Father it is very good and necessary and right for us to still our hearts before you this afternoon. We've just sung from your holy word about the necessity for us to lay aside fretting and fussing, worrying which leads only to anger, anxiety of all kinds and we are, our Father, called to entrust ourselves to you because you grant the desires of our heart. That is, our Father, we understand you grant desires to be placed in our heart which match your will, which match for the longing and aching of the spirit within us, are things that you desire for us to be blessed with, you place those desires there in our hearts. And those desires, our Father, you then fulfil, that the righteous requirement of the Lord might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. And Father, we come to you in prayer this afternoon because we know that that which is born of the flesh is flesh and remains flesh unless the spirit comes. And our hearing of our own selves, Father, would be no hearing at all unless we had the spirit within us to open up our ears And we understand, our Father, how clearly and how strongly there is a battle because the world and the flesh, the evil one, all of the principalities and powers would want us not to hear the word of your grace to us. And we pray, our Father, that this afternoon may not be a heavy afternoon on us, We give you thanks for the beautiful lunches that we've been able to have today. We give you thanks for the warmth of this room. We thank you for the warmth of one another's company. But let not these blessings stop our ears to hearing even greater blessings. Keep us alert and awake by your Holy Spirit, that the light of Christ might shine on us even as we listen. anoint our hearing as much as our speaking, anoint our stillness as much as the action of assembling and talking and sharing. Our Father, over this weekend we have been given beautiful things to see and to experience. You have drawn us in to Yourself or rather perhaps our Father you've revealed to us more fully where we already are, hidden with Christ in God. And we pray our Father that you would give us an expansive vision this afternoon. to let us know what you have planned and purposed for this creation and to let us know what you have planned and purposed for your sons in Jesus, to be filled unto all the fullness of God himself. And so Father we pray that you would be gracious to us and in the hearing of your word fill our hearts with hope and grant to us in the hearing of that word faith and love so that by faith and hope and love we might live before you in the liberty of the great sonship you've granted to us in Christ. So bless us now as we turn to your holy scriptures. We pray in the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen. Now there's a number of passages that I would like us to have in our minds. I will not be going through all of these passages in detail this afternoon. But I'd like us to take a couple of readings as we start. Firstly, one from Paul's letter to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. We know of course that this is the chapter where Paul is speaking about the great resurrection of the dead and in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 he speaks to us of the resurrection that has already been accomplished from one point of view in Jesus and the resurrection that we await because of Jesus' resurrection. Verse 20, 1 Corinthians 15 verse 20. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep. Now, my translation there has firstfruits, I'm not sure what yours might have. But the word firstfruits is very helpful, it relates to the Old Testament practice of bringing in the first part of the harvest, And the word firstfruits carries with it a couple of very important ideas. Firstly, that if the first part of the harvest is brought in, that is the guarantee of the rest. They had a celebratory gathering at the time of the firstfruits because the time of the firstfruits indicated that the latter fruits, the rest, would surely follow. Pentecost, interestingly enough, was the time of the firstfruits. So, when we have all of those multitudes who are hearing the Gospel on the day of Pentecost and then from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth, they are the firstfruits of the harvest of the nations but there is another harvest yet to come and if you understand the pattern of the Old Testament feasts, it was Passover, Pentecost, three great pilgrimage feasts and then the Feast of Tabernacles. And some people might suggest, and it has some merit to it, that we've seen Passover fulfilled in Christ, we've seen Pentecost fulfilled in the firstfruits and the coming of the Day of the Spirit and now we await the great harvest, the great Feast of Tabernacles yet to be fulfilled at the coming of the Son of Man. But firstfruits means that if the first part of the harvest is there, then the rest is guaranteed. If Jesus has been raised from the dead, your resurrection is guaranteed. Second thing is, the firstfruits indicated the quality of the harvest to come. So if you took the firstfruits of the barley, when you went back to the barley field, it was still all barley. In other words, there was a consistency, a congruence, a matching, a sameness between what came in the firstfruits in terms of its quality and its substance and what came in later. So, if Jesus is the firstfruits of those who are asleep, then those who are asleep will be of the same quality and substance as the firstfruits. So, A, your resurrection is guaranteed because of his resurrection. B, the quality of your resurrection life, what it means for you to be resurrected to eternal life in Jesus Christ is going to be the same as, one with, identical in nature to the resurrection nature and life of Jesus himself. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection from the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive, but each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits. After that, those who are Christ's at his coming. Then comes the end when he hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, This teaching weekend has been about living as the Father's children. It has been about knowing God as Father. We've been making much of the Fatherhood of God and it has not been asked this weekend, at least not of me or Hector as far as I'm aware, But it could be said perhaps to us, are you not making too much of the fatherhood? Are you not diminishing the role of the Spirit? Are you not diminishing the role of Jesus as Lord? And Paul's answer to that is no. Because in the end, Jesus the Lord hands over all things to the God and Father when he has abolished all rule and authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. Now the pronouns there might be a bit confusing. Who is the he who is reigning and who is the he who is having all his enemies put under his feet? And it seems to be this, he, that is God the Father must reign until he has put all his, that is Jesus' enemies or God the Father's enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. for he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he says all things are put in subjection, it is evident he has accepted who put all things in subjection to him. When all things are subjected to him, so the father is putting all things in subjection to the son, and when all things are subjected to him, then the son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him. so that God, and there from parallel definition of just a few verses before, God the Father, may be all in all. So no, I don't think we are making too much of the fatherhood. The goal of Jesus' sonship resurrected as the firstfruits is that fullness of the Father for all of those who share in the life of the firstfruits. It's very similar in a way to what Paul says in another place in Philippians chapter 2 where he speaks about every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord and you can finish the quotation, to the glory of God the Father. So no, I don't think we are making too much of the fatherhood, I don't think you can make too much of the fatherhood. But notice this, that the goal of Jesus' resurrected humanity, which therefore must mean the goal of God in history and the goal of God before history, before the foundation and the creation of the world, was that humanity in Jesus Christ would be subjected to, but also, and we'll get this from another reading in a minute, filled with the Father Himself. That's your goal because that is the goal of Jesus Christ who is the Eternal Son. Take another couple of readings, Ephesians chapter 1 and I'm not planning to exegete all of these of course, I'm just trying to set out some of the parameters for our discussion. Ephesians chapter 1. Now in verse 3 we are told this, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father. Fatherhood governs everything that then happens in the rest of Ephesians and everything that then flows in the rest of the sentence. Paul was like some preachers who didn't know where to put in a full stop or a comma. So, Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3 right down to chapter 1 verse 14, that whole big block is really in Greek just one sentence. and the subject which governs the whole sentence is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And everything in that big sentence from chapter 1 verse 3 to chapter 1 verse 14 tells us what our God and Father has done. There are a number of verbs in there. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. He has chosen us that we would be blameless and holy before Him. He has predestined us in love. He has adopted us as sons to the praise of His glory. He has freely bestowed upon us His grace. He has redeemed us through His Son, that is the blood of His Son. He has given us forgiveness of our trespasses. He has lavished on us that forgiveness in all wisdom and insight. He has made known to us the mystery of His will. He has given us an inheritance. He has purposed to work all things after the counsel of His will that we who have hoped in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. We, having heard this message, have believed and He has sealed us in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of promise. He has given us the Spirit as a pledge of our inheritance. Now I've just run through those very quickly, but notice this subject of every one of those verbs is God the Father. The direct object, that is the blessee. Can you have a blessee? There is a blesser, so the receiving of the blessing is the one who is blessed. We could call him or her the blessee. The one who brings the blessing is God the Father. The one who receives the blessing, the blessee, is us. The subject is God the Father, but the object of every one of those verbs is us. It's a stunning thought, isn't it? that God the Father should be so fixed on us that his whole plan and purpose and intention is, to quote the word that a friend of mine has used in a song, his whole plan and purpose is us-ward. We use the word promeity last night. God is pro-me, he is for me, pro-us, pro-us-ity. And interestingly enough and significantly that God the Father who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, God the Father is the one who through the Son brings us that blessing by the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, though the Father is the acting subject, He does not act alone. He acts always in consort with and one with the Son and the Spirit because it would be impossible for the Father and the Son and the Spirit to act independently because they are members one of another. they love one another, they serve one another, they are three persons in one divine essence. But it means therefore that the Father in His action, by virtue of the love that He has, God the Father primarily is love, the Son is the Son of His love, the Spirit is the Spirit of love shed abroad in our hearts. God, the Father in the love that he has for us, his children, his erstwhile children, his rebellious children, his children who are children of wrath, even as the rest, his disobedient children, employs the whole, so to speak, it's not speaking theologically, it's speaking pictorially, he employs the whole of the divine family to bring redemption. He employs in that act of redemption willingly, fully and completely, utterly one with the Son and one with the Spirit who is one with the Son and the Father in all they do. But that means, beloved, if we could only hear this, we had ears to hear this and it seems almost too bold to say it. God's plan and purpose is focused on us. But that's always the way it has been. From the very beginning when he made us in his image, he made us so that we would be the recipients of his blessing, so that we would live under his benediction, so that we would live in the closeness of his fellowship. We have said on many occasions this week, human fatherhood is always flawed. No human father is sinless. All human fathers are sinful. But in that human fatherhood, even we who are wicked know how to give good gifts to our children. So how much more does our Heavenly Father long to give good gifts to His children? The answer is, so much more willing to give than we could ever imagine He's willing to give. And then, as Paul expounds this great work of God, he utters this prayer which I guess we were praying in a way last night and in a way which the Lord answered us in the stillness. Verse 18, I pray that the eyes of your heart will be enlightened, that you would know the hope of his calling, the riches of his inheritance in the saints. And he talks about what he's done when he brought Christ up from the dead. But it talks about him being seated at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, verse 21. Verse 22, and he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church. Just tucked away there in that little verse is a marvellous truth. We sometimes think that Jesus is the head of the church and from one point of view that would be true. The church is his body, he is the head of his body. But Paul here is saying something different and more expansive. He's saying that he has been given as head over all things to the church. So that means as Christ now at the right hand of the Father, raised by the Father's will, as the great high priest over the house of God with his hands extended in the Aaronic blessing and benediction over the house of God, he is working with every strength of his might to bring everything for the blessing of the Church. which is his bride, which is his body, which is the fullness of him, verse 29, who fills all in all. Can you believe that the church is his fullness? Not if you look with the eyes of sight, Because if you heard Hector's wonderful message this morning, you'd say the church always looks weak, beggarly, it's a failure, it's full of sin from earthly eyes. But the Church, in fact, because it is the beloved bride of Christ, because it is the beloved family of the Father, because it is the spiritual dwelling place of God in the Spirit, because the Church is inseparable from Christ, the Church is the fullness of Him who fills all in all. And He has given Christ as head over all things to the Church, which means that the rise and fall of nations, that everything that happens in this world when the Lord touches volcanoes so they smoke and block up our airways, no, our airlines or our airways if you're too close to the volcano and you're breathing in. But when he touches the mountains so that they smoke, he's doing that for the good of the church. When he appoints the boundaries and habitations of the nations, it's for the good of the Church. When he gives power to one of the enemies of the Church that they might rule over the Church for a season, he's doing it to bless the Church. Every fibre of Christ's being is uswood. Every thought of our spiritual head, every thought and intention and attitude and affection of our bridegroom's heart is for us to bless, to love, to fill, to inhabit, to pour himself in. There is absolutely nothing outside of his sovereign control. and he has been given his head over all things for the church. And then if we go a little bit further into Ephesians chapter 3 on this occasion, Paul has been so caught up in the wonder of many of these things that he's sort of tried to pray two or three times He hasn't always got there because he keeps seeing more and more and more. As it happens, as the Lord comes to us, your mind just keeps opening up and up and up. But verse 14, he comes to a prayer. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man." Why does he pray that we, the Church, would be strengthened with power in the inner man? Do you remember on two or three occasions in the Old Testament we read the account of the glory cloud coming? In Exodus chapter 40 at the filling of the tabernacle and then at the occasion recorded in 1 Kings chapter 8 and in Chronicles of the filling of Solomon's temple. Glory is related, comes from the Hebrew word related to weightiness or heaviness. After we've had a lunch like we've had today, some of us are very glorious this afternoon. Our tummies are full of glory. But the weightiness of the glory means that the priests could no longer stand on their feet. They could not stand to minister. And we just had last evening the smallest touch of the edge of the garment of His glory and it rendered us speechless. That's why we have to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man to bear the weight of glory that God has revealed to us. So that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith. And that's not even the end of it. You being rooted and grounded in love, who is Christ, who is the Father's Son, who is His glory, who is brought to us by the Spirit in the inner man, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. How can you know something that surpasses knowledge? Can you remember those of you who have been married a while, what it was like when you first met and when you first decided you were going to be married and when you first married? Like there was a love and still is in your marriage, is there not? Which just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on. It surpasses knowledge but you're in it, you know it. You can never come to the end of it. But you rejoice in it, don't you? That's why you have wedding anniversaries. Just in case you've got one coming up this week, you better check the calendar. Know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge and this is the goal of it all, this huge prayer, this huge description of what God has done from Ephesians chapter 1 through to Ephesians chapter 3. Know the love which surpasses knowledge so that you would be filled, that you would be filled up, that you would be filled up to all the fullness of God himself. Then Paul says, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. God blesses us, his children, according to the riches of his glory. A friend of mine said many years ago, he doesn't give something out of his riches, he gives according to his riches. If you're a very wealthy person and you put 10 pounds in the offering plate, you've just taken a little bit out of your riches, probably very little, small change, if that. But what if you give according to your riches? What if the manner of your giving is exactly commensurate with the riches that you have? And so we might think God might give to us a bit. He might toss us a crumb. He might glance, give us a glance in our direction and somehow or other have a bit of mercy on us. But what God is doing is beyond all that we could ask or think. His purpose to bless us in Christ is far greater than anything we could ever imagine. The nature of that blessing in Christ is far richer than anything we could ever hope for. You could not even try to formulate a thought about what it would be. You could only have it as the eyes of your heart are enlightened and your spirit is strengthened by faith in the inner man and Christ dwells in your heart by faith and you begin to comprehend the incomprehensible love of God and then you start to be filled with the fullness of God and then you start to realise this is never going to end. Because you're never going to come to the end of God. And so often in our Christian life, do we not run to the great Atlantic Ocean with a thimble and run back into our cottage with a thimble and say, look what I've got. And we spend the next two generations looking at what happened when we collected the thimble and putting the thimble on the shelf and it becomes a thimble of our false worship so to speak. We idolise what happened then when we filled the thimble. And all the way along there is an Atlantic Ocean rolling in on our very doorstep. And all the time Christ is coming to us with the fullness of His hands, open in blessing, no closed-fisted Christ, this open-handed, open-hearted Christ. Christ is God the Father's gift. Everything that God the Father has, to speak loosely, is vested in Jesus Christ. The Father's whole purpose and identity has been poured into Jesus Christ. All of the fullness of deity lives in this man, Jesus, in bodily form. And he has formed him and fashioned him through the womb of the Virgin Mary and given him to us and said, now you are one with him. He has come and embraced you as a bridegroom embraces his bride. And you and she are one. You are together in me, the Father. And so how misdirected when we want to preserve what's in the thimble and when we worry about whether we're going to bump it and lose it or what would happen if we tipped that thimble full of blessing out, would we ever get any more. and the ocean is there, constant, rolling breakers, breaking on the shore of our lives, golden waves of truth come crashing. Grace, mercy, love, peace, joy, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, because that's what the Father is in himself. and in granting us Christ, he's granted us his own heart that we might be filled unto all the fullness of God. The Apostle Peter puts it slightly differently. He puts it this way, 2 Peter chapter 1, 2 Peter 1 verse 2, grace and peace be multiplied to you. Notice that, grace and peace be multiplied to you. It's not even added, it's an exponential sort of blessing. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God, God the Father he means there, and of Jesus Christ our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who's called us by his own glory and excellence. For by these things he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises." We spoke a lot about the promises last night, beginning with Genesis 3 verse 15, that promise of a redeeming seed, the promise of the Son who would come. great proclamation of the Gospel to sinful Adam, given because God's intention and purpose was to bless. By these things he's granted to us great and precious and magnificent promises so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature." That's a bold statement. I would not make that statement but Peter did and we probably do need to be a bit careful the way we think about it. It does not mean that we become God. As a friend of mine said many years ago, he is divine, we are the branches. We are always the branches, we are never divine. We never become God. But in terms of what God is in all of the fullness of the attributes and characteristics of his person, In all of the fullness of the Father's love and grace and mercy, in all of the fullness of the fruit of the Spirit which are the manifestation of the Father's life, in all of that fullness we become full participants and full partakers of the divine nature. That is the goal. That is the goal. Now, I want to take a step back for a minute instead of thinking about some of these passages as we've been reading them and think about the pattern of revelation in the scriptures. And I want to suggest to you this, that we have to read the Bible backwards. We think we have to start with Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 and read our way through until you get to Revelation chapter 22. But God's plan and purpose from the beginning has been Revelation chapter 22. God's plan and purpose from the very beginning is to have his son as the first fruit. From before the foundation of the world, God's plan and purpose was to have his Son as the firstborn of many brothers. From before creation, God's plan and purpose was that there would be many conformed to the image of his Son. to come back into the language of some of the passages we've used. God the Father's plan and purpose was that we would be filled unto all the fullness of God. God's plan and purpose was that we would be blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, from before the foundation of the world. God's purpose was that Jesus would be one, the elder brother amongst many brethren and Jesus would not be ashamed of those brothers but he would stand with them and he would say as the writer to the Hebrew says, behold me and behold the children you've given me. And Jesus in saying that is saying to the Father, look at what you've done. Look at the redemption you've won. Look at this family. Aren't they magnificent? And God, the Father, looking at the family in Jesus, with Jesus, says, Oh yes, my son, they are magnificent. They in you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. and I love them and my blessing is lavished upon them and my grace is poured out upon them in measureless fullness and they live in my love and life and participate in my nature like they live in an endless ocean. Aren't they a great family? And every one of that family will be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. and that whole family together will be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. To try and intensify that a little bit more, we can put it this way. If, hypothetically speaking, God the Father were to look at Jesus Christ, His Son, and God the Father were to look at you standing next to Jesus Christ, His Son, He couldn't tell you apart. But it's hypothetical because you never stand next to Christ, you only ever stand in Him. You are one with Him. You are inseparably bound to Him. He has loved you with an everlasting love. He has redeemed you from all of your transgressions, all the brokenness of your life. Everything that has been a ruinous waste, He's made now a fruitful garden. So, Jesus Christ is the new Eden, is the place in which we dwell. Jesus Christ is the new temple, is the place in which we receive fully the Father's glory and we cannot stand to minister because of the weight of the glory that we know in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the new creation. Everything we have, we have in Him. So, at the end, God's plan and purpose has been to have a community conformed to the image of his son, filled unto all the fullness of God, blessed with every spiritual blessing, living in and comprehending the unsearchable treasures of the bottomless ocean of the love of God, manifesting the glory and the fullness of God to the uttermost parts of this universe. God displaying through this family, redeemed through Christ, His glory to all the principalities and powers, to all the angelic hosts. God the Father in the midst providing a banquet for this family, the family participating in the Father's joy because they participate in the Father, because they participate in Christ who's in the Father, because they participate in Christ who's in the Father by the Spirit of the Father who's in them, who teaches that family to cry, Abba Father, So the whole family in Jesus Christ conform to the image of Christ, one with Christ, sings the same song that Christ sings, loves the Father with the same love that Christ loves the Father, is loved by the Father in the same way that Christ is loved by the Father, has the Father's joy in Christ, has the Father's peace in Christ, has the Father's fullness in Christ, so that what could be said of the man, Jesus could be said of us. Am I preaching heresy? I'm not talking about what can be said of Jesus in His divinity. We are not the eternal logos. But as far as our humanity is concerned, glorified in the risen humanity of Jesus, what can be said of Him can be said of us. So much so that as we've read in the book of Revelation, we reign with Christ. We rule with Christ. We love one another as Christ loves us. We love the Father as Christ loves the Father. The Father loves us as the Father loves Jesus. We are as filled with the Spirit in that last day as Jesus the man is filled with the Spirit now. We're as righteous as Jesus is now. We're as holy and as pure as Jesus is now. We have all of the riches of Christ given to us and so we have to read history backwards. Because unless you start at that end point, What you tend to get is this picture. God the Father starts off with a good plan and intention. Human beings do a very stupid thing. God comes up with a very clever rescue plan and then he gets us back on track and then thinks, what am I going to do with them? Well, I've sent Jesus so perhaps he'll be a good model. and I'll teach them to follow Jesus as a good example and then we get all bound up in the law of discipleship. But what if God's plan and purpose has always been that there would be sons and daughters of a great multitude conformed to the image of his son. The fall angelic wickedness, human sin, the cross, the resurrection, the day of Pentecost, the final resurrection are all part and parcel of God's plan and purpose to conform us to the image of his son. I think that's the only way you can read the scriptures really. Otherwise God's always in the business of playing catch up. Oops, didn't foresee that happening, oops. No, we are always in the business of catching up to what God's already doing and what He's already planned and purposed. So let me ask you this, if we have to read the Bible backwards, And if that plan and purpose that God has in Jesus Christ is what is really intended, if that is God's intention. When God made Adam in his own image, what does that mean? the great Scottish New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce who many of you will have heard of. In his commentary on Colossians where he's commenting on Colossians chapter 1 verse 15 where it speaks of Christ being the image of the invisible God. F.F. Bruce makes this comment. He, that is God, made man in his image so that man might be filled with the fullness of God. Now it's not an exact quote but it's the thrust of what F.F. Bruce was saying. When God made man in his image, he made us congruent, compatible one with Him, commensurate with Him, so that all that He is can most naturally be poured out into us, so that we might most naturally be filled out by that receiving, so that we as His image might most naturally grow and reflect all that He is. Your being made in the image of God is not something that just gets you started in creation. Your being made in the image of God is what the goal of the creation is all about. That that image which Jesus Christ is in his flesh would be now filled out in every man and woman in Jesus Christ. Probably sounds a little bit of a strange statement. God can't fill a cow with himself. He can create a cow and a cow can do lots of very clever things that God's given it the ability to do. But that cow can't respond to God in love in the way that a human being responds. That cow, beautiful creature though it is, is a cow, it's not a man. Every human being has been made for that destiny. That's why, by the way, we need to honour every human being, be they Christian, be they not, be they your enemy, be they your friend, be they your neighbour, be the man who's just about to shoot you at the firing squad. Every human being has been made in the image of God and by virtue of that is to be honoured and to be loved. Because every human being is made in the image of God, the fullness of that human beings life can only be found as they are conformed to the image in which they are made. Does that make sense? And so while Paul is talking about the fullness of God and being filled unto the fullness of God and receiving all of the blessings of the fullness of God, we may think, oh that's something that belongs to superhuman people, that's something that belongs to an unusual class of people. Beloved, that is what God has for every member of his church. He has destined every one of us to be filled to that fullness. And we say, ah, I know it will happen in the end. I know it will happen in the resurrection. I know it will happen in the last day and my answer to you is yes, you're right. But, but, it's on now. It starts now. Otherwise, Paul would not pray, I ask that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened now, in the present to understand. In the present, beloved, we live at such a low ebb in the Church. In the present, beloved, he wants the Church to live in the fullness of the blessing which is granted it in Christ. He wants the Church to be turned away from the little thimble that it's carried into its sanctuary and put there, and he wants the church to be turned to the great ocean of his endless love, which is thundering against the door, saying, look this way, look this way, because this is who I am, and this is where you really are in Jesus. I pray that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened to see where you really are in Jesus. I pray that the eyes of your heart would be to see that in Jesus, the whole fullness of the Father is yours. Remember the parable of the prodigal? He says to the elder brother, Son, everything I have is yours. So the Apostle Paul makes this wonderful statement as we come to a close. From 1 Corinthians 3. Verse 21, So then, let no one boast in men, I say this reservedly even if that man's name is John Calvin or Martin Luther or Richard Baxter or William Perkins or George Smeaton. Let no one boast in men for all things belong to you. whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, they're all yours. Read them all. And why would your name want to be tied with a man's name, when the only name that you've been created to bear is the name of Christ? Read them all. But don't think in that thimbleful you've got the ocean. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death, life or death are yours. Things present or things to come are all yours. All things belong to you. Doesn't mean you can go and nick your neighbour's car. But it does mean in the Christian community, if your brother needs your car, let him have it. All things belong to you and you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God. So how expansive, beloved, is our vision of what the Father's planned for us? How expansive tonight, this afternoon rather, How expansive is your heart? How expansive is your heart to welcome all and sundry? We had this morning here in this APC congregation a beautiful communion service and the minister here, George, welcomed us to the table and in all of the places I've ever been and celebrated the Lord's Supper together, it was the most expansive welcome I've ever heard. The Father loves us to be around His table. The Father loves us to be in His presence. The Father loves to hear us. The Father loves to see us. He loves to bless us. He loves to do for us exceeding, abundant, beyond we could ever ask or hope or think. And He loves to do it because He loves us, because He's our Father. And He's provided it all in Jesus Christ. And so beloved, are we still focused on the thimble? Or is there a world and an ocean? And is there a fullness? The answer is yes. And what we call times of revival, beloved, is just seeing what's already there. It's not giving you anything more. It's just seeing what's already there. But it's all there in Christ. The whole world is yours in Christ. God the Father is yours in Christ. Everything is yours in Christ. So that means there's nothing to be frightened of. Not life, not death, nothing to be frightened of. The whole world is yours. all because the Father's granted it. We're going to pray. Abba, Father, dear Father, it is beyond earthly human comprehension that we should be the recipients of such blessing as we've described today. And if we didn't know it from your Holy Word we would never know it. But Father we bless you that it's not locked up, dead letter in the pages of a book. But by your Holy Spirit you come to our very hearts and cause our hearts to be enlarged and the eyes of our hearts to be opened and you show us Jesus Christ in all his fullness personally. And you bring us the riches of Christ personally. And to speak in the language of the parable, our dear Father, you personally run to greet us. And you personally bring us in to put us at your side, dressed in the robes of your own righteousness. And you personally bestow upon us your own fullness. And you personally love us. and your plan and purpose in eternity, but it begins now in time, our Father, is to be filled with your fullness. Our Father, forgive us for our niggardliness, for our party spirit, for our judgementalism, for our small-mindedness, for our pharisaic critical spirits. Forgive us, Father. for being so restricted in our affections when your arms are open wide to the world. Forgive us, our Father, for doubting your goodness. Forgive us for not being bold enough to ask everything that you would give. Forgive us for thinking, our Father, that you are like the unjust judge. Forgive us, our Father, when we've not seen you in the richness and the fullness of your grace with your hands dripping with blessing as they come. Oh Father, dear Father, even now, Cause the eyes of our hearts to be enlightened. Cause a comprehensive revelation of what you've done in Jesus just to explode within the very depths of our being. And so Father from that place let us live and love because we are in you. We belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God. and we'll be conformed to His image and you'll be granting us in Christ everything that you've ever promised Christ. It's ours. And all we ever do is receive. And all we ever do for all eternity is receive. And as you give, so your joy overflows. And as we receive, so our love overflows back Father, let us see by the Spirit what you've done and who you are. Let us turn away from the small little containers in which we think we've collected some spiritual blessing. Throw open the doors, so to speak, and plunge into the ocean. Father, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.