WHERE YOU’RE SEATED MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
Ephesians 2:1-10
1. Friday morning, as I was headed towards the nurse’s station at Swedish Issaquah Emergency Department, I passed a couple of the radiology techs in the hallway who were discussing the one tech’s new pair of individually designed and manufactured shoes.
• I also noticed that he appeared a little taller than I recalled and I remarked on that fact.
• He replied, “Yes, it is amazing what just an extra inch can do. It gives you a whole new perspective on life!”
• WOW! Amazing what just one inch higher can do for you.
2. Well, tomorrow morning at 6am I will take off from Seatac airport and fly to Monterey, California for a United Methodist Chaplain’s Conference and I will get to see the entire Pacific Northwest and northern California from a height of 35,000 feet.
• Now that’s some elevation for you! That vantage point will certainly give me a very different perspective.
3. Last Saturday my daughter, Gabrielle and her husband Scott, who have Seahawks season tickets in the pricy Club area at Qwest Field where they had the very best view of that exciting game, told me that “it certainly makes all the difference where you are seated”.
• Those words stuck with me and have reminded me of the Apostle Paul’s words to the church in Ephesus where he writes in 2:6 that “God raised us from death to life with Christ Jesus, and he has given us a place beside Christ in heaven.”
• Well folks, there ain’t no higher or better vantage point from which to view life than that! It certainly does make all the difference where you are seated and with whom you are seated!
• The vantage point of heaven allows you to see things which you just cannot see from a purely earthly perspective.
• And Christians are those who have the ability and need to discipline themselves – through prayer, meditation on God’s Word, and through worship - in the practice of living in those two dimensions at one and the same time.
• We are those who practice the life and perspective of heaven while we live here on earth.
4. Where you’re seated:
A. IS A GIFT OF GOD’S AMAZING GRACE
1. None of us deserved it and none of us could ever be worthy of it. The fact that we who rebelled and sinned against the Most High God and are deserving only of hell itself, now have the opportunity and privilege to sit with Christ at God’s right hand - the place of heavenly authority and power – is a mystery of unfathomable grace and mercy.
2. We occupy that high and lofty seat with humility, with reverence, and awe.
3. There is no place here for arrogance, for pride, or vanity – it was those very traits that got Lucifer booted out of heaven.
4. So the appropriate awe and amazement is not that someone else might also be seated there that you had wondered about or had questions about – but that YOU are there!
5. You and I are both there because our God loved us and chose us long before He created the world, that we should be included in His family through Christ.
6. And we can occupy that seat because we have responded to His love and received His lavish forgiveness and cleansing through His Son. What an awesome privilege!
B. IS A PRESENT REALITY
1. This seat you have in heaven is not just some far off, distant future offer that awaits you and me in the “sweet bye and bye”. It is a present reality NOW.
2. Just as when Christ died on that cross on Calvary 2000 years ago, He went through that horrendous event on your and my behalf – in your and my place – taking upon Himself the suffering and death that should have been our own.
• So, when He arose from the grave, He overcame death and hell for all humanity and everyone who places their trust in Him already here and now begins to experience some of the benefits of that glorious victory.
• His resurrection and ascension and exaltation to God’s right hand is already an accomplished fact and if you are in Him, then it is an accomplished fact for you as well.
• Time, as you and I know it of years, months, days, hours and seconds, is a measurement that applies strictly to this earthly dimension. And so from earth’s vantage point, that event still lies somewhere in our future. But from God’s and heaven’s eternal perspective it is already a present reality.
• If you are familiar with C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, especially "The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe", you will recall how one minute Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are playing "Hide-and-seek" in the Professor’s mansion out in the English country and away from the bombings on London and the very next they are living their lives from the perspective of Narnia.
• Yes, you and I still have to live out some days in this earthly frame, but the far greater truth is that we are already seated with Christ at the Father’s right hand.
• We are living in two dimensions at one and the same time and what matters most and determines our ability to live as an overcomer down here, is how much weight and importance and significance you and I give to the greater eternal reality of our heavenly position.
• And living your life from the heavenly, rather than the earthly perspective is what enables you to live with confidence rather than confusion, with trust rather than turmoil, and with faith rather than with fear.
C. IS A DECLARATION OF WHO AND WHOSE YOU ARE
1. The fact that you have been given a seat of honor with Christ at God’s right hand says that you are a Prince or a Princess – a son or a daughter of the King of all Creation.
• You have become royalty and the Father has incredible plans for you and me and all His children. Paul writes to the Ephesians that “God has given us a place beside Christ in heaven so that in the future world he could show how truly good and kind he is to us because of what Christ Jesus has done.”
• There is more to come than our finite earthly minds can grasp and comprehend but that we catch glimpses of in those moments of prayer, and adoration, and worship when “the things of the earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace”.
2. When Marcia sits down in her chair at our Administrative Board meeting, we all defer to her leadership as the “Chair” Person of that gathering. She calls the meeting to order and she presents the agenda and keeps the meeting moving along in an orderly and efficient manner.
• She knows her position and exercises it graciously and kindly but with the necessary backbone.
• God’s people in like manner occupy a chair of authority and leadership that declares us to be sons and daughters of God, beloved children of the One who owns all that is and who speaks all things into existence. What is, has life and existence because of His Word.
3. When you and I are living our lives in the greater awareness of our heavenly citizenship than our earthly existence, then nothing can shake us, nothing can cause us to fear, and nothing can rattle our confidence or our knowledge of our worth.
• A high powered business executive and owner of a huge New York City skyscraper got to hear that one of the janitors had called in sick one day and there was no available substitute.
• So rather than call another company for someone to come in, he decided to go in himself, incognito, and do the work of the janitor.
• He got himself a set of overalls and showed up with broom, mop and pail and all the other cleaning gear.
• When some of the other office staff saw him, they asked if he was the replacement janitor, he simply replied “Yes” and went on about his cleaning duties.
• He was sufficiently secure in his knowledge of who he was – owner of that entire building – that he could serve without having to correct everyone’s perception by saying to them “Do you really want to know who I am? I am the owner of this building”.
4. When we are secure in our knowledge of who and whose we are – knowing that our Father loves us and cares for us and will withhold from us no good thing, then we can give and share and serve incognito, without having to make a brass band announcement about it.
5. By the same token, when someone challenges us, or speaks evil of us, or says or does something that would threaten to undermine our confidence in who and whose we are, getting defensive and aggressive and working to prove them wrong would simply play into their game and would indicate that we have lowered our perspective from that of heaven, back down to that of earth.
• Anne and I have a love and devotion and commitment to each other that has created a safe space – a place of confidence in each other – over the past almost 38 years.
• While we do not take each other for granted, we no longer have to prove our love for each other, and neither of us would ever do anything that would cause the other to doubt or question our love.
• We strengthen and deepen that relationship many, many times a day as we speak words to and perform acts of love and affection for one another.
• Even when something is said or done that doesn’t immediately meet with the other’s satisfaction or expectation, we have chosen to never call into question the other’s love and commitment and that what was done was prompted with the best of intentions.
• That is such a place of rest and safety and security. It is truly the closest human illustration I know to the place of peace and joy God gives by His indwelling Spirit to His beloved children.
• And so when unexpected things take place in your life, that might come to rock your boat, before you just react out of your gut to what you see and hear, reacting out of an earthly perspective - get back in your heavenly seat and then ask your Daddy to let you see what’s really going on from up there.
6. So where do you experience yourself sitting right now? As you look out on life, does it look more like the perspective of earth or the perspective of heaven?
• If its more like the perspective of heaven, then this next song from our church website, will be for you a joyous affirmation of faith.
• If it’s more like the perspective of earth, then may it be for you a song of hope and trust as you step on up and change seats.
(Song: "You Raise Me Up" - Words at http://mortonumc.com/You_Raise_Me_Up_words.htm)
