An Audience with the King - Part 1

 

Ephesians 2:18 “For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”

 

Last Sunday, Pastor Herk continuing to preach through the Epistle of Ephesians stated that our access to Almighty God has some very important implications. If you wanted to visit the President of our country at the White House residence, it would have to take prior arrangements and security clearance to even gain access onto the premises, let alone the Oval Office. In the ancient world, one could not be brought into the presence of a King without a certain protocol followed, formal invitation and official introduction. But, even though we do not have access to the President of our country, we do have access to Someone even more important; to our Creator God anytime we want it. An audience with the King of kings and Lord of lords. Amen?

 

All who repent of sin and accept and receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord are provided with direct access to their Heavenly Father by means His substutionary atoning death and resurrection. Ephesians 3:11-12 says,“This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He [God] carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.” All born-again Believers have been reconciled through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross, their spirit has been regenerated and have direct access to God in Heaven. Jesus Christ is the One Way, the Good Shepherd’s narrow gate, and the Way-making for access to our Lord God in our personal and spiritual Heavenly Father/child relationship.    

 

The first implications is that access to God is only through Jesus, the Christ; the Son of God. In John 14:6Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. The Apostle Paul makes it clear to us that Jesus Christ totally and completely makes it possible for us to experience all the blessings that we get from God. Jesus said in John 3:3, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The culture then and now has had all kinds of other gods that they believed in and idols that they followed religiously. Offending one of those false gods was thought to cause calamity and misfortune, but figuring out which god was offended was uncertain, so they didn’t know who to pray to, perform a ritual for or make an offering to adequately appraise. Having personal access to and relationship with these pagan gods was a completely foreign concept. 

 

The Apostle Paul established Christian churches throughout the Roman empire explaining that the born-again Believer does not have to try appeasing Creator God in order to be able to enter into His presence. Christ opened the door into His presence, no matter what. Whatever finite and fallen people try in our own efforts to appease God is going to fall short. He tells us in Romans 3:23-24, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” Jesus has already done the work that provides the access to God for us. The access is a formal introduction into the presence of God. For God’s children, Jesus acts as their introducer, escorting them into the presence of God, who is seated on the throne in the kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is the only one who has the authority to do that. We have “access through faith in Him” as a response for what Jesus has done for us. Our access to God is a direct result of what Jesus faithfully did for us on the Cross for the remission of sin – the Way. Then we access through the narrow gate doorway by placing our trust in what Jesus did for us on the Cross on our behalf for the remission of sin – the Means. Even our faith is a gift from God.

 

The Apostle reinforces this implication in 2 Corinthians 3:4-6, “Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ. Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”  

Lets continue Pastor Herk's message on being in the presence of God in the next post.

In Christ, Brian