Corps Night Ephesians September 23rd, 1981

[Laurie Coggins]

Peace and love from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Here is another
excerpt from our last year in-residence. It is from September 23, 1981
and Dr. is teaching the structure of Ephesians and Ephesians 1:1,2:
"Now the words "in Christ Jesus" are significant also, as everything is
I guess, but it opens with Jesus Christ, the verse, ... with he's an
apostle of Jesus Christ, and it closes with the faithful in Christ
Jesus. Never once does the word talk about faithful in Jesus. We are
never in Jesus. We are in Christ Jesus. We are ambassadors for Jesus
Christ on a horizontal level because we are in Christ Jesus. You
understand, tremendous. And to be in Christ Jesus indicates a
steadfastness on your part, a commitment, a sold out doulos thing. You
are in fellowship with him. You are in alignment and harmony with him,
you're just not talking man, you're walking. You are in alignment and
harmony with Christ Jesus. That's verse 1. Now verse 2 is the opening
of the doctrinal section. Here is the first great truth of the opening
of the doctrinal section. In the King James it says, "Grace be to you
and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ." The
order of those first two words must be turned around. Peace comes first
because you're dealing with what God by His mercy and grace gave to you
and the thing that God gave to you first and foremost is peace. No
enmity between God and you, no loggerheads. He gave you peace. Grace is
divine favor, perpendicular, understand. But peace is something you
got, okay. Don't you see it? It can't, the word grace cannot come
first. The word peace has to come first to open the great doctrinal
truth and section. It isn't grace you got first. The first thing you
got when you got born again is Christ in you, the hope of glory, His
peace, because of God's grace. I think all the arguments that I've
heard and read and stuff that the reason the word peace comes first in
the Aramaic or Hebrew is because whenever you greeted someone the first
thing you said was shalom, peace. I think that's an awful weak
argument, but man's at loggerheads with God, he's at enmity with God,
right. Now he gets born again, then the enmity is gone and we have
what? Peace. That's why I think the word peace comes first, grace
second, because no man will ever have peace without God so loving,
grace. God gave, unmerited , unearned, un-worked for. And through my
years I've seen thousands of people born-again and the first great
thing I always saw about them was that when they got born-again they had
peace for once in their lives. They were no longer at loggerheads, they
weren't fighting, they weren't struggling, they had an inner serenity,
a rest. It's like coming home. I've used that phrase, "You're never at
home until you're home with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's homecoming.
And kids when you're home what's the first thing that happens in a
wonderful home? There's peace. You come home, peace there, your mom you
know makes cookies and dad brews the coffee or lights his pipe or does
something and it's just a quiet rest, a serenity. I feel like that
coming in here. The first thing I sense is peace. I walked in a
newspaper office today, and the first thing I sense is just the
opposite. I'd hate to have to spend this hour that I've spent at that
place, you know, drive you nuts. No peace, no peace. So the first thing
you got when you got born-again was peace. That's why the word peace
comes first in the greatest of all the revelation, the magna cum
laude..., the greatest of all revelation, the apex of it all, when it
starts into doctrine, the first thing you got, honey, is peace. And
ladies and gentlemen what greater thing could you have than peace? To
be at home, to be at rest, not to struggle, not to fight, not to be
concerned, "I wonder if I'll still be available to walk for him
tomorrow." You have peace, and that word is absolute rest, a state of
perfect ease, ha ha. I tell you when you come home to a loving family
are you at perfect ease? Definitely because you know mom ain't going to
yell, dad ain't going to wop you. You come home to a wonderful
Christian family the first thing is peace, perfect rest, perfect ease.
The reason grace is the second word is because grace is divine favor
from God to man, unmerited divine favor. God so loved that he gave and
that is the absolute end of all of man's works, absolute end of all of
man's works, that's grace, for man's own justification and redemption.
Peace and grace from God our Father. God is the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the apostle, but God is also the Father of an apostle and
a believer. God our Father. When will we again believe the greatness of
it? Men and women believe on their father, you know, if he is a
prominent man, they get their buttons blown off. Here you and I are
sons of God, God, who created the heavens and the earth, set the stars
in their courses, is our Father and sometimes we knuckle under... and
don't even stand up for it. You do for an earthly father. If your
father was the governor of the state of Colorado, you'd blow the
buttons off of your shirt and blow the something else off of your bras
or something. People why can't we just speak the word and say what the
Word says. God is my Father, God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."