Ephesians 1, verse 1, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints, which are in Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who have blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as he hath chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him 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, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. wherein he hath abounded toward us all in all wisdom and in prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who work in all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earliest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his glory, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him, and filleth all in awe. So these are those precious words. Paul's song of celebration from verse three down to 14 is finished. 200 words, as we said last week, almost without a break, tumbling one after the other in celebration of the believers' mutual blessings, their redemption, and their salvation. The great work of God reconciling the believer to himself, and further, that in doing so, believers are then in Christ, the very body of Christ. Paul, we know, just celebrated himself, not in any proud fashion, but simply celebrated what he was in and through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the grace and mercy of God. He celebrated the saints, he celebrated their blessings, he celebrated their election, the forgiveness of their sins, God's overflowing grace. He celebrated their spiritual discernment and looked at the future blessings that were theirs because of the salvation that they enjoyed. Then he looked at the Holy Spirit sealing and guaranteeing them to be in Christ. Then he praises them for their faith, as we looked at last week. Their faith and their love for all the saints. And then he prays for the believers that they might have enlightenment. They might have a better knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. They might have a better spiritual vision in hope, in riches, the riches of God, and in power, the power of God. And now we come to the end of this chapter. We're going to look this evening briefly at verses 18 down to 23. 18 down to 20 we did pass along with last week, but they also apply to these end statements here of Paul's in verse 20 down to verse 23. Across this little section we can just write a little title, The Fullness of Christ, The Fullness of Christ. Paul here is trying to encourage the believers and encourage us in our day to lay hold of the fact that we have untold power, there's untold power for every believer in Christ. And he is lamenting, perhaps in his own mind, the fact, and we would perhaps lament in our own day, the fact that so many believers never ever hook up to that great power in their lives. Because of that, their Christian lives become largely impotent and largely useless. We have this great power, and we'll see something of that as we look at these verses together. The word power there is a very strong word. It means raw power. It means a very real working, an energetic in-working of power in and through the believer because of the Holy Spirit living within them, because of the salvation that they enjoy. It's looked at as the inward propulsion of power. It's great power. And the word there, great, means it's an ability to conquer. It's power that gives us untold ability to conquer sin, for the world and the devil. Verse 20, he comes to the crux of the whole matter. This is what Paul is trying to say, which he brought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. If the cross was the greatest display of God's love to a fallen world, to fallen mankind, then the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, It is the ultimate display of God's tremendous power, the fact that he raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. It's saving power. It covers all our sins. It leaves nothing untouched. All our sins are covered by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, there shed on Calvary's cross and vindicated by the God, by God himself in the raising of his son from the dead. It's sanctifying power. enabling believers to live godly lives. This power is in us that we might, the Holy Spirit is in us that we might live godly lives. It's sanctifying power, it's resurrection power. It's living life as we really truly ought to live our lives, believing in the resurrection. The great cornerstone of Paul's ministry, he would say on another occasion that If Christ be not raised, then we are of all men most miserable. He believed that because Christ was raised from the dead, then he too would be raised from the dead in a day to come. Resurrection power. So here, this great power of God in verse 20 here, it's saving power, sanctifying power, resurrection power. As you know, so often perhaps, and I speak to myself, we fail. We fail through ignorance, sin or disbelief to lay hold on that power and to allow it to work in and through us. We so often feel weak and we feel ineffectual and we feel perhaps totally unable to cope with some of the problems that arise in our lives because of our Christian lives, because of our desire to live lives that are pleasing to God. But we need, Paul says, to lay hold of these truths in these next few verses. to enable us to use this power, this tremendous power that we have, this power of God. Having examined the powers of God in the Resurrection, he now turns to focus the power as he sees it in the Lord Jesus Christ, and particularly in the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and particularly in the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he wants to think about it particularly in how it has an effect upon the believers, the believers in Ephesus here, and also down to the day in which we live. It's got to have an effect upon us, Paul says, this tremendous power, this tremendous exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ through the resurrection to the very right hand of the Father there in heaven. And the lordship that the Lord Jesus Christ then exercises, particularly in respect of believers, the church, the body of Christ. So God's power brought Christ's glorious exaltation. This is what Paul's saying. God's tremendous resurrection power exalted the Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul says in the Philippians, above principalities and power, took him to a height above anything that could ever be imagined. A position of highest honor and bliss and glory. A position of power, a position of authority. This is where God exalted his son too because of his death on the cross at Calvary, that perfect life he lived, and because of the resurrection. And he exalted him to the Father's right hand in heavenly places, something surely which is unutterably glorious, isn't it? And I want this evening for us to get perhaps just a little bit excited about this fact. I won't get as excited as Colin does, I know, and I perhaps won't jump about, and I haven't got as big a voice as he has. But that's what we need, isn't it? It's a little bit of excitement about these things. These things should really excite us. The fact, the fact that we are the body of Christ, that we are in Christ. That's what Paul wants to do with us here. He wants to excite us. And so, he now turns his thoughts to this particular thing, this position that the Lord Jesus Christ occupies, this position of bliss, of glory, of authority and power. The Lord Jesus Christ took the disciples to the mountain top, and there he stood and he gave that great commission to them, told them that the Holy Spirit would come and would live within them, And then he disappears from their sight. He's gone from them, taken up into heaven itself, completing the resurrection. There are those who believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the appearances that he made to folks after his resurrection, The appearances he made were made from heaven, that he was already glorified. But here they see the completion of that. They see him going into heaven itself. Completed his resurrection. Secondly, he became then the firstfruits of his people. He was to be the firstfruits. Not the first one to be raised from the dead, for as you know, there were others who had been raised from the dead. But he was the firstfruits. of a new resurrection of folks, those who would follow him after him, those who were his children, those who were his body, those who were children of God, one day to be resurrected. As I say, Paul lays great emphasis on this tremendous fact of the resurrection of the believer. And then thirdly, this ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ was going to commence his ministry of intercession on behalf of his people. It began as he went back into heaven, and there he is today, as our great high priest, interceding for each one of us. A man, in truth, touched with the feelings of our infirmities. His ministry, that of intercession on behalf of his people, began as he ascended into heaven. And then he began a new age of the Holy Spirit being the experience of all true believers. He promised it. And a few days after he went to heaven, 40 days later, the Holy Spirit came and rested upon the disciples there. That once for all demonstration of the Lord Jesus Christ as sending the Comforter amongst us, and then we in our turn, as we believed on him, as we became children of God, had the Holy Spirit come to live within us. These things that were affected by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and his subsequent ascension into heaven. And Paul writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 6, and without controversy he says, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the flesh, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world. And then he says he was received into glory. The Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven. Paul says this was to be his exaltation. He was going to be made very high indeed. Because finally that ascension brought about the exaltation above all things of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything was underneath his feet. Just look at verse 21. For above all principality and power and might and dominion in every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. God's power displays Christ's absolute, absolute lordship. And then John 17, remember when he was praying to his father. 24, he says, Father, I will that they also, that's you and I, whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. Paul is saying this tremendous, tremendous appreciation that we need to have of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ wants you and I, wants me to be in heaven with him one day. It's staggering, isn't it? It's staggering. He wants me to be there with him. Should excite us, shouldn't it? Should humble us. should make us just consider our lives and how we live them and the sin that so easily besets us. But that's what He wants. He ascended into heaven, He was exalted above all things and now He's there waiting for the Father to send Him to take you and I to be with Him. He wants us to be with Him there. Verse 22, and He hath put all things under His feet and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church. to the church. God's power displays the Lord Jesus Christ's absolute lordship over the church. We can remind ourselves surely that Christ was already creator of everything. The entire universe had been created by him and set in motion by him. And man was created to have dominion over the earth. But man failed, except for one man, that perfect man, the Lord Jesus Christ. the perfect, sinless man. Jesus is, by right, the absolute, sovereign Lord of the universe. But not only that, in verse 22 tells us that he is head over all things to the church. I came across a quotation from a chap called John Owen. I had not heard of him before, but he was a chaplain. To Oliver Cromwell was one of his jobs. Not the easy job I would have thought, but there he was. And he said this, and I'm going to read it to you because I hope it impresses some of these facts upon you as it did upon me. He said, thus Christ is glorious in his throne, which is at the right hand of the majesty on high. He's glorious in his commission, which is all power in heaven and earth. He's glorious in his name, a name which is above every name. Lord of lords, king of kings. He's glorious in his scepter. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of his kingdom. He's glorious in his attendance. His chariots are 20,000, even thousands of angels. Among them he rides them on the heavens and sendeth out the voice of his strength. Attended by 10,000 times 10,000 of those. 10,000 times 10,000, 10,000 of his holy ones. He's glorious in his subjects, all creatures in heaven and in earth. Nothing is left that is not put in subjection to him. He's glorious in his way of rule and the administration of his kingdom. He's full of sweetness, efficacy, power, serenity, holiness, righteousness, and grace in and towards his elect. Of terror, vengeance, and certain destruction towards the rebellious angels and men, He's glorious in the issue of his kingdom, when every knee shall bow before him, and those who shall stand before his judgment seat. What a wonderful, wonderful picture that is of the power vested in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, and the power that is available to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the Lord Jesus Christ, the beloved of the church. He's our head. Our husband, this is He with whom we have communion, and to the one with whom we are inextricably linked. Jesus Christ, our Savior, is absolute. He's the imperial Lord, the head of the creation, given to the Church, and how He loves the Church, you and me. Verse 23 gives us the final significance of His resurrection. which is his body, this is the church, all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. When I was looking at that verse earlier this week, it just staggered me to think that the position that you and I occupy as children of God, it is absolutely staggering in my estimation. We are the body. That which complements the church, Secondly, Paul says, we are fullness. The church is that, he says, which fills up Christ, who fills the universe in every way. How can that be? How can we ever be adding anything to Christ himself? How can that ever be? Lloyd-Jones said, we are the body. He said, a head is incomplete without the body. and vice versa. Without the body, the head cannot live. Without the head, the body cannot live. And throughout scripture, we get illustrations of that, surely. You think about the bridegroom and the bride in the Gospels. The vine and the branches. The sheep and the shepherd. Always saying here that the church is the complement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Staggering, surely. Calvin said this, this is the highest honor of the church, that unless he is united to us, unless Christ is united to us, the Son of God reckons himself in some measure imperfect. Did I say it correctly? I'm sure Calvin did. But that's the force of what Paul is saying here. In effect, that Christ without us, without the church, without the Holy, is incomplete in some way. The Lord Jesus Christ has an inexplicable, unfathomable love for you and for me, so that he sees himself as incomplete without us. Amazing, isn't it, to think back shortly, that he feels incomplete without you, without me, as his body. So, are we hooked up to this mighty power? Do we believe in it and do we rest in it? When I speak to myself, so often we feel powerless, we feel ineffective. We have all that great power. And one day we are going to be there with the Lord Jesus Christ, ruling over this world, ruling over the earth with me. We'll know something of it then. But I guess it's going to perhaps take all eternity and a bit more for us to fully appreciate, to get to the very bottom, to the depths, of the love for Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship that we have, each with each other, and with our Father God, in heaven, in a day to come. Amen.