why we talk a lot about intimacy with the Lord Jesus through the Word of God. As that intimacy grows with him, you begin to find out, wow, the Lord Jesus Christ is intensely interested in me. His whole focus is on me and my growth and conformity to his very image all the time, every minute. So question nine, why would Jesus Christ our high priest make intercession for us?

Why would he have to? And the verse was Hebrews 7.25, wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeking that he ever lives to make intercession for us. Why does he have to do that? Why does he have to do that? Why would he do it? He said he would. What's that? He said he would. Do you need it? Sure, he saved us forever. It's continually being saved I guess. Okay, that's tracking right.

What would cause the Lord to have to intercede? Based on your position. What would he have to intercede about? Isn't it already done? Then what creates the problem? We don't comprehend. Based on our condition. Based on our condition? Although we have a permanent standing in the Lord and before the Lord, what happens when you sin? It's only the people on this side that sin, you don't get the answer. What happens when you sin?

You get out of fellowship. And so the intercession takes place to do what? Restore you to fellowship. It has nothing to do, it never affects your position or your relationship, but it does affect your fellowship. is designed to rekindle and maintain fellowship with the Lord Jesus.

Doesn't it sound heretical to say sin is no longer the issue with him? Doesn't that sound, oh, it has to be the issue? Is sin still an issue between you and the Lord? What do you think? How many think it is? How many think it is an issue? How many think it isn't an issue? Those that think it isn't, tell me why.

Yeah, positionally there isn't an issue. But it's interesting. Lots of the discussions around here are, are the answers have to be looked at from whether you have, whether you're talking from a position or conditional viewpoint. There's no question that conditionally your sins are an issue. It doesn't affect your standing or your position, but it certainly affects your fellowship. Is it just folly to positionally rest in the fact that sin isn't between you and God anymore?

Is that just not religious enough? Or are we just sort of being careless? What do you think? I knew he ate too many pancakes. Is it careless of us or foolish of us to think that sin is still an issue between God and you? Is it careless? Yeah. What is God's viewpoint about your sin? And He handled it? So, gee, if I do sin and I feel guilty and I go through all that routine, then sin is an issue between God and me.

On whose side of the ledger is it an issue? It's always on my side, never on His side. See that? And so, again, if we understand That's why the focus is always on position. If we understand our position, and how we got it, and how it's there, and what God did, and what it cost Him to get us that position, it changes our perspective. And I also think that it helps motivate us away from sin. Because when you realize, through the study of the Word, exactly your position and what God has done, and your faith rests in those facts, First of all, the focus is off of you and how you're doing and whether I'm maintaining or not.

And it's on him, and there's a rest there. Do you see that? Does that make sense? Is that alright? Does that make sense? I'm not too gracious now. I want to be that. The last question I had in that group was, and I don't know if you've noticed this, but the last question I ask every week is kind of an open-ended question. just to get you to think, not really to answer in class, but when it comes to the much more that God has accomplished, why do we not rest more in Him? That's a question you can spend the rest of your day thinking about.

Okay, let's go to 26, which is what we just handed out. In the subject matter today, for those of you who haven't been in the class before, what we're studying is the 34 positions and possessions of the believer. And where we came up with the 34 is we stole them from Lewis Berry Chaffer. Now believe it or not, I read an article, and I hope we'll have it to us before the class is over, by a man named George Zeller. He's got 202. So I'm going to get a Xerox and give it to you. 202 things that we have because of the cross.

Anyway, we are going to do number 24 and 25. 24 is his inheritance and the verse is Ephesians 118. Do you want to read it? I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his cause, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And then the second one we're going to talk about this morning is our inheritance, which are quite a few verses.

1 Peter 1.4. Anybody who has it can read it. Okay.

Ephesians 1.14.

I'll read that one while somebody else is looking up Colossians 3.14.

Colossians 3.24. Since you know that you won't receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward, it is the Lord you are serving.

And Hebrews 9.15 I'll read that one. And for this cause he is the mediator of the new covenant in the testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament they which are called might receive the promise of an eternal inheritance. So my first question was does God get an inheritance out of this deal?

Yes or no. Yes. OK. What does he get. It's us. Oh that's awful. So he really gets us. What good are we to him? We're in the Lord. OK. That's the. I mean, when you think about the name of the class is identification class. And we spent a lot of time talking about how we were identified or you. in union with the Lord Jesus Christ when he was crucified, buried and resurrected. If today was resurrection day, then all of us would be resurrected in him and with him. That gives every one of us an entirely new position before God. And that position is identical to the position that the Lord Jesus has before the Father.

Way back from Hal Malloy talking about this, what's God's purpose in doing any and everything? Why does He do it? To reveal His glory. To glorify Himself, right? Isn't that why He created and that's why He does everything? So here we are in the resurrected Christ position for the purpose of doing what? Glorifying God. Does that make you worthy to be an inheritance? Yes, it does. Yes, it does. But it's interesting, God did all the work.

And for all eternity, God has determined that through his whole creation, he will manifest his glory openly, which he doesn't do now. You get a little glimpse of his glory, but the fullness of the glory of the resurrected Christ will be manifested through Christ and who else?

Us. Us. Every creature for all eternity will know who you are in this room because you will manifest the glory of God like nobody else. Because you're a son. And he has determined that those are the two vehicles that he's going to manifest his glory through. The Lord Jesus Christ and you and me. His body. See that? His bride. So when we're cruising around ruling and reigning in the millennial kingdom with the Lord Jesus?

How are they going to know you're a son of God? Because you'll be ruling and reigning with them, right? How are they going to know you're one of them? Because you've got a name tag system. IR ruler? How are they going to know? You know, there's more truth in fiction than that. They will be able to look at us and know because of the revelation and the manifestation of the glory of God through you, they will know. Because no other creature will have that. See that? Pretty cool, I think. So, do we get an inheritance? I'm sorry, will the inheritance that God gets satisfy him? Is he going to say, oh no, I've got a jippy deal here? I've got six dollars and a Pontiac. Will he be satisfied with what he gets? Sure he will.

The verse that I spent some time was John 17, 21, where the Lord Jesus says to the Father, that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us. Then in 23, he says, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. And 24, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you gave me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. And back up to verse 22, he says, and the glory which you gave me I have given them.

You see that? So if you get to look over the shoulder of the Lord Jesus Christ and John as he prays to the Father, there you are. The Lord Jesus says to the Father, I want them to be one in me as I am one in you. I want to reveal myself to them. I want you to love them exactly like you love me. And oh, by the way, I want them to have the same glory I have.

So now you're worthy, only because of those things, that God will be totally satisfied with his inheritance. And the reason is because he is totally satisfied with the person and work of his son. And because you're in him, you're the prized possession too. So do we receive an inheritance? What do we get? We get what Christ gets. We get what Christ gets.

I've got a couple of things I want to read. I found these by some of the old guys, a guy named Metcalf and Mayer. Metcalf says, he's talking about what Lucifer did to Eve. It's kind of subtle here. He says, the doubt injected into Eve's mind was a doubt concerning the character of God. and the nature of his relationship with her. If you will sit down and think this through, you will find that nearly all your own spiritual difficulties and fears start at this point.

We must learn that our inheritance is God himself. It's not things, it's him. so that we can never be persuaded like Eve was persuaded that God isn't for us. Then Mayer says about inheritance, not the golden harps, not the sea mingled with fire, not rest from pain and immunity from sorrow, not the blessed society of heaven. From all these apart from God we should at last turn away dissatisfied. They are but the accessories and the embodiments of something deeper, more inward and rapturous, the possession of God, heirs of God, i.e., of all the communicable glories of the divine nature."

Do you really think you're going to get that much? How many of you think you will? You'll get, as he puts it, all the communicable glories of the divine nature. Do you get that? You sure? Don't you get 97% and God keeps 3? You get it all? Okay. What does communicable mean? It means communicated from Him to me. Okay. So it's just what God says He'll give us? Yeah. So obviously we're going to get 100% of what He says. Yeah, that's right. You get it all.

The psalmist expressed the literal truth when he said, Whom have I in heaven but Thee? To know Him, to explore His being, to live in his fullness eternally, to discover new tracks and endless continents in the terra incognita of God, to see his glory, to be changed into his image, this is the inheritance of the servants of the Lord." J.C. Macintosh.

Do you think of it that way? Or do you really in your mind think of it, well, Let's see, there's a heavenly society, there's mansions and golden streets and I get to play golf every day. Do you think of your inheritance as God himself? In every one of your individual lives, what's the greatest treasure you have? Other than the Lord. What's the greatest treasure you have? Think about it. Alright, what is it? The bond relationship. No. It's a relationship. But it's relationships, aren't they? Aren't people, friendships and intimacy and love between people the greatest things we have?

Well imagine the God of the universe has decided that he would give to you himself as the greatest thing you can have. That's amazing to me that he would even do that. And yet we're always fooling around with, oh gee, God's over there, and I'm over here, and I don't know what this oneness is, but He isn't fixing my Volkswagen that's broken. That intimacy and oneness with God Himself is the great prize.

That's what the inheritance is, you get Him. That's pretty cool, I'll take it, you can have the rest. So, explain why our inheritance is incorruptible, undefiled, faith is not a way, reserved in heaven for you. And what I meant by that, I realized after I asked the question, I really wanted you just kind of to define the words. Incorruptible. Now think about it.

How many of you have ever inherited anything from anybody? I have. Was it incorruptible? Was it? Was it... didn't decay? Stuff I got did. Or I spent it. Is there anything that's incorruptible on this earth? Nothing. So our inheritance is incorruptible. What's undefiled mean? Undefiled. Does it mean pure? What's that? Pure. or unsoiled. So the inheritance that we get is unsoiled, it's pure.

It doesn't decay. What does it mean that it fades not away? I looked in the mirror the other day and I see my youth is fading away. What does it mean that it fades not away? It's called inheritance. It already faded. But I gave Donna a birthday card to show the guy with binoculars in the front. And then I said, you see that dot way off in the distance? That was your you. She loves me and I love her.

So our inheritance fades not away. What does that mean? Isn't that the same as it does with decay? No, it means it's perpetual. It's everlasting and instead of being, I gave you $10 and a month from now you got $10, it's not like that, it grows. And it never fades, it never gets less. As a matter of fact, it grows. And the last one is, it's reserved in heaven for you.

This implies what? The word reserved there means to watch or to guard from loss or injury. Properly keeping an eye on it. It implies a fortress of full military lines. It's held fast. It's reserved. It's under lock and key. And where is it? Not here.

It's in heaven. In the heavenly places. So, in the heavenly places, again, means where? What does that mean when he talks about the heavenlies? Where is it kept? That's right, where God is, because the inheritance is God. See that? So, Peter does a great job when he lays that out. It's incorruptible and defiled. It fades not away and is reserved in heaven for you.

Now, in Ephesians 1.14, my question was, what is the earnest of your inheritance? Okay, who is the earnest of your inheritance? It's the Holy Spirit. Sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of your inheritance until the redemption.

We've talked about this before. This is easy for me to understand because I'm a realtor and I understand what earnest money is. What is earnest money? If you come to me and say, Mike, I want to buy a house and we go out and we find one and we write a contract and you have to put some money up. 15 bucks or something. That's the earnest money. What does it say? What does the earnest money say? It's a promise on your part that you will complete the transaction. If you don't complete the transaction, what happens? You lose the 15 bucks.

Now, in our case, of the inheritance that we have, the earnest is who? It's the Spirit of God himself. Pretty good guarantee. that the transaction is going to close, right? So if God doesn't come through, he loses his spirit? You know that's true. Actually, when you think about that from the negative side, that's exactly what it means. If God doesn't come through, he loses his spirit. Do you think that's going to happen? No, I don't think so.

So, when is the time, now it's interesting in this verse, When is the time of, quote, until the redemption of the purchased possession? What do you think that redemption of the purchased possession means? We talked on Friday night, for all of those who were here, we talked about redemption. What does the word redemption mean? It means to buy back, to buy out of the marketplace. Are we all redeemed?

Yes, we are. But this verse seems to say that, well, maybe not now. The redemption of the purchased possession. Now it's interesting. When you go to redeem something, you've got to have something to redeem it with. You've got to have currency. What's the currency? It's the blood of Christ. Has the blood been poured out? Currency been paid? So the purchase has already happened. Has it not? Remember what the verse says? It's the purchase possession. But it says that which is the earnest of the inheritance until the redemption. Or the earnest until the redemption of the purchase possession. So we've been redeemed Why do we need Ernst?

Actually, this is a hard question, I think. It took me a while to... I asked it and then I went back to it to answer and I thought, gee, I shouldn't have asked this. This is a hard question. It's confidence. Here's what I discovered, at least, that really there are two redemptions. One is by price or cost and the other is by power. The price, which is the blood of the cross, it's already been paid and the purchase has been completed. However, the purchase has not been delivered. It is still under the bondage of corruption. I mean, as we sit here today, are you under the bondage of corruption? Well, maybe you're not, but I sure am. And the world we live in is under the bondage of corruption, is it not?

It will be delivered by power, therefore we wait for the already purchased possession to be handed over by the power of God. When Christ comes to rule and reign, what's going to happen? Well, maybe put it this way. Let's say the rapture happens at 937. Wait a minute, it already happened. 940. What happens at 940 if the rapture happens?

You and me. You're gone. So then now what about you? You're not here. What's true of you then? What do you have? Everything Christ has. You no longer have sin nature, incorruptible body. You have a resurrected glorified body, right? So you're out of here and you meet the Lord in the air. You've been redeemed or delivered by power. Then when Christ comes to rule and reign in the millennial kingdom, is that going to be a quote-unquote powerful event? And then take a thousand years after that when he recreates the heavens and the earth, is that going to be a powerful event?

Absolutely. So even though the price has been paid, delivery hasn't been affected is maybe the way to look at it. Do you understand what I mean by that? Is that confusing? If it is, raise your hand or disagree with me or something. 7. Inheritances have value. What did ours cost? What did it cost? What was the price of your inheritance? God's son. And who paid for it? In other words, maybe you could say that it cost God everything of value that he had so that it might be free to us. All inheritances have a cost to them. Question 8. All service has an object. What's the believer's object? Let's talk about service for a minute.

We're looking at Colossians 3.24, knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Jesus. All service has an object. What is it? What's the believer's object? Christ is the believer's object. That's right. Colossians 3 says, Since you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, for Christ sits at the right hand. So, why is Christ so valuable to us as believers? Or, maybe put it this way, why is Christ so valuable to the Father? Because of what he did on the cross. And why would what he did on the cross be of such great value to the Father? Because it redeemed us. Redeemed us? But that's from our side. How about God's side of the ledger? Satisfied his demands. That's right. It satisfied all the demands that he has as God. And he has some, as we talked about before, because he is God.

Is your mind controlled by the object that you put in front of it? Is your mind controlled by what you focus on? What do you think? No, that's too hard of a question. I think it is. The Father has something in the very forefront of his mind. What is it? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. With the kids we're talking about God's own missions and that he thinks all thoughts at the same time all together. He doesn't think sequentially like we do. But his focus of his mind is on his son and he's totally happy and satisfied with what he sees.

If you take those that are non-believers, let's call them worldly, what are they focused on? Things of the world, right? Are they ever focused on anything other than that? Not really. Believers, the Lord Jesus Christ is to be everything to the believer. Everything. Everything.

So, the problem that we have with a concept like this is that the Lord Jesus is independent of the world and we're always trying to bring him back into it. And it's all because the Lord Jesus Christ is the believer's very life, because he is the believer's life, that's where the focus is to be, that's what the object is to be.

Now, if I gave you a set of rules in order to live the Christian life, where would the focus be? On us and our rules and our ability to perform them. And we may have a motive in our mind that we're doing all of this to be pleasing to God, but the focus is my being pleasing. If the Lord Jesus Christ is your focus, how about the rules?

What do you think about that? Does he give us a set of rules? Yes he does. How many commands are in the New Testament? I have 11 pages of them. So he gives us commands, but understand that the commands are based on where your focus is. If your focus is on Him, then like Bern has taught in the past, what does he call them?

Logical imperatives, rather than moral imperatives. For those of you who weren't there when he talked about it, a logical imperative is one that follows or flows from your logical spiritual position in Christ and the life that you have in Him. A moral imperative is one where you've been given a rule in order to obey it in order that you might be moral, you might be pleasing. But if you already have an inheritance and you're already seated in Christ Jesus and you already have his life, when he comes to you and says, do this and do that, what's the flavor of that? Is it under the heading of, I've got to do this? Because God commanded me. You have to do that? Think about that for a minute. Yeah, you got to do it.

But the problem that you have with all of his commandments, in terms of the new life, is that they're all impossible. Rejoice in the Lord always, I say rejoice. How many of you live up to that one? Seek those things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. You do that one pretty well. How about you husbands? Do you all the time love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it? It got quiet in here. The commands are beyond our capacity in and of ourselves to fulfill.

So how do you get them done? Keep going. Who else? The Spirit of God has been given to us, who is the divine enabler, probably the best way to look at it. And what are we doing? Our focus is to be on the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The performance of the life or the commands are by the Spirit of God.

Are you watching to see how you are doing? What do you think? It's a phenomenon of walking in the Spirit that the focus is on the Lord Jesus Christ himself and not on performance. If you're in the flesh, it's all about performance. It's all about watching yourself. It's all about how you're doing. But if your focus and your mindset is on the Lord Jesus Christ, it isn't about how you're doing. Never is. How could you possibly take your focus away from the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ to check and see how you're doing? Well, you do it all the time, but as you behold his glory, why would you ever not want to do that?

Does that make any spiritual sense? Or not? Is it important for us to, at least on Saturday night, do a little checking and see how we're doing? What do you think? Do we need to have a day of reckoning? If that's true, I have about 23 and a half hours out of 24 of reckoning where I'm not doing so well.

The principle is that focusing on Christ takes your focus off of your performance. and having been given the Spirit of God to implement in your life the things of Christ, I don't think you have to... you can rest, maybe is a better way to say it. And you can rest that the performance is there. I mean, you're involved by the Spirit of God, you are an inheritor.

By the way, where is your Christian life? Where is it? It's hidden someplace. It's hidden in Christ and God. So, how do you learn about it then? You have to go to that place where it's hidden in Christ and God, right? The problem with going there is everything else not connected with Christ has to be left behind. Because you don't get to take a flesh with you. I'll read this quote by Charles Coates. If you want to know what your Christian life is, it's hidden in the Father.

There is only one place where you can learn it, in His heart and mind. We have to leave behind everything connected with ourselves and the world in order to travel to the heart of our Father. And there we find His thought. We find His thought is of His beloved Son who is our life. I have to tell you, I have to ask you. Scott's serious about this.

I mean is he really serious about taking you and your focus and your mindset and your attention to be away from your circumstances to be focused in on Christ himself? Are you sure? Are you sure he doesn't want you thinking about how you're doing? And how you're doing on this Christian life? Is it balance of both? What do you think about that? Is it a balance of both? What do you think? It can't be a balance of both. It's either him or it's nothing. See that? There isn't any such thing as balance in truth. It's just truth. And it's Christ himself.

Now I know you think that if you're taken up with Christ, you're just going to be, you're not going to fulfill your obligations as a provider You won't be able to eat because you'll be broke soon. You'll be out on the street. It won't change the oil in your car. You won't live up to the responsibilities you have.

What do you think about that? I'm here to tell you that as you focus in on Christ, your responsibilities, you'll even do a better job than you ever thought. So, how is it possible that we actually get rewarded for our service? How does that happen? And by the way, do you think about your rewards? Have you thought this week about the fact that, well, I hope I've got some stuff piled up this week. When I get there, get to the beam of judgment, hopefully God will remember all the good stuff I did this week.

How is it possible that you get rewarded for service? If the object of our service is Christ, and we become transformed to His image, that's a reward, isn't it? So, what do you get rewarded for in service? What's the quality or the character of the service that you perform? In order to qualify for the reward, what's got to be the ingredients of the service?

It has to be in Christ. It has to be in Christ. He does it through us. Okay. He does it through us. Anybody else? It has to have a certain character, doesn't it? It has to be gold, silver. Gold, silver, precious stones. Back to, we've been given this impossible life to live, right? Supernatural.

We've been given the Spirit of God to implement that life in us. How do we function? What do we do? Faith, did I hear faith? Rest. By faith, we live by faith. Now the works that are going to be done, how many are you going to do? Somebody know the number? You know the number? Anybody know the number?

All of them. All of them. And who decided what all of them was? The point is, is that God has appointed us and called us to good works and good works can only be described as those works that are of a character of the life of Christ himself. Now, to the degree or to the extent that those works are performed in us, we get rewarded.

And you get to rest. Now wait a minute, that doesn't seem fair. Well, if you live under grace, that's exactly how grace functions. Grace is unlimited, it's unmerited, it's the operating principle and system within which God functions and operates today. You're the recipient of the grace. If you think in your mind that you're contributing anything, you're out of the environment and the principle of grace. You see that? I mean it's a really great deal when you think about it. But I'll tell you this, there's nothing more dynamic than grace. Nothing. There's nothing more energizing than grace.

When Paul gets to the end of his life, in 2 Timothy, he talks about how his physical body is totally worn out. He's done. Because if you think about it, here's a supernatural life, implemented by the Holy Spirit, living totally and functioning in grace, and it's all being done through a mortal body?

Your body isn't going to last that long. It can't keep up. John and John is flying these remote controlled gas airplanes and we found that you got to match the engine with the plane. Because if you put too big an engine in a plane, the plane doesn't fly too good, it disintegrates. Well, that's what we've got. We've got way too much of an engine in us for our capacity. We can't do, in and of ourselves, with our own energy and our own life, and even with our own bodies, what God has called us to do. And trust me, by the end of your life, you'll be worn out. So, one last thing.

What's the role of a mediator? What's a mediator do? By the way, in terms of our inheritance, it's the last Hebrews 9.15. What's a mediator do? He's a go-between or a reconciler, and I can quickly go through that before we get going next week.

Okay, let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you for the grace in which we live and our son in whom we live. Father, if we ask for anything, we'd ask that our understanding and our eyes would be open clearly to what our position is in your son and what our possessions are in him. We thank you, Father, we pray in his precious name. Amen.