The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Reliance - Seated In Jesus

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

GOD BLESS THE MENKING FAMILY

And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in

Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Lord, we thank you and bless you for your salvation, for your exceeding great and precious promises,

for what you have done for us, for what you want to do through us. Lord, help us to be equipped for the calling that you have placed upon us in this generation. Bless us, Lord. Overshadow my failings and my frailties. Forgive my sins, Lord. Help me to walk in the light and help me to speak what you want people to hear from your word. Holy Spirit, be present.

Be present, Lord. Show us what you want us to see. Speak to us what you want us to hear. Help us to know who we are in you and how you see us. Equip us and strengthen our faith, Lord. Bless our families, bless our communities, bless this land, forgive our sins, heal us, Lord. Restore us, restore the years that have been taken,

restore the relationships that have crumbled. Lord, bring about your power and your forgiveness and your mercy and your grace and your love. Extend an open hand to all those who need to hear your voice, your gospel, your truth, that you died for us Jesus, that you paid the price for our sins. Lord, we love you, we bless you, we praise you eternally, declaring that you are worthy of all honor and glory and praise.

You are worthy Jesus. You are our high priest, our intercessor, our shepherd, our Lord, our Savior, our friend. God help us. Help us to be the people who you have called us to be. Help us to raise our children in the way that they should go. Protect us Lord. Guide us. Lead us according to your word that it would be established in our hearts and in our lives and in this earth. Let your will be done, Jesus. Let everything be established and let your kingdom be advanced. Strengthen us now, Lord, for your service in Jesus' name. Amen. This passage from Ephesians 2 is widely quoted, widely discussed. There are many different theological

topics that we could get into. But it occurred to me that there's one feature here that is worthy of some particular attention today. There is a famous song by Bethel entitled Rain Above It All. And in that song, one of the lyrics in describing Jesus says, seated alone in glory and thrown on the highest praise. Now in one sense, I want to say yes and amen to this. Jesus alone is worthy of the highest glory, being God himself. He is uniquely good, uniquely precious, standing above it all. He is seated alone in glory to the extent that the glory is his alone. He is enthroned on the highest praise. He is enthroned on the praises of

the saints and we do worship him and that is altogether fitting and righteous. But when we look at Ephesians 2, in another sense, is Jesus seated alone? And what does this mean? He is alone in glory, but Paul says that we have been made to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. By our unification with him, we occupy that place. Not in the sense of attaining to the glory that Jesus has received. Not for the purposes of splitting hairs in this venue about the exact nature of that relationship of splitting hairs in this venue about the exact nature of that relationship systematically. But I just want to encourage you that if we say that Jesus is seated alone,

then we're missing the component of scripture where God has seated us with him. He has given us the authority that Jesus has. And when we think about that, it should be something that places the proper and fitting and right fear of God in our hearts. Think about it from the perspective of a father. We have been given authority over our children over our families

that is a Responsibility which is solemn and sacred and it should move us to a trepidation a concern and yes, even a fear of misusing that authority of Finding ourselves unfaithful We know that we will fail We know that we are not perfect. We know that Jesus alone is good But he is working a work of transformation in each one of our hearts as we pursue him, as we seek him,

as we aim for the things of the kingdom to be established. Jesus is not seated alone in this sense. Yes, indeed, he is uniquely qualified and worthy of glory in ways that we are not. But scripture, breathed out by the Holy Spirit, qualified and worthy of glory in ways that we are not but scripture Breathed out by the Holy Spirit says that God has made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus Not with not alongside not around in Christ Jesus and When we think about this when we reflect on it when we meditate on it when we think about this, when we reflect on it, when we meditate on it,

when we ponder it, we come to the same conclusion that the Bible does. Who am I, God, that you Who are we to be given this kind of a blessing, this kind of an eternal gift? And it's described in this passage. Well, we are his workmanship. We are his. We are his possessions. We belong to him. And why?

We are created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Now prior to this, Paul reestablishes that our salvation is not by these works, but by faith alone. And it is through grace, the gift of God, that we can be established in faith and that we can perform these good works. But imagine, these works have been prepared beforehand.

If we have been called to them, and the Holy Spirit will equip us and empower us to be led into them. Who are we to prioritize anything else? Who are we to argue and bicker amongst ourselves? Who are we to be distracted by the things of this world? Who are we to get sucked into this or that? foolish and unlearned disputes

quarrels the prophet nothing Where is our focus? Where is our work? Where is our proper set of priorities if we indeed, and we are according to scripture, seated together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, what does that imply? What does that mean about the kind of people we should be? What does it mean about how we should act?

How we should speak? How we should think? How does it carry over to the stand that we have to take in our own minds and the battles we have to be engaged with each and every day. It is tiresome, challenging, wearying. But if we remember that we're seated together in the heavenly places places in Christ Jesus, we

should be increasingly confident that He, He who loved us while we were dead in trespasses and sins, He who sent His only Son to spare us from His wrath by taking on the punishment for himself. He who created us and who made us for this purpose. He who provided a way for us to be brought into right fellowship. He who is eternally ours and who will never leave us nor forsake us. He who is good and good alone and goodness itself, God, our great God, our Father has given us this blessing. Now what does it mean? How do we appropriate it? What are the mechanics? What's the ontology? What's the epistemology? How do we parse and take all of this apart to understand the application?

I don't know. I don't have a systematic answer for that. It's not something I've spent my entire life dedicated to, to unpacking. But what I do know is that this blessing deserves the solemn and sacred respect and honor and worship that it so rightfully deserves. We should be subordinated in our will to God's will for us, understanding that it is perfect and righteous and true and holy and just and profitable and good. We know that God loves us from the scriptures but do we understand what God has done? Have we really internalized it?

Have we taken the scripture? Has it been written on our hearts? And how then should we be? How then should we behave? How then should we be? How then should we behave? How then should we think? How then should we lead our families? Be encouraged, brothers and sisters in Christ. Be encouraged, beloved fellow members of the body. Jesus is for you. He is not against you. He is with you. He will never leave you. He is interceding for us. We are seated, not just with him, but in him. There is a unification and a bond that is extraordinarily difficult, if not truly impossible to put into words properly.

But what we do understand, what we know, is that we are his and he is ours, and that he ever lives to make intercession for us. So what is the right posture? What is the right attitude? To be struck and overwhelmed by this to bring his name glory To desire to see his name high and lifted up To spend ourselves and to be poured out for the sake of showing others

His glory and his love and his mercy to to point people towards him, to reorient our thoughts. And we can do this by his grace and by his power. So Lord, we come to you and ask for this to be established in our lives. There is nothing we can do without your power and grace to move towards you successfully. But you have drawn us to yourself. You have moved in our hearts. You have begun a great work and you will finish it. You are transforming us from image to image and from glory to glory. We declare these things from your Word, knowing them to be faithful

and true. Lord, you said that your word will never pass away, not even the smallest part of it. And Lord, there is no small part of your word. It is all grandiose and monumental and transformational and supernatural and filled with power and filled with accuracy and truth and a density and a richness that is an endless supply of an awareness of your love. So God, let it be established in our minds. Let it be established in our hearts. Let it be established in our souls that we will seek you, knowing that you can be found. If we are truly, according to the scriptures, seated together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. How can we not find him? How? Could we turn away from him? How could we re-prioritize things away from his will? Brothers sisters

Remember what God has done for you Remember his word remember his steadfast love remember remember his promises, remember that we did not deserve any of this. And in many places where you look around and you look at the state of Christianity, when you look at the state of institutions, when you look at what is happening, there is a profound movement

and a hunger for the things of God and at the same time there is much in the way of worldly squabbles and fights and disasters and sin and ministerial collapse and brokenheartedness and betrayal and unforgiveness and bitterness. Can we take a moment, can we take a time, can we take a season to simply restore our relationship and our focus on the Lord of hosts, the one who has done so many good things for us. Will we ask the Holy Spirit to help us

to put aside the distractions, to put away the childish things, to give up our clinging to the sins that so easily beset us? Will we receive the love and forgiveness that only he can provide? Will we allow him to equip us for the time in which we live should walk in them. It is a call it's a duty it's a fulfillment of the fundamental purpose for which we were created. We are here because he has placed us here. We are who we are because he has loved us

and saved us and transformed us. The faith that we have is a gift of grace. We should pray for it to be strengthened. We should pray for the things that remain to be strengthened. Will we allow ourselves to be led by his Holy Spirit? Will we understand who we are in him? If we do, brothers and sisters, even if without fully understanding every single bit of every single aspect of all of the

different components and the mechanics and their interaction, will we simply accept the simple truth that we are seated together with him? Not for the purposes of taking on any of his glory for ourselves, but for the sake of appreciating and valuing and treasuring and loving and experiencing our unity with him. Will we follow the Holy Spirit, who will reinforce these truths of scripture, who will breathe them out into us? Will we allow the words of God to transform our lives

and our attitudes, overcoming the day-to-day frustrations that we feel, giving us more grace and more love and more mercy and more forgiveness so that we can be cleansed, so that we can move forward, so that we can become more effective, so that his kingdom can be advanced and his glory be amplified in the earth. We are to lift him up. He has lifted us up from death into life,

from darkness into the light, from wherever we were to ultimately where we will be, perfected and glorified in eternity and in the new heavens and new earth with him. God, thank you. Thank you for what you've done. Speak to us now into each one of our hearts, Holy Spirit. Thank you for your word.

Thank you for your blessing. Thank you for helping us to see, even in a minute way, what you have done for us. Fill us, Holy Spirit. Forgive us for having quenched your activity in our lives. Forgive us for having grieved you.

Help us, Lord. Help us come to you again. Help us rush to you knowing that you are our only source of strength and faith and might. Lord, you have called us for such a time as this. Help us by your grace and your power to be found worthy of that calling. Lord it is all for your glory. It is all for your honor. Help us to be your people, your disciples, your messengers. God use us for the spread of the gospel, for the

equipping of the saints, for the healing of wounds, for the repairing of the gospel, for the equipping of the saints, for the healing of wounds, for the repairing of the breach, for the establishment of firm foundations. And you are everything to us, and you have given us everything, and you're worthy of it all. Lead us, guide us, equip us. We declare and pronounce our total dependence on you. Let your word be established in our lives and let us know to an even greater

extent what it means for us to be seated together with you in the heavenly places. We bless you and we praise you Jesus in your mighty name. Amen.