Gregory Dickow - Sit With Me - Part 1
Ephesians 1:11, it's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for, it's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we're living for. I think that every human being on the face of this earth wants to know those two things. They want to know who they are, their identity, and they want to know what they're living for, their destiny. And you can't know your destiny until you know your identity. You really can't walk in your destiny until you understand your identity. And inside of the DNA of your identity is your destiny.
Your destiny is in the DNA. It's it's it's in your identity when you truly understand that we're sons and daughters of God, that we truly understand who he made us as, the righteousness of God, who he made you as the righteousness of God. And when you truly understand that you didn't become valuable to God after you got saved, you were so valuable to God before you got saved that he saved you. You were so valuable to him that he sent Jesus. He didn't start loving you when you accepted Jesus. He loved you. That's why he sent Jesus. He loved you so much. He saw you with so much worth and so much value in so much. And really the the it is there is there is something to be said about the belief that we're bad, we're sinners. And we were sinners and we were bad, but we weren't sinners like Pastor said earlier. We weren't we weren't sinners because we sinned. We sinned because we were sinners.
We were born into the DNA of Adam, and that's why we're born again into the DNA of Jesus. And it is only in Christ that we find out who we are and what we're living for. Look at what he says. Long before long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up. He had his eye on us. He had designs on us for what glorious living. This is the eternal search of mankind. Who am I and what am I living for? And it is not to be found anywhere excepting Christ. So we ought to really become acquainted with who we are in Christ, what that means, and not add some Christian theology of grace to our old garments of old covenant thinking, performance and works mentality. But completely start with the new wineskin for the new wine with a new patch of garment not putting on an old patch of garment. The two don't mix. That's the two horns they don't mix.
And so let's dig into this. That's why I want to take you now to Ephesians chapter two, verse six. And and I want to give you a word of an invitation from God. And the invitation is simply these words. And this will be the theme of my week. Sit with me. Sit with me. God's word to every one of us is sit with me. What is a seated person look like and what is a seated believer live like? How to how do I live if I'm seated and I begin to think about, whoa, there's so many things there, you know, to be seated with Christ.
So Ephesians 2:6 says and he's raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I think most of the translations of this verse actually they write it as and has seeded us has seeded us in together in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. You have been seated already. You have a seat already. You you don't have a little place over there. You have a seat together in heavenly places, which represents authority and all dominion and all authority on this earth by the devil. And mankind is under our authority. He's raised us up together and has made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I'm in awe that he has seated me with him, but he hasn't seated me with him in any better than he is. Seated you with him.
He's seated us, made us sit together together, that's equality, so we're going to see that when Jesus says, sit with me, it really is the elixir. It's the it's the it's the healing. It's the solution to everything. It's the solution to our inferiority complex. It's the solution to our insecurities. It's the solution to all forms of inequality, racism, the differences and and the things that people use to separate each other, social status and and the status of of economic status and these things that separate us. And yet all of those things are where most people get their identity from. And we have to dismantle the mentalities that derive our identity from anything other than where we have been seated and where we've been seated in heavenly places with Jesus Christ and with one another together.
No matter what degree you have, no matter what job you have, no matter what economic status you have, you're equal for Jesus to do that for us. It says something, it says something about him, obviously, how awesome, how beautiful and perfect and loving and gracious that he is, but it also says something about how he sees us that he would want us to have the same seat at the table. You know, they talk about that in business. And when you're in a profession and and or in various organizations and a person's drive is to get a seat at the table, I just want to have a seat at the table. If I could just have a seat at the table. People talk about that, having a seat at the table. Guess what? We don't have to search for strive for work for pray for a seat at the table. All we need to do is recognize we have been seated. We're not trying to get seated. We're not trying to find a seat. We have been seated.
I wonder if you understand what I'm talking about? Yet, here today, you have a you have been seated. You're not it isn't even like Jesus said, OK, there it is. Go find. There's your seat. Go, go. Run to it. There's your seat. Try to go sit in it. No, he literally sat us in it. We have been seated in it. You are now in your seat in Christ. You're in your seat. Where. What is the seat. It's the seat. Well, it's many things. It's the seat of equality. It's the seat of intimacy. It's the seat of authority and we could just go on and on, but have you ever noticed how many times Jesus is sitting with his disciples? He gets in a boat and he sits. He gets in Peter's boat and sits. He starts to pray and he says, let's sit. He has dinner, the last supper and says, sit with me. He says, have the people sit? Yeah. You think he's trying to tell us something?
You see, to be seated with him is the end of our struggle. To be seated with him is the end of striving to be seated with him. It's the end of trying to give birth to Ishmael, trying to have the promise of God come to pass through our striving and through our struggle. And we'll talk about this throughout the week. But it's very similar to a parent who makes a promise to his child that on Christmas, I'm going to give you a new cell phone on Christmas. My present to you is going to be a new cell phone. And then the child begins to strive. He begins to struggle. He begins to try to please his parent. He begins to try to make them happy, begins to try to be obedient, begins to try to do all these things so that he can earn the cell phone at Christmas. But that's not what the parent said.
The parent said, I am giving you a cell phone at Christmas. Didn't say I'm going to give it to you based on if your performance is good, if you get good grades, if you're holy enough, if you're godly enough, if you this enough. If you're that enough, if you're if you're obedient enough. No, no, no, no, no. I am giving you this gift. It is an announcement. You see, the gospel is not the gospel of grace is not a challenge. It's an announcement. It's a it's an announcement of what is done for you. It's an announcement of what God has done in you. It's an announcement of how God feels about you. It's an announcement that says, I love you and therefore I wash you and therefore I make you something. I put you in a position seated with me in heavenly places.
That's when you're going to begin to pray with authority. That's when you can begin to say to the mountain, be moved and it'll be cast into the sea. Not when you muster up enough faith or listen to enough teachings or hear enough CDs about or enough downloads about about mountain moving faith. It's really a mustard seed of faith is all you need. And that mustard seed is the smallest of all things because it doesn't need to be big, it doesn't need to be grand. All it is, is having confidence in who God said you are and who God, where God seated you and then operate from that position, seated with him in heavenly places. Look, there's no striving, then there's no struggling. Then there's no competition.
Then, you know, it really does remind me of where I left off last year in this conference and it was in John 19:30. And really for me I don't mean this in a theological way, like I'm no great theologian, but for me and I think from a from a grace perspective, from a truly spiritual perspective. John 19:30 is where the gospel begins. John 19:30 is where Jesus on the cross says it is finished. It is finished. It really is the announcement. It's the announcement that of it really. It's an announcement of three things. And I got through one of them and I remember last year distinctly and I made sure that I would mention this because Wommack pulled me aside and he said, you only got three, said you're going to say three of these things. What this means, you only said one dude's always picking on me.
I've been doing it for twenty five years and I love him for it. But the word it is finished comes from a Greek word Tetelestai the word is Tetelestai. And this word is significant that Jesus used this word on the cross. Tetelestai. He cried that word. We have it in three words. Jesus spoke it. It was one word Tetelestai. And what it meant was because every one that was there at his death that they could relate to this word in one way or another because it had three meanings at that time. At that time, the word Tetelestai, I had a bit it was a business term and it meant the debt is fully paid. The first thing that that word meant was the debt was fully paid.
So it was a business term. The second thing that Tetelestai, I meant was it was a prison term and it meant a sentence fully served. So it meant no one debt fully paid, no to sentence fully served. And then number three, it was a military term. It was a term that a general would use when he conquered a city. He would go through the city and he would declare to the city that he had conquered Tetelestai. Tetelestai, so than all the people in the city would know he is their new conquerer, he is their new leader, he is their new authority. Tetelestai meant, the battle has been won.
So, Tetelestai, it was a business term. The debt has been paid. It is a jail term, a prison terminology that meant the sentence has been served, fully served, and it was a military term. The battle has been fully won, not partially paid, not partially served, not partially won, but one hundred percent. We don't complete the victory. The victory is already complete. Nothing you can do can complete the victory. Jesus completed it on the cross and then his subsequent resurrection, which his resurrection was a result of his death, his perfect sinless life. That sin could not hold him. Death could not keep him. We know that. We know that truth. We all understand that. But the point is, is this is where the gospel begins.
This is where the new covenant is inaugurated in the shedding of his blood. This cup of my blood is the new covenant. This body, it is the new covenant. It is his body. It is his blood. And there his body and there is blood is on the cross. And he says it is finished. And there in the new covenant is born there in we're born, we're birthed as he is as he dies. We're born as he's risen from the dead. We're risen with him, but we can't stop there. Not only are we buried with him, we're dead with him. We're buried with him. We're raised with him. But we are seated with him in heavenly places. And that's where we have to learn to live.
We have to learn to live from that seated place. We can learn to live from that seat place. If we don't understand what it means to be finished. It is finished. It is finished. The battle is fully won. The sentence has been fully served. The debt has been fully paid. You owe nothing. You owe no time. You owe no money. You owe nothing. You have the full victory. You have the full debt paid, the debt of sin, the debt of the curse, the debt of all your mistakes. It's already all paid for. And we get to enjoy the victory. We get to live in the victory. We get to eat the fruit of the victory. We get to not stand back and see the Lord bring the victory like stand back and see the salvation of your of your God.
It's not like Second Chronicles 20 where they sent out the appraiser's and then the Lord routed the enemy. It's it's really the opposite of that. Not that that wasn't good. That was good for then praise was a weapon. And don't get me wrong, praise is a weapon for your emotions. Yeah. Yeah that's good. But praise does not. Praise is not a weapon that causes you to win. Praise should be the utterance of your assurance that you have won. Yeah, that's what praise is. See, we got it all wrong. People coming to church and they're Christians coming to church. Come, I'm going to just praise through the to get the victory win praise through till I get it. Win a praise or pray through or push through or worship through. And all that is just religious nonsense.
What we need to do is we need to walk into church like ten less die. We need to walk into church like, yeah, OK, now. We need to walk into church and we need to be like Christ, fully paid sentence fully served. Battle fully won this. Is how seated people operate, and then our praise is truly glorifying God because it glorifies the cross, it glorifies what Jesus did, it glorifies what God has accomplished, it glorifies what God did for us, rather than a form of manipulation, which prayer has become a form of manipulation. For many Christians, praise is a form of manipulation for many Christians. But God will never be manipulated. But yet people they're going to pray, they think are going to praise and God's going to be like, whoa, that sounded good. Here's some money. That's manipulation, that's what children do to their parents.
Children try to manipulate their parents all the time. And you know what, frankly, where they learn it from their parents, the parents try to manipulate them like, OK, if you do this, Johnny, I'll give you this. If you do this, Jim, how about just do it? Because I'm I'm your parent. I'm the boss. God will not be manipulated. You don't have to make deals with God. The sentence is fully served, the debt is fully paid, the battles fully won, Jesus did it all. That's the deal. Yes, that's the deal. You ought to take that deal. Your part is to accept the righteousness in exchange for your sin. Your part is to accept the blessing in exchange for the curse. Your part is to accept the healing in exchange for the sickness. Your part is to accept the acceptance in exchange for the rejection. Your part is to accept where you're seated in exchange for where your sin was seating you.
Listen, let's just use LeBron James as an example. If you owned a basketball team and the Lakers said to you, you know what, we want to make a trade, we'll trade you LeBron James, for your ball boy. You know, the guy that throws in the the guy in the sideline throws in the ball watching LeBron James for the ball boy or watch LeBron James for the ball or we'll charge you LeBron James. You know what? We just want you to have him. Do not hesitate. Do you not look a gift horse in the mouth, do you not question that deal? Do not look for fine print. Take the deal, take the deal, take the deal.
Who wouldn't take the deal? Take the deal. Jesus is saying I'm taking the curse. You got the blessing. Take the deal. What are we got to do? Just take the deal. Just accept the deal. I'm taking your sin. I'm making you righteous. Take the deal. Take the deal. Take the deal. Take the deal. Don't argue with it. Don't justify. Don't rationalize it. Don't say. Well, that doesn't seem fair to you. Who cares? You've been a sinner all your life and now all of a sudden you're so holy that you care about what's fair. Don't examine it, don't think about it, just make the trade, make the deal, take the deal. That's fellowshipping with his suffering's making a trade, making an exchange.