The Glory of His Inheritance

Now you know why we're leaving in three weeks time, you're working me too hard. Not at all. It's always a joy to sing.

I was in university many years ago, and we formed a quartet, a Christian male voice quartet, and we sang throughout the valleys of Wales in some evangelistic crusades and many, many churches, and became quite popular. We even had a following; people would follow with us everywhere we went. I remember once singing at a Youth for Christ rally in Swansea, in the large church in the middle of the city, and we used to have a thousand or so people turn up for our Youth for Christ rallies in those days.

We didn't have entertainment, we didn't have rock bands, we had preaching of the word, and a thousand young people would be there. One night, several times in fact, but one night, we were due to be the speakers, and we gathered outside on the steps outside Mount Pleasant Church in Swansea, and the doors were not yet opened, and somebody said, guys why don't you sing for us? So the four of us just struck up a song to sing, and all the traffic got blocked on the dual highway that was passing the front there, crowds came. So it was quite an experience.

That's not the reason why I have such fond memories of those days, they were just such wonderful opportunities to travel and to sing a lot. And if I look back at my Christian life, and I long for any of the days of my past, it's those days in the quartet. So when Larry suggested we sing, I was very quick to respond. I don't know what you thought of it, but we loved doing it anyway. When I came here in September, one of my first messages, I think it was in fact the first Sunday, I took as my text that verse that Paul quoted a little earlier. I don't think he knew I was going to do this, but he quoted my text, found in Paul's prayer in Ephesians chapter one.

I want to pick that up again today. Let me read the whole prayer for you, as in chapter one. It continues actually in chapter three, but I'm not going to go into that part today. Paul said:

I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you (Ephesians 1:15), and I've heard of your love for all the saints. I therefore do not cease giving thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, and this is my prayer, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of himself.

Over my now seven months almost being with you, I've tried in some way, from the privilege of the pulpit, to express to you some of what I believe God wants to reveal to us as a people. I've talked about Christian lifestyle. I've talked about loving one another. I've talked about dealing with offenses and the tactics of Satan. And if I had to put a title upon all my messages, it would be this: I just long to see the people of God coming into being the people God has called them for, by knowing him.

God, when we know him, when we touch him, when he reveals something of himself to us, it changes us. I think God wants to reveal things of himself to us, but he only reveals himself to us as we are able to receive the revelation that he gives us. I remember one occasion I spoke to you from John's letter, and the three categories he believes he puts believers into.

Little children, and I think I illustrated by starting at this side of the room, there's a little child beginning a journey, and the little child is one who knows his sins are forgiven and that he can call God his father. Then John goes on and says, I write to you fathers because you come to know. Spiritual maturity is coming to know God in all the revelation of himself that he's willing to make known to us. But in between that young child, the beginning of the Christian journey and the Christian maturity, John writes, to you young men who are strong because the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. Those are the people to whom God wants to reveal himself. The Christian walk is a revelation of God.

God is Jehovah Jireh, our provider. Some of you can give testimony of having experienced him as your provider. Some of you can give testimony of having known Jehovah Rapha, our healer. Some of you have had miraculous healings; we certainly have in our family. He is Jehovah-Rohi, our shepherd, and Jehovah-Tsidkenu, our righteousness. God reveals himself in the multitude of attributes, uncountable, that he has, and he reveals himself to us as we grow in our Christian life. To come to the place of maturity is to come to know him.

The Hope of His Calling

And then Paul goes on in the prayer and says these words. He prays for three things, I always do this, three things, I always say four, three things. He says this: I pray that you will know the hope of his calling. And I've spent some time just speaking on hope.

Hope is an attribute of the mind that has got an eager expectation for that which is certain, an attribute that is evidenced in confidence, a confident walk with God, because you know that you know that you know. It's no longer a believing with the mind but the spirit of God has made that believing into a knowing. John writes in his fifth chapter, I write these things to you who believe, that you might know.

There is Christian assurance, there is Christian knowing. So the believer can say, I know that I know that I know. For example, my sins are forgiven. I know that I know that I know I've got a place guaranteed for me in heaven. I know that I know that I know that nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus. This is the Christian hope.

Because of the Christian hope, Paul could stand before Agrippa and Felix when he's on trial and say, I thank you for the privilege of being here before you. Though they are accusing me of insurrection and riot, the reason I'm standing before you today, Agrippa and Felix, knowing that I may be put to death, the reason I'm standing before you is because of the hope of the resurrection. And he's not saying, I hope there's a resurrection. He's saying, I know that I know that I know. And I've spent time teaching this with him in mind.

The Riches of His Inheritance

I want to go on to the second of the three things that he says here. Not only do I want and pray that you will know the hope of his calling, but I want you to know what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. What are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. This is what I want you to know, says Paul. Now in his letter to the Ephesians, Paul declares that the riches of God are unsearchable. They're not something you and I can know by investigation, even by reading the Bible or good books about people who've experienced God in their life.

The riches of God are something that you and I can only know as God reveals them to us. Just as the hope can only be ours as God plants that hope within us, so these riches can only be known. They're unsearchable. You cannot search them out. They're too deep for you and me.

But Paul's prayer is that you and I might know them. We should know them. What does this mean? If you look at the Living Bible, the Living Bible actually translates this verse in this way.

God, I'm quoting, has been made rich because we who are Christ's have been given to him. That's the Living Bible. In other words, it is God who receives an inheritance. God has been made rich. The riches of this inheritance, God has been made rich because we who are in Christ have been given to him. That's the interpretation, the translation, that the Living Bible will give you. Others take it to mean what we have inherited from God. I want you to know the riches of the inheritance that you have received from God. But I want to take a third way of looking at it, and I believe this to be the correct way. I want us to consider what he, our Lord Jesus, has inherited from his father. Paul wants us to know what he, Jesus, has inherited from his father.

Let us consider first his earthly heritage. When my dad died a few years ago, several years ago, he was living in Australia, and he'd been there a few years, and my sister wrote me a letter sometime later, after my dad had died, and let me know. And then sometime later she sent me a letter, and she enclosed, if I remember right, a check for $1,000. That was my inheritance.

That's all I got. I'm one of those guys, it doesn't bother me one iota whether I got anything or nothing. I'm not one of those who looks to inheritances. I was in university, and the lady I lived with, they had a lodger in their home many years before, and he had promised her that when he died she's going to have his money. And of course he died, he hadn't left anything to her, and years later, when I knew her, she was still complaining. I thought, how sad.

But we have inheritances. I think of Jesus while he was on earth. His father was a carpenter, and he was of course the first son, though he was not the blood son of Joseph, but he was nevertheless the first son, and in the Jewish world, and certainly in the Roman and Greek worlds of those times, an adopted son had absolute rights, and so did any son in the family. So if Joseph took Jesus to be his son, then Jesus had the rights of the older son, that would be part of the law. And yet he didn't inherit the lathe or the saws from his father, we read nothing of him becoming a carpenter. His father was alive when he was twelve, we know that, because Mary and Joseph took the boy Jesus to Jerusalem, and he stayed in the temple, we know that. But we read nothing of his father Joseph during his ministry, so one can assume that Joseph has probably died.

Maybe he died when Jesus was still a young man, so he didn't pass on the carpentry things to his son, or the business, because we read nothing about Jesus having become a carpenter in the sense of having the tools. In a real sense of course he is a carpenter, in that he's building even now his church, he's building you and me into a fit habitation for the Holy Spirit. But in the practical sense we read nothing in the scriptures to give him the idea that he was a carpenter, and he finally decided one day to leave the carpentry business to somebody else and become a traveling preacher. He probably wouldn't have been a very good carpenter anyway I think, because looking at his experience as a twelve year old boy in the temple, saying to his parents, and leaving them go for three days' journey on the way home, discovering he wasn't in the caravan there to come back looking for him, he said to him, but did you know I've got to be here about my father's business? Well his earthly father might have thought, I want you at home about my business.

But Jesus wasn't there. We do know that he had other brothers and sisters, so maybe if you'd gone to Bethlehem some of the time after that you might have seen the carpentry business of Joseph and James his other son, I don't know. But Jesus did not inherit anything upon earth.

In fact he said in his ministry, I have no place even to lay my head. I own nothing. You want to be one of my disciples and follow me? I want you to understand this, I don't own anything. You're not going to belong to somebody who's got some wealth that we can hand out. People want to follow today, you know, when you've got the United States for example, the presidential elections, they're going to spend millions upon millions upon millions of dollars canvassing, candidating, millions upon millions are supporting their candidate, and you watch the people jump on bandwagons as they see one person become a favorite to represent the party. That's the way of man, we want to jump on to anything that's going where there's promise of connections and finances.

Jesus said to his disciples, if you want to be my disciple I want to tell you what it's going to cost you, it's going to cost you a cross maybe, take up your cross and follow me because I got nothing to give you. I have no inheritance, foxes have holes and birds have nests, but I have nothing, I have no place to lay my head. Like Moses, he counted the riches of this world as of no value, he esteemed reproach greater, he was willing to suffer, knowing that he was going to go to a cross and a tomb, that was his inheritance on earth, but what was his inheritance in heaven? Even while he was upon earth the scriptures teach me that for the joy set before him he was willing to suffer these things, because he knew there was a joy set before him. He knew he had an inheritance, he knew there was something coming, he knew because he knew that he was the son of God, he knew by the witness of the spirit within, he knew because he heard the voice from heaven, this is my beloved son, and as the son of God he knew that he would receive an inheritance.

So what is that inheritance? Well as I meditated on this my heart was lifted up and thrilled, I began to see the riches of his inheritance. Word of God tells me that he's been given a name, a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He's inherited a name. So what's in a name? Well in the name of Jesus said the disciples, they went out, Lord, the disciples were sent out, they did miracles, they came back and they said what wonderful things they'd done. Then he chose seventy, he sent them out, and they came back and said, Lord, Lord, in your name we cast out demons, in your name people were set free. Jesus has a name at which even the demons and the devils have to bow, because it is a name that God has given him, a name that is above every name, a name before which you and I should be glad to kneel and acknowledge that this one is the Son of God.

He inherited a name, he's inherited the keys of death and hell, they belong to him. I painted this picture for you before, and I like painting this picture, and for those of you who weren't here, if you've heard it before you can have a little break, I'm going to tell other people who weren't here. On the day that Jesus died, the picture I like to think of, I can imagine Satan calling all his hosts, all his officers together, all his senior demons in the caverns of hell, and he says, guys we've done it, we've finally destroyed this one who claims to be the Son of God, you put him on the cross and we've defeated him. And I can imagine him setting up plans for a big party, a big celebration, and I can see the caverns of hell, and they got all his bunting and balloons, like they're having a party, it's black and purple, the only colours I think they would probably have, and they're setting up for a big party. Are you with me? You're looking at me with a little bit of amazement, I'm speculating, I'm making a little picture up.

And they're all celebrating, and Satan's on his throne, he's gloating, for at last he has conquered the very Son of God, and they hear footsteps outside the door, and he looks around, he says, who's missing? And so his lieutenants check, and there's nobody missing, and suddenly the doors burst open, and there's Jesus. And Jesus walks down the centre of the caverns of hell, and he walks up to Satan, and Satan cowers before him, and the demons draw straight back from him, and Jesus looks and he says, they belong to me, and he takes the keys of death and hell because they now belong to him, and he walks out of the caverns, leaving them quaking there, because the scriptures tell me that he descended into hell, he made captivity captive, he took the keys of death and hell, and he comes out and he shouts, Abraham, David, come out, I've got the keys. And I believe Jesus has the keys of death and hell that sets free every man and every woman of Christ, he inherited them because he is the Son of God. Doesn't that thrill you? Thrills me.

Scriptures tell me that he's got a new glory. There before Gethsemane he cried to his father in a wonderful prayer of John 17, father, I'm ready now to come back to the glory I once had with you Lord, I'm coming back now, bring me into your glory. And he inherited again the glory of the father, came into his father's presence in his ascension, and he inherited a throne, and God said to him, sit upon my right hand, he sat upon the place of authority because he inherited a throne. Do you realize, brothers and sisters, there's a man in the glory now? So I say that again, do you realize, brothers and sisters, there's a man in the glory now? He bears marks in his hands and feet of nails that he bore on your behalf and mine, and God has exalted this man Jesus into his presence, to be seated upon a throne. That is his inheritance: he's given him all authority, he's given him a name above all names, he's given him a scepter, he's given him a crown, he's given him a rule over all things. God has spoken to us in times past by the prophets, as the writers of the Hebrews have spoken to us in these days by his son, who he made heir of all things, who is seated upon his throne in the glory. Hallelujah.

And then I look, I look into the book of Revelation, and I see there the miracle, wonderful things. I read in chapter five of the book of Revelation, John, in Revelation, in a vision, sees one upon the throne, and all the angels before him crying out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord, and the twenty-four elders fell down before him upon the throne, and they worshipped him who lives forever, and they cried out, worthy, oh worthy are you Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, because of you they exist and they were created. They worship the eternal God, and all the angels, from eternity, have been worshipping him, crying holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty. And John says, and I beheld, they had a book in his hand that was bound, and nobody was found worthy to open the book. And John says, and I wept, because nobody was found worthy to open the book. And the angel came to me and said, John, do not weep, behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed, he is now worthy, and he will open the book. My savior Jesus inherited a book, a book that had been bound, that has the destiny of every mankind, all mankind, all creation, and he has the power to open that book and to bring to termination the perfect will of God. Hallelujah. I'm glad the book is in the hand of my savior, I'm glad my future is in the hand of my savior. He took the book.

And then I beheld, as it were, a lamb that had been slain, and this most amazing thing happens, I hope you understand this: all those angels, for eternity past, had worshipped the one upon the throne, the jealous God, and at this moment, for the first time in all eternity, they take their eyes off the throne, and they look at a lamb, and all the angels turn their attention from the throne, and they begin to worship the lamb. God, who is a jealous God, who says he shall worship none other but me, is thrilled and delighted, because they are now worshipping, because the lamb has inherited worthiness to be worshipped. You get that picture? This had never happened before, all eternity. In all eternity past they'd worship the one upon the throne, now they're worshipping the lamb before the throne, and they cried out and said, holy, holy, holy, worthy is the lamb, and they sang a new song, saying, worthy to the lamb, worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals, for you were slain, you were purchased for God with your blood, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, they will reign upon the earth, you are worthy to take the book. And I looked again, I saw all the heavenly angels coming, not just the ones before the throne, but all the myriads of living creatures and elders and angels, thousands upon thousands, and they said with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and glory and honour and blessing. And they all said, hallelujah, amen.

This is what is inherited. Was his suffering worth it? Ah, you ask him. For the joy set before him he endured the cross and the shame and all the rebuffs from people, and the spitting and the beating, he endured it all for the joy set before him, because he knew as a son of God he would inherit these things. Hallelujah, hallelujah, oh, I get so excited. I have another little picture: is Jesus king now? He has a title of King of Kings and Lord of Lords, is he that now, or is he waiting to become that? He is seated at the right hand of the father right now, he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords right now, he demands the allegiance of his people. But kings become kings by coronation.

When I look at the kings of the Old Testament in their coronations, when they sat up on the throne and they were crowned, oil was poured upon them as a symbol of the anointing of kingdom. When priests were ordained in the Old Testament, from Aaron on, every priest was anointed with oil, so much so that we read of Aaron that the oil flowed down upon the hem of his garment, this wasn't a little touch on the forehead, they poured oil out upon him. And the picture I get is what John is seeing here in this glorious day, is that the lamb that has been slain, that has purchased your redemption and mine, is about to be crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and when God anoints him with the Holy Spirit, the eternal, it flows down upon his body, and his body at that moment is found in an upper room in Jerusalem, all 120 of them, and the oil of the Holy Spirit comes down upon them on the day of Pentecost, and the body of Christ was anointed as the body of Christ.

He is King of Kings, he's Lord of Lords right now, brothers and sisters, and I gladly bow my knee to him because he is worthy, he is worthy, he's inherited these things. This is his inheritance, these are part of the riches of his inheritance: blessing, power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, the oil of gladness above his fellows, for God has anointed him, such as Hebrews says, with all these riches. But he is not yet, there is still one thing that will make his inheritance complete, and that is you and me, the bride. The whole purpose of the plan of redemption is that the eternal God, the eternal spirit, the eternal Christ, long to be fulfilled in being wed to the bride.

Heirs Together With Him

Just as in the Old Testament you read of Isaac's servant being sent out to find a bride for Isaac, so the Holy Spirit has come to find and perfect a bride for the eternal Son. God's greatest desire is to make the Trinity into a quartet, Father, Son, Holy Spirit and bride. His inheritance, all these wonderful things I've said to you, his inheritance is complete in the saints. You're part of his inheritance. He loves us, he loves the bride so much he gave himself for us, as Paul writes in Ephesians. Because of his love for the bride he loves us, he loves her, he sanctifies her, he washes her, he makes her glorious, he makes her holy without blemish, he presents us faultless with joy, and the scripture says that when he looks at his bride he is very, very satisfied at the travail of his soul, for he presents us faultless.

He longs for a marriage supper. What joy, what joy, when we shall reflect the totality of God's radiance and fullness. We read of glory in the scripture as being weighty, full weight of glory, weighty glory, the source of all joy, peace, bounty, health. God is all that to us, his people, and we are his inheritance. If all this is to be his inheritance, it is ours also. The word of God tells me that I am also a son of God, the word of God tells me I'm not only just a son of God, I'm an heir of the riches of God in Christ Jesus, it tells me that I'm a joint heir with Jesus of the riches of the father. As Peter writes these words: God has begotten us to a lively hope, he has begotten us to an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled, that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time.

God has called us to be his sons, begotten to this living, this lively, this real hope, that we can say, hallelujah, I know this is true, a hope, he says, which is an inheritance that is incorruptible. It cannot fade, it is not an inheritance that is going to rot away or waste away, it is incorruptible, it's undefiled, it's reserved in heaven for you, for you. Hallelujah. These are the unsearchable riches of Christ, which God pours out upon us from his abundance. He says that these are ready to be given to us, to him that overcometh, for to him that overcometh he should inherit all things. When I sit and consider the privilege of being a son of God, it is beyond understanding, the mind accepts it, the spirit responds to it, but is this too deep for me?

It truly is unsearchable, because when I start touching upon the inheritance that he has, I then realize I am a joint heir with him. I say, Lord, it is too much, I can't understand, but he tells me that one day he's going to receive me into his presence with joy, he's going to present me faultless before his father, and I will reign with him, because I should know the riches of his inheritance in you and me, the saints. People say to me, Gareth, they like being with you. One man said, you got a fire in your belly. When I read stuff like this, how can I but have a fire in my belly? Have you got a fire in your belly when you read this? I want to encourage you to know these are the riches that you have in Christ Jesus.

And Paul's prayer for you, and my prayer for you, is that God might grant to you a revelation in the knowledge of himself, that you might know the riches of your inheritance, of his inheritance in you, the saints. But the word of God tells me this also, that we can experience these riches now, some of them. For the word tells me this, that we have been given a citizenship in heavenly places. The word tells me that even now I shall live my life as one seated in heavenly places. I read in the word that Jesus says to me, as his disciple, that he gives me authority, he wants me to walk in power in this world, and power to overcome, he gives me his Holy Spirit to dwell in me, which is the first taste, the foretaste, the earnest of my inheritance. He says, Gareth, this is what I've got stored up for you.

It is beyond comprehension, it is unsearchable, it is beyond anything you can ever understand in the dimness of the eyes that you have, looking at this world. That's what you've got coming. For just to give you a little foretaste, I'm going to plant my spirit in you, the earnest of that inheritance, so you'll experience something of that now. He calls me to walk in the fullness of that spirit, so that he might operate in me, transform me into Christ likeness, that I might begin in this life to taste something of the riches of the inheritance that are mine and yours. He gives us these, to the heirs of salvation, in Hebrews 1:14, and in Colossians 1 he says these words, may we be meet to be partakers of that inheritance. My prayer, as I read this, is that God would make me more fit, by his indwelling spirit, to operate, to walk this life as a child of God, operating in the riches of my inheritance in Christ.

The fruit of his spirit, the indwelling of his spirit, the leading of his spirit, the foretaste of my inheritance, knowing that one day, and I'm 68, he can't be that far away, one day I'm going to be with him, I'm going to see him as he is, for I should be like him, joined there with my savior, born again, to raise up into heavenly places, so that I might reign with him. I do not understand it, I'm just claiming it, because it's my right as a son of God to receive my inheritance that he has for me and for you. It's also my right, right here on earth, to receive a foretaste of that inheritance, because he plants his spirit in our lives to grant it to us. May we be a people worthy, meet, of walking as children of inheritance.

The Lord bless you. Hold on to this. Claim your rights in Christ, and walk in victory. Amen.