Joy Overflow

All of the happiness you can stand, all of the peace that you so tried to achieve by various means – all of this comes as a byproduct of relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.


Scripture: Ephesians 1:4-5

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing alright today? Bless your heart, hope everything is okay at your house. I’m glad to be back with you once again to share from the Word of God. We’re looking at the book of Ephesians these days, you and I, and we were just finishing Verse 3 of Chapter 1, Paul said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ”.

The last time we were together we talked about the different spiritual blessings that are ours in the Lord Jesus: peace with God, access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, rejoicing in tribulations, hope that lives, the gift of wisdom and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, divine guidance as many as led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God. So many wonderful things happen when you become acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the verse ends with two words “in Christ”, “in the heavenlies in Christ”. He is the man in the glory. “There’s one God and one mediator between God and men,” says Paul the Apostle, the man Christ Jesus. He is the man in the glory, He is the one who is the propitiation for our sins, He stands between us and the Holy God, His sacrifice his living, shining righteousness imputed to us is the reason we come boldly to the throne of grace and says, “Abba Father”. The person in the glory is the reason for the blessing in the believer.

Sometime ago, I was in Fort Lauderdale on a few days of R & R, Rest and Rehabilitation you may say. And my wife and I were enjoying some quiet days, just of relaxation. Well, I ran out of cash and I thought, “Hey I have to cash a check. Where will I go?” Well I went down the street to one of the local banks strolled in and asked for the manager of that branch, I was were ushered into his presence and I said”, “My name is Bob Cook”, I said, “I’d like to cash a personal check”. Well, he said, “I don’t know you”. Well I said, “Why don’t you call my bank in Briarcliff Manor, and they’ll tell you whether or not I’m a good risk”. We’ll he said “you’ll have to pay for the call, you know”. I said, “Sure, that’s alright”.

So he got the number of the bank from me, and dialed it, and the lady at the other end of the hire happened to be Mrs. Fischer who is now gone to her reward a few years, a dear lady, very cordial, gracious, and quite capable. And so, he identified himself as being Mister so and so, manager of such, and such a bank. He said, “I have a man sitting in my office who says his name is Robert Cook, and he says that he is President of the college, he wants to cash a check what do you advise?” The answer caused his jaw to drop a little and then he smiled broadly and he said, “Thank you very much ma’am” and hung up.

I looked at him and I said, “Well what did she say?” He looked at me and chuckled he said, “She said give him anything he wants, we’ll stand behind him”. It’s nice to know isn’t it? Oh, I tell you that felt good, nice to have friends at the bank, but you know it’s much nicer to have friends in the glory, isn’t it true? Yes, it is, and the lord Jesus Christ is your friend in the glory. And He represents you to God, and He brings your need, and your weakness, and your faults, yes and failings, and He says father I died for all of that. I paid the price on Calvary for all of that.

And so, the spiritual blessings that you and I can have, the knowledge that we belong to God because were children of God, the adoption of children, Paul calls in Galatians. The adoption of sons, you’re not a servant anymore but you’re a son in the household, you’re a child of the Father, what a blessing. The assurance that the Spirit of God gives us that we are indeed sons of God and joint heirs with Christ, and all of these other things that I’ve mentioned briefly, they are all yours and mine because Jesus is there in the glory for us.

“Blessings in the heavenlies in Christ.” Oh, beloved look heavenward today and trust your Savior for the supply of just what you need, because you know the word up there, is like the word that came on the telephone. Give him what he needs we’ll stand behind him. And the Savior is saying concerning you and me today beloved, I’m standing behind you, for He hath said, here’s the scripture on it, “For he hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” and our Savior told his disciples just before he left them for the glory, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world”, aren’t you glad that’s so?

Well I just wanted to touch base on those last two words before we went on to verse 4, where Paul says, “According as He hath chosen us in Him”. You have that same relationship of words, “Blessings in the heavenlies in Christ”. Now chosen in Christ, “He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him.” Here you have it again, so it’s blessings in Christ, verse 3, chosen in Christ, verse 4 the first part, holy and without blame before Christ, in love.

“Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of his grace.” People write to me and phone me frequently and say, “I’m not happy how can I have happiness?” or someone else says “I don’t have any peace, how can I have peace, I’ve tried so hard to have peace, I’ve tried so hard to be happy” and so on. We seek for the experiences which actually are a byproduct of relationship with a person. Put your attention on the person and the experience will follow. Put your attention, focus, focus your attention on Jesus. Focus your love on Jesus. Focus your obedience on Jesus, and the blessing you seek, the experience you long for, will follow.

You see our age has it all backward, the humanist people and the cultic people of our day have tossed out for their thinking the idea of a God who is the absolute. Instead they say they’re looking for what they call a valid personal experience. The existential view of life it is that only what you get in experience is real at the moment. And so people go seeking for feeling and experience and sensation having forsaken the God who is the origin of all of life, having tossed out His law, His morals, His standards, and incidentally His salvation.

They now look for something that they can experience, well what happens is they finally arrive at the end of life with all their fuses blown because they have simply experienced to death, and whether it be drugs or alcohol or sex or greed or money or fame or pleasure, whatever. People seek for experience and simply blow their emotional and spiritual fuses because they’re approaching the whole matter backward. Joy, and peace, and fulfillment, and satisfaction, and accomplishment are all byproducts of knowing the right person, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily”, the Bible says, and when you submit your life then to the Lord Jesus you make possible the out pouring of all of the blessings of God, all of the experiences that you have coveted and sought for.

All of the happiness you can stand, all of the peace that you so tried to achieve by various means, all of this comes as a byproduct of relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. The blessed, indwelling Holy Spirit reduplicates the life of Christ in you and makes real His wonderful life with the resulting blessings about which we speak. He hath chosen us in Him, before the foundation of the world. Small thought here, how far back does your ability to visualize time go? Well, you say the history of the known world goes back 6000 years, more or less, the known history of the human race and then beyond that there were many thousands of years supposedly, for the earth is a pretty old item according to our best measurements

And so, there was a time I supposed you say, when the earth didn’t exist and God created it, yeah that’s right the Bible says in the beginning, “God created the Heaven and the earth”. So there was a time when it didn’t exist. God however is eternal, always has been always will be no time with God. And so, you go back to in our sense of time, you go back to the point at which the world as we know it, and the universe as we have been able to explore it did not exist, then what? At that moment, your salvation was already planned. At that moment, God had chosen you, what is your name? John, Marion, Harry, what is your name, put your name, He hath chosen. Well, I put my name in; He hath chosen Bob Cook in His “before the foundation of the world.” God had you in mind, beloved, before He ever flung the stars out in space.

Dear Father today, fill us with the blessings of knowing and loving the Lord Jesus Christ in His name I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!



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