Onward - Tim Conway

Ephesians 4:1,

"I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord,

urge you to walk in a manner worthy

of the calling to which
you have been called

with all humility..."

It's bad when you have a child

and you're in the middle of a row, right?

Verse 2, "...with all humility

and gentleness with patience,

bearing with one another in love,

eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit

in the bond of peace.

There is one body and one Spirit,

just as you were called to the one hope

that belongs to your call;

one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

one God and Father of all

who is over all and
through all and in all,

but grace was given to each one of us

according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore it says, 'When
He ascended on high,

He led a host of captives

and He gave gifts to men.'

In saying He ascended, what does it mean

but that He had also descended

into the lower regions of the earth."

Or into the lower parts of the earth.

"He who descended is the one

who also ascended

far above all the heavens

that He might fill all things.

And He gave the apostles, the prophets,

the evangelists, the shepherds,

and teachers to equip the saints

for the work of ministry

for building up the body of Christ

until we all attain to
the unity of the faith

and of the knowledge of the Son of God

to mature manhood, to the measure

of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

so that we may no longer be children

tossed to and fro by the waves

and carried about by
every wind of doctrine,

by human cunning, by craftiness

in deceitful schemes.

Rather, speaking the truth in love,

we are to grow up in every way

into Him who is the Head, into Christ,

from whom the whole body

joined and held together by every joint

with which it is equipped

when each part is working properly

makes the body grow

so that it builds itself up in love."

Father, I ask You to help us

right now at this time

to begin to delve into these portions

of this Ephesian letter

that deals with our practice,

our duty, our responsibility,

our walk.

Please help us, Lord.

In Christ's name I pray, amen.

We're transitioning.

Over the last few weeks/months,

we have looked at that prayer

at the end of chapter 3:14-19.

The doxology at the end,
we read over that;

didn't spend a huge amount of time.

But this portion of Scripture there

led us to the Song of Solomon

because in the prayer here you have

Paul praying that according
to the riches of God's glory

that we would be
strengthened to comprehend

something of this breadth and length

and height and depth,

to know this love of Christ.

The last time we talked about being filled

with all this fullness of God.

We are the very dwelling place of God.

We're the temple of this new dispensation.

Brethren, the reality,

those first three chapters of Ephesians,

it is not likely that you will encounter

more glorious doctrine than
what you have there.

You may say it's on par

with some of the things found in Romans

or certain other places in Scripture,

but as far as a package of the glories

of what it means to be a Christian,

nothing surpasses these three chapters.

And the truth is that that prayer

that we just came off of,

I don't think you can
invent a higher prayer

that one Christian could
pray for another than that.

Of course, that took us
into the Song of Solomon,

which I think is correct.

Those who have said it's the
holy of holies among Scripture -

it's like the sweetness of
Christ's love there.

This is just an absolutely
spectacular prayer.

One of the brothers I was
praying with on Wednesday

asked me if I would pray
this prayer for him.

And I would ask the same of all of you.

In fact, I would encourage you
to pray this for one another.

Don't let this get away from you.

(incomplete thought)

And here's the thing,
as we're transitioning,

I feel like I need to say something.

I've been told by some of you

how the Lord has used the recent sermons,

especially those out of
the Song of Solomon.

I've had some really encouraging feedback.

And in fact, I heard more than once

when I announced that I was
bringing this thing to an end,

there were some expressions
of sadness about that.

But here's the thing,

when you look at chapter 4,

"I therefore...

a prisoner for the Lord..."

In fact, you could kind of take

some of that descriptive language out.

He's basically saying this:

After all these things I've said,

therefore... I urge you to walk

in a certain way.

I urge you to walk in a manner

worthy of your calling.

Brethren, what we're dealing with -

the word "therefore" at
the beginning of chapter 4

declares something.

It declares that we must move on.

Paul has said all of this.

He's hit us with probably the most
spectacular prayer imaginable,

and he doesn't leave us there.

He didn't put a period
at the end of that amen

and say that's it.

I'm done writing to the Ephesians.

I've given them the glory.

Now, they should be good.

In fact, you know what he didn't think?

He didn't think that, well, they ought to

be able to take all that
glorious stuff right there

and figure it all out.

He didn't think that.

You know what he felt?

He felt like he's only halfway done.

There's still three more chapters to come.

I mean, relatively
speaking, this is halfway.

You remember, originally,

the chapter divisions weren't there.

But when he came to this "therefore,"

it basically is in the
center of this epistle.

He's going on.

And he's calling us to go on.

That's the reality we're faced with.

Therefore.

"Therefore" at the beginning of chapter 4

means that all of us need to take

what we have been exposed to

and we need to go somewhere with it.

That's what the therefore is there for.

We are not called, you notice,

this is what I want us to feel -

those of you that felt sad
that we were moving on,

I kind of felt that too.

In fact, you know what?

I was listening to
Lloyd-Jones preach a sermon

when I was out riding my bike.

He said the same thing!

He said he was almost in fact tempted

to stop his series on Ephesians right here

and go somewhere else in the Bible

where he could get into the glory again.

And I felt that too.

I felt a certain sadness.

But we shouldn't feel it.

Paul wants us to go on.

Therefore... we can't just sit,

stop, and bask in that glory.

Onward - that's the title of my message.

Onward.

Onward. We've got to go on from here.

We've got to.

That's what we're being called to do.

That's where we're going
to go from here on.

Onward.

Do you see, this "therefore," you see it.

Second word in chapter 4.

Therefore.

It's not casually placed.

This is pivotal.

This is a word that is
strategically placed

and it joins.

(incomplete thought)

You know, in the first three chapters,

I don't believe there was
a single imperative.

I don't believe that we
were told to do anything.

I don't think we were told
to walk a certain way.

It was all indicatives.

It was facts.

It was the experience of the Christian.

It was meant to make us feel the glory,

feel how lofty this is.

(incomplete thought)

What other letter in the
Bible even talks about

us being seated in the
heavenly places with Christ?

Or being filled with all
the fullness of God?

Such expressions, they blow us away.

This is not a casually placed "therefore."

It's like you're coming out of that,

and now, he has three chapters -

oh, there's going to be
a lot more indicative.

There's going to be more glory.

There's going to be more to teach us,

but what we're going to get now

in rapid succession is instruction.

Because that's true,
therefore, live this way.

Live in a certain way.

Live in a way that reflects this truth,

these glories.

You know, you get the same kind of thing,

have you ever noticed it?

When you come to the end of Romans 12?

You get twelve chapters of -

you talk about extensive -

the first three chapters of Ephesians

aren't rivaled by anything but perhaps

just the extensiveness of the presentation

of the Gospel in the first twelve chapters

of Romans.

And now, after Paul is done with that,

what does he say?

"I appeal to you, therefore,

by the mercies of God."

What are the mercies?

All that he described in
the first twelve chapters.

Therefore... I appeal to you

on the basis of that Gospel,

offer yourselves up as a
living sacrifice to God.

That is one of those instrumental,

very specifically placed,

pivotal "therefore's."

Not just casually placed.

Like our whole life practically swings

on this kind of "therefore."

There's a truth, a body of truth,

that is supposed to lift us up to glory.

We're supposed to experience

the love of Christ,

the indwelling of Christ in our hearts,

the strengthening of the Spirit,

the fullness of God filling us.

These are experiences.

These are realities.

Seated in the heavenly places.

And what are we supposed
to do with it all?

Are we supposed to sit in our communes,

sit in our convents,

sit in our monasteries,

or sit within these four walls

and bask in the glory forever?

That is not what we're called to do

in the Christian life.

That's not it.

No, we must go onward.

You know what the "therefore" does?

It says, okay, therefore,

you have all this.

How does all this relate to daily life?

What does this all mean practically?

How do we apply this
to living in this world,

interacting with others?

What the word "therefore" tells us

is that we can't just sit down,

camp on this prayer of Paul forever

without going forward.

Or, sit down, just enjoy the sweetness

of the Song of Solomon perpetually.

We can't do that with no forward advance.

The reality is forward.

Paul says "therefore."

That means we're to go on

in this practical life and living.

The interesting thing is

I was thinking about going up

to the mountaintop.

Look, I can tell you

that dealing with this prayer

and spending literally hours

upon hours upon hours

in the Song of Solomon -

I was blown away.

I mean, I was overcome repeatedly.

And it's almost like the "therefore"

says: okay, come down.

Like come down out of your study.

It's on the second floor,

so it's kind of applicable.

Come down.

There's a time to soak that up

and to be in that glory.

There's a time to get up from that chair

and come down.

(incomplete thought)

I think, again, I was riding my bike

and I was listening to that message

by Lloyd-Jones and I was just thinking.

I think I got home and all of a sudden,

my mind just swept through
the entire Scriptures

about all the times that God's people

have basically been called to come down.

I know that the Christian
life in one sense

is like continuously going up,

climbing the mountain,

where we desire to go higher

and higher and higher.

Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

We talk that way.

And undoubtedly, there is a way,

there is a perspective
on the Christian life

that is like that.

It's like opening up into
the fullness of day.

You see that, where it gets
brighter and brighter.

Or we can think of it
going higher and higher,

but there is another sense

in which the Christian life

is a repetition of going
up to the mountain

and then being called to come down.

And what I mean is, I repeatedly find

God's people doing just exactly this.

I would say this, the first
three chapters of Ephesians

are like a mountain.

They just take you to heavenly places.

You're going way up filled
with all the fullness of God.

Higher and higher and higher,

knowing the love,

having the ability,
the power to comprehend

this love of Christ.

The flood of thoughts came rushing through

about just these realities.

You know, there's the time when the Lord -

even the Lord Himself -

where'd He go?

He went up to the mountaintop.

"In these days, He went out

to the mountain to pray."

And I think about Him there.

"All night He continued in prayer to God."

Communing.

Coming close to the Lord.

And then it says, "...and He came down."

There's a time to come down.

He came down and what did He do?

You know what it says He did?

You can find this in the
three synoptic Gospels

where He went up to the mountain to pray.

He came down.

And Scripture specifically says,

"He stood on a level place

with a great crowd who came to hear Him

and to be healed of their diseases

and those who were troubled
with unclean spirits were cured,

and all the crowd sought to touch Him,

for power came out from Him

and healed them all."

You see what happened?

He's up on the mountain

close to God,

communing with God,

praying to God,

and then He comes down.

And what happens?

Out into the crowd to basically give.

That's really it. To give.

Going up on the mountaintop

to be recharged, to draw close,

to be refreshed, to be invigorated

with the communion with His Father.

And then He comes down.

And you remember when the
woman touched the hem?

He said, "Virtue has gone out from Me."

Do you realize what that's saying?

It says that power came out from Him

and healed them all.

It cost Him something to heal.

It came out of Him.

Or I remember this,

I remember old Don Johnson.

He says that when he first got saved,

he thought the Christian life

was just one continuous
baptism of the Spirit

after another.

And then you know what happened?

God said to him, Don, come down.

Onward.

You've been exposed to the glory.

You've been exposed to this

which has overwhelmed your soul.

Now, you need to know there's a reality.

You need to come down.

That's part of the Christian life,

but that's not all of the Christian life.

There's a "therefore."

You have that, therefore,

Don, there is a world

that is looking for your light.

We are the lights of the world.

Come down.

You have life to live.

Or, I was thinking about Moses.

You think about Moses.

It says he went to Mount Sinai.

Again, here's a mountain again.

He goes to the mountain

and what does he see?

He sees a bush that's burning.

Okay, he's getting exposed

to the supernatural.

He's getting exposed to a
manifestation of God.

"Moses, take your shoes off.

The ground upon which you are standing

is holy ground."

I mean, you can be sure,

he fell on his face.

"I am the God of your fathers,

of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob."

He revealed Himself to Moses:

"I AM WHO I AM."

And he had the experience,

how are they going to know
that I was sent by You?

And he's throwing his staff on the ground,

it's becoming a snake.

He puts his hand in there. It's leprous.

Back in and now it's not.

He was told if they don't
believe those two,

you're going to turn the Nile to blood.

But you know what?

You know what God said to him?

After all that?

"Now therefore go."

You can't stay here.

You can't stay in all the glory

of the fire and the revelation,

and Me speaking to you directly like this

and standing on the holy ground.

Now it's time to go.

Now you've got to go to the people.

Or you think of Moses on another occasion.

I think of the time in Exodus 34.

God said, "Be ready by the morning.

Come up in the morning to Mount Sinai."

Here's the same mountain again.

Here's Moses going back up.

"Present yourself there to Me

on the top of the mountain."

And you remember what Moses said?

Again, he's going back. He's going close.

Close into the glory.

"Show me Your glory."

And God, I mean, you have such things said

we can just read over this.

He said, "I will make all My goodness

pass before you."

It says, "the Lord descended in the cloud

and stood with Him there."

What was that like?

He stood with him there.

"...And proclaimed the name of the Lord.

The Lord passed before him

and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord,

a God merciful and gracious,

slow to anger,

abounding in steadfast
love and faithfulness,

keeping steadfast love for thousands,

forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin,

but who will by no
means clear the guilty.'"

And he goes on,
"When Moses came down..."

There it is.

He had to come down again.

Down away from the glory.

Down to do what? To go among the people.

"He came down from the mountain," it says.

And here's the thing,

he didn't know something about himself.

Do you remember what it was?

He didn't know that his face was shining.

"His face shone because..."

isn't this amazing?

"His face shone because he had been

talking with God."

You see, that's what happens.

There's a time to go down

with the glory on your face.

You think of Elijah.

Mount Carmel.

Up on that mountain he goes.

Fire fell that the people might know

that God is God and Baal is not God.

And they repaired the altar

and all those prophets of Baal

were put to death.

And there on that mountaintop,

he got down, it says, on his face

and he put his face between his knees

and rain came after how long?

Years without a drop of rain in that land.

Again, God came in miraculous power.

Elijah was vindicated.

The people knew who the true God was.

But it says the hand of
the Lord was on Elijah

and then he came down.

You've got Jezebel's to deal with.

I think of the Mount of Transfiguration.

There's a mountain.

They went up on that mountain.

And you remember Peter,

he said, "Lord, do You want me

to pitch some tents here?"

You think that was glorious?

Jesus being transfigured before them?

They're actually seeing Moses
and Elijah like we heard?

That was really Elijah -

not just one that came in the spirit

and power of him.

That was the Tishbite.

John wasn't the Tishbite.

John was Malachi's Elijah,

but this is the Tishbite. This is Moses.

But I guarantee, they weren't
at the center of attention.

Jesus is manifest - a voice -

the Father is speaking.

You can imagine,

that's a place that you want to stay.

His face shone like the sun.

You know what Peter said?

"Lord, it is good that we are here."

You know what?

When we were in the Song of Solomon,

I could say that.

It is good that we are here.

But guess what?

The hour came:

Gentlemen, it's not time
for pitching tents.

We're going down.

We're going down to the bottom.

We're going down to the people.

There's a time to come down.

Or, again, I thought about the upper room.

Okay, that's not a mountain.

That's more like my office.

It's up on the 2nd floor.

But you remember what
happened in the upper room.

"They went up to the upper
room where they were staying.

Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip,

Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew,

James the son of Alphaeus

and Simon the Zealot

and Judas the son of James,

all these were in one accord

and they're devoting
themselves to prayer."

And you know what happened in Acts 2.

"Suddenly, there came from heaven

a sound like a mighty rushing wind.

It filled the entire house
where they were sitting

and divided tongues as
of fire appeared to them

and rested on each one of them

and they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit."

But guess what?

You don't just sit there

amidst the people of God

soaking up the glory,

enjoying the divided flames
over each other's head.

"Oh, isn't that neat?"

And I don't think they were thinking that.

They were thinking not: this is neat.

This is glorious.

They were blown away.

They're saying Jesus told us to wait.

I'll guarantee, they had
no doubts in their mind

that this is what they
had been waiting for

because when it came,

it came like a mighty rushing wind

and they were filled with the Spirit.

But guess what?

When you're filled with the Spirit,

when you've had this revelation,

when you've had this experience,

it's not time to sit in the upper room.

It's time to come down.

There's a "therefore" in our lives.

How many times throughout Scripture

they're called into the glory,

but then you come down.

Therefore, they must come down.

And see, here's the thing.

The mountaintop is necessary.

It's necessary.

Why?

Because when I'm near the Lord,

remember Christ: that you might have

this Spirit strengthening
you in your inner man

that Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith.

And this knowledge that's knowing Christ -

a knowledge that surpasses knowledge,

surpasses your understanding;

filled with all this fullness of God.

Brethren, I can tell you this,

that when you're impacted,

you're taken up into the high places

and allowed to walk -

the Song of Solomon -

the sweetness of Christ...

When we have a
consciousness of His presence,

do you know what tends to happen?

It douses your desire for the world.

Look, drawing close to the Lord

does something to your desires

for your idols, for distractions,

your appetite for sin.

I mean, when you actually feel:

Oh, my emptiness has been replaced.

I've been filled with
all the fullness of God.

I'm seeing something of the love of Christ

and Him pouring out
His life's blood for me.

And I've got a sense of His presence.

I've got a sense of:
He desires, He calls me,

"Come away, My love."

How many times did we
hear that out of the Song?

"Come away."

And you get melted by that.

Does that make you want to
run out a view pornography?

You see, it doesn't.

What it does is it fits us to walk worthy

of the calling to which we've been called.

It prepares us.

We need the glories.

We need the heights of
this sort of doctrine.

We need to know it.

We need to deeply experience it.

Because what? That stimulates

and promotes and encourages us

to what? Work out our salvation

with fear and trembling.

To work out our salvation
with a sweetness;

to work out our salvation

with a hatred for sin,

with a disdain for it.

I mean, you get lifted up
into the heavenlies

and you taste of that

and you come back to
the things of this world

and it's like, it just feels so empty.

Doctrine. That's why.

That's why it must come first.

That's why we have three chapters

rich in this doctrine.

The doctrine must always come first.

It must always be that which
lifts us up to the mountain.

But we can't just stop there and lay down.

It's onward. There's a "therefore."

Failure to understand the meaning

of this word "therefore" will confound

everything about how we
live the Christian life.

Doctrine. Doctrine.

First three chapters.

Practice.

They are joined by a "therefore."

One flows out of the other.

One is inspired by the other.

That's what "therefore" means.

It's the conclusion. It's the result.

It's the inference we should draw.

It's where it ought to take us.

It's the logical conclusion.

It goes somewhere.

Onward. Onward.

We can't divide them separate

and leave them as two dysfunctional

or disconnected parts.

They're integral to each other.

They're joined.

They must not be divided.

The mountaintop of doctrinal revelation

in the experience that we found

in those first three chapters

joined afterward by this
Christian practice -

the outworking.

That's what "therefore" is all about.

And you just think about this.

Just think about what happens

if we build our tents

up on the Mount of Transfiguration

and we never come down.

It's just, you know what, our whole life

just needs to be:
we're going to soak it all up.

We're going to spend our time

with our nose in our Bibles
trying to find the glory.

And we never come down.

Then what happens?

The world never sees our Christianity.

But think about what happens.

Think about what Christianity is like

if we never go to the mountaintop

and we just kind of dive in,

try to live out the Christian life

without experiencing the glories

and the doctrine and the power of God.

What does that look like?

But here's the thing,

it's not like it's okay,

well, we've done that.

We've done the first three chapters.

Yes, we've been up to the mountaintop.

Okay, we see the "therefore."

We recognize we need to come down.

We spent time there in the Song of Solomon

and we basked in the glory of that.

So now, let us come down

and live in the lowlands.

No.

Yes, we must come down.

We must plant our feet in the world

and do what Jesus said:

let our light so shine before others

that they may see our good works

and glorify our Father who is in heaven.

But the thing that we
have to remember is this:

If you forget the speed
at which a person reads,

you're going to miss
something very important.

You say, what do you mean?

I mean this.

Yesterday, I took my phone,

hit the stopwatch, hit go.

I read the first three
chapters of Ephesians.

Guess how long it took me to read it?

Just guess.

6 minutes, 44 seconds.

You say, so what?

But here's the thing,

at normal reading speed -

I wasn't trying to speed read or anything,

I read it out loud the way

I would read Scripture to you all

when we're reading it before the sermon

or as we're ushering into the sermon.

At normal reading speed,

most average readers,

you can clear the
whole book in 15 minutes

if you don't stop to ponder and meditate

which you should do,

but I'm just saying if your objective

was basically to read it
all the way through -

even thoughtfully -

20 minutes.

What does that mean?

I'll tell you what it means.

It means that even when you're at

the close of the letter

in Ephesians 6

dealing with girding yourself

with all the armor of God,

it was only 7, 8, 10 minutes ago

you were just finishing up

all the glorious truths we've
been looking at for months.

Brethren, I'll tell you this,

I believe that one of the
most dangerous things

about expositional preaching

is found right here.

The assumption is that
these glorious truths

would be fresh in the minds of the readers

all the way through this practical part.

Now right now, it is.

Because we were so recently there.

But you know what?

If this doesn't get preached in such a way

to bring us back to these realities
(incomplete thought),

must we come down?

Yes, we must come down.

But the reality is we need
to return back there

again and again and again.

You see, our life needs to be a recurring:

Go to the mountaintop daily.

Go! We need to go back to these truths,

back to these realities,

back to this experience,

back to this love,

back to this fullness -

being filled with all the fullness of God.

Back and forth daily.

Going up to the mountaintop.

Going up there where Christ went to pray.

This is essential.

Because if you try to live out the duty

of the Christian life

without going back there

again and again and again

and living in those realities -

it doesn't need to come
from the first three

chapters of Ephesians,

it may come right out of
the pages of the Gospel.

It may come out of the
first part of Romans

or the first part of
any of those epistles.

It may come from Isaiah 53 -

wherever you're reading,

but we need to go back

and we need to go back to see the glory

and stay there long enough

until God shows it to us

and opens our eyes

and the scales come off.

This is essential.

Remember how fast an average reader

would read this book

and how closely tied together

what comes before the "therefore"

would be tied with what comes after it.

It's essential.

There is that essential reality

that we are drawing these
two things together -

what comes before, what comes after.

We must not lose the force

of the term "therefore."

Therefore means - like in Romans -

because of the mercies of God,

therefore, offer your life

a living sacrifice.

But you see if you forget the mercies,

the "therefore" loses all its power.

You have to remember what the mercies are.

Same thing's happening here.

"I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord,

urge you to walk..."

But you see, the urge -

the urgency is lost if you forget

what that "therefore" means.

Don't let that word pass.

This is the fire.

This is where the power comes from.

We need God to speak.

We need God to change us.

That's the reality.

Don't lose the force

of the term "therefore."

This means we've got to go

back to the mountaintop daily.

We can't say: well, we've been there

all these months, now it's
time to come down.

We'll just stay down.

Yes, we come down.

Yes, we must come down.

Yes, come down from the upper room.

Yes, come down from Sinai.

Yes, come down from the
Mount of Transfiguration.

Because there's a world out there

that needs us.

But then you go back.

You go back to the glory.

You go back again and again.

We must go back.

Just a final exhortation.

The question is, brethren,

do we?

Do we?

Do you go back to the glories

of like the Song of Solomon daily?

Are you preaching the
Gospel to yourself daily?

Are you mindful of the glories?

Do you think about being filled

with the fullness of God?

Do you think about being filled

with the Spirit of God?

Do you think about the
realities in Scripture

that we can pray for more of the Spirit?

Jesus taught us we should
pray for the Spirit.

If we then being evil know how to
give good gifts to our children,

we're told, how much more
is our Father in heaven

going to give the Spirit
to those that ask?

We have these realities.

We are told that the
works that Jesus does -

if we're believers in Him,

that the works that He does,

we will do too and greater works

because He is going to His Father.

But you know what?

You will not do that

unless you have been to the mountaintop

like He was.

Back up we must go.

Back up.

Because you know what happens?

You try to dive into these duties.

You've got all these things to do.

Oh, well, it says I need
to work with my hands

and it says I need to
walk in a certain way

and it says I need to be
doing these different things

and I need to control my mouth

and I need to use it a certain way

and I need to be involved in singing

and I need to love my husband,

love my wife,

and submit to my husband,

and I've got children

and I shouldn't do this

and I shouldn't do that,

and all this instruction.

I'll tell you what,

you lose sight of the mountaintop,

you lose sight of the glory up there

and you know what's going to happen?

You will become like Martha,

just distracted and disturbed

and agitated by all manner
of different things,

and there's Mary.

"Martha, Martha..."

You see, we can be distracted

of what really matters.

"You're anxious and troubled
about many things.

One thing is necessary..."

Is it necessary to come down?
You better believe it.

But is it necessary to sit at His feet?

That is the thing that is needful

to charge you to live this life,

to prepare you to live this life

and all our activities

and all our responsibilities,

in all the work that lies before us -

and there is work!

We must work while it's day.

But we need men and women

who fight to get back to the mountaintop.

And that means you have to
make decisions in your life

to make certain that you get there.

You need to put the cell phone down,

the iPad down, the computer down,

turn off the TV, turn off the movie,

turn off this world and go back there.

We need to go back there and come down

and go back there and then come down.

That is absolutely essential.

The mountaintop calls us.

May God help us not to be content

with a bunch of religious activity.

It's on the mountaintop

that Moses beheld His glory.

And it's on the mountaintop

that as he communed with the Lord,

that glow came to be upon his face.

And don't think that has nothing to do

with the New Testament believer,

because the Apostle Paul
looked at that very example

and said let me tell you something,

that is what it is to be a Christian.

That is exactly what it is
to be the Christian.

What happens?

What happens when we see the glory?

What happens when we go back

face-to-face with God?

What happens?

I'll tell you what happens.

The same thing that happened to Moses

will happen to us.

This is what 2 Corinthians 3
is all about -

the glory gets on us.

God burns into our hearts

and upon our faces

the image of the Son of God.

And when we go down from the mountain

and out into the world,

what happens?

The world sees the glory.

"We all..."

You see, the veil has been taken off.

What does that mean?

Nothing stands in the way anymore.

Do you realize what that means, Christian?

It means that you are
one of the select few

on the face of the earth

that has had the veil taken off.

Which means, God has put you

in a place to be emblazoned by His glory

if you will but expose yourself to it.

The veil is gone.

"We all with unveiled face

beholding the glory of the Lord."

He's been talking about Moses

being exposed to the glory

and having that glory on his face.

"We... are being transformed

into the same image from one
degree of glory to another,

for this comes from the Lord

who is the Spirit."

We come down from the mountain.

And you know what, the onlooking world

will see the glory.

The glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ

etched into us, into our character,

into our person.

Look, there's something,

when you hear - when I was saying to you

that this is Christ in the
Song of Solomon:

"Come away, come away..."

And you hear that and it sounded sweet.

But you see, you don't want to stop there.

You actually do want to go away with Him.

And then come down.

Go to the Mount of Transfiguration.

See the glory break through

so that you see He's way beyond

just a mere man.

You behold the glory.

It's being like Christ that turns
the world upside down.

The thing is if we try to go on

to chapter 4, 5, and 6 of Ephesians

and we lose sight of that term "therefore"

and forget its significance

in the fact that it joins what went before

with what's coming after,

then you know what -

you know what will happen?

You try to be dutiful

and you try to do

and you try to work

without the image of Christ
being emblazoned

into your soul,

you know what you'll be?

You'll just be hollow religionists.

It's a form of godliness,

but it lacks the power.

The power comes from a close intimacy

with Christ.

It's just a bunch of smoke.

We don't want that.

Burning. Shining.

Oh, that's the description that
was given to John the Baptist.

We need to come back

and adorn ourselves with the doctrine.

Have you ever read that?

That we are to adorn ourselves

with the doctrine.

That's what Paul's calling for.

Go to the glories of Ephesians 1, 2, and 3

and robe yourself with it.

Wear it.

Put it on.

Oh God, may He wash our souls

in the wonder of all this,

in the love of the cross.

God, fill us. Fill us with
all the fullness of God

according to the riches of His glory

like He promises there.

Do that!

Strengthen us by Your Spirit

that Christ might dwell deeply.

Remember that word? To settle down deeply.

We desperately need churches

full of people who are - like Carey said -

attempting great things for God,

but we need people who are desperate

to know the living God,

to know Him, to know the
power of His resurrection,

the power of His work in His people.

Let us go back there, brethren.

As we break forth now

into these three chapters,

live at the mountaintop,

and then come down.

Therefore, come down.

And then we must go back.

And then come down.

There's a dark world.

There's a dark world.

And the last thing I want

as we transition is to say,

we can leave that behind.

Now we turn to the practical realities.

No.

If you read this letter from end to end

at a normal speed,

you know that that is not
what God intended.

God intends you to be constantly thinking

about that "therefore" all the way through

and motivated by the realities

behind why that word is there.

May God help us. Amen.