More than you see

“Jesus teaches you to live your life as He would live your life.” - Dallas Willard Hugh Halter, Flesh: Bringing the Incarnation down to Earth (Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2014).

Introduction

illustration?

Paul’s prayer for a deeper reality, spiritual vision to grasp the richness of Christ in everyday

Prayer of Paul

What does he pray? That all the blessings in 3-14 would be made real.

adoption

redemption

seal of the Holy Spirit

abstract ideas, or concepts left for church scholarship, but be actual real life parts of your life.

Misconception - God took on flesh because he hates what we have become and wants to save it to a spiritual existence.

reality - God became flesh because he LOVES flesh, he loves humans.

He doesn’t want to change our human nature into a spiritual one - spiritual life was ALWAYS part of human life. God became flesh to redeem us AND show us how to live.

He came so that we could be better humans.

Better humans are spirit-filled humans.

v17 - prayer “ I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Eph 1:17.

Wisdom & revelation - of Christ, of the resurrection, of the resurrected life

v18 enlightenment - hope YOU are his inheritance

great power - resurrection power

again, these are such spiritual concepts, don’t lose sight of humanness. Because the two cannot be separated. So if Paul’s prayer was that God’s people would realize these things in their lives, how do w see this play out in the everyday?

gets tricky - because answers tend to be very surface level superficial - better person, kind to people, fair to all

this is why so many people, even Christians, left saying “there’s got to be something more”

God didn’t give us his spirit so we would be nicer. It wouldn’t hurt if you were. He gave us his Spirit so we would have the same power (might strength) that raised Christ from the dead.

resurrection - something that was completely dead, now completely alive (not bodiless existence in heaven) - bodies were completely broken, dead, by the consequences of sin raised to life, spirit filled bodies restored to perfection. - Jesus literal resurrection, ours will be literal resurrection

don’t understand resurrection. never experienced resurrection. birth understand. death understand. resurrection completely beyond our imagination

but not really - dragonfly - born in water, larva, leaves water dries body, emerges (split open) w. Similar features, but new.

resurrection power we tend to think in terms of what that power will do for us - fight battles, overcome depression, break the chains of addiction, heal cancer, rescue us from own self destruction

not saying it wont.

It’s not a matter what Christ’s power will do for us...what do in us.

worm one day sees the light and decides to crawl out of the dark liquid into new, glorified life