Colossians 1:15-23 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. 19 For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. 21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach-- 23 if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.

In 6 weeks, we will explore how the Word of God affirms the importance of our knowing what is real by

-  our inner worlds, our hearts/soul

-  Physical/ material realities

-  Reason and logic

-  Community or social realities

-  spiritual realities

-  the significance of images for our knowing

and communicating what is real

Each week we will explore one of these 6 ways of knowing, and… find out how inadequate any of them are to lead and guide our lives, as we learn to let Jesus lead and guide us in all that is real!

Please listen to the Sunday message that introduces each topic, or download the messages as a PDF, to prepare you for the study that follows.

Sunday messages and PDFs are available for you at www.efreefamily.com

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All study materials by Pastor Brian

·  Spiritual

Immaterial reality including God, gods, angels, demons, ghosts, magic, psychic and para-normal, etc… Historically: ritual worship, animism, Orthodox Christianity, Charismatic Christianity, panen-theism, para-normal, religion

For some of us, the reality of an unseen or spiritual reality is key to our identity, how and why we get up, and why we choose this option and don’t choose that opportunity. Some of us consider this the realm of make believe, that needs to be left behind by adults. Many of us who do believe in a Biblical supernaturalism don’t know what to do with it.

Lesson 1 Seeing the Unseen, Grasping What We Cannot Grasp?

Affirmation- the World of the Bible is a supernatural world!

A creation spoken from nothingness, by the Words of God, is supernatural. The essence of life in mankind the very breath of God, breathed into the first man’s nostrils. The ten wonders or plagues of Egypt that are capped off by the parting of the Red Sea… From here, for 40 years, God is present above His people to lead them in the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. This is just the beginning.

Little David battles a real giant, Goliath, with a sling and a 5 smooth stones… jars of oil that never run dry… fire from the sky that consumes the altar of Elijah… time stands still for God’s people to win a battle… it is supernatural.

Books like Daniel throw back the veil between the seen and unseen, the supernatural and the natural, as Daniel interprets dreams he has never heard… spends the night petting the hungry lions… as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego emerge from the fiery furnace unharmed, and delivered by an angel because, in fact, the angels’ of God protect territories and do battle with evil spirits on behalf of God’s people!

The Gospels tell us that the story of Jesus is the story of God Himself coming in the flesh, born of a virgin, as Isaiah supernaturally saw. Jesus lived a sinless life, His every Word the words of God. Healing, casting out the demonic, commanding nature and even death, crucified as the sacrifice for all men, He was dead in the tomb, but on the third day, He was no longer dead, He arose. The very spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus, is poured into the person of every person who trusts and follows Him as LORD.

The supernatural does not end with Jesus, but continues with the Apostles who have visions, speak in tongues, heal and cast out demons and even raise the dead…(Luke 9, 10, Acts), supported and protected by angelic warriors, hampered and hindered by the demonic. It does not end with them, but has continued as Christians follow and proclaim Him, seeing what is unseen, healing and casting out demons as they go…

From cover to cover the supernatural realities of healing, and visions, and Satan, the demonic, the angelic, heaven and hell, are not peripheral issues, but the unseen landscape that, along with the natural world, is always unavoidably at hand in this book… which claims to be God’s Words to us, breathed through its various writers, by God the Spirit Himself. Colossians: 1:15-20 is our summary of God’s affirmation that there is an unseen reality that we must grasp to live realistically in this world.

Problem(s)

And yet… how do we grasp what we cannot grasp, and see what we cannot see?

Some do what Thomas Jefferson did. Jefferson created a version of the NT that removed any and all forms of the supernatural and miraculous, so we could have the real story.

Some of us do what Thomas the Apostle did, in the end of John’s Gospel, and demand to see the feet and hands. Remember, Jesus died and rose, in the flesh, in time and space, in part, to provide us empirical evidence for our faith. It wasn’t that Thomas did not have evidence for this supernatural Jesus, but how much evidence would be enough evidence?

Romans 1:18-23: The unseen God is seen in all He has made…again, unbelief dismisses this to grasp after reality independent of God, leaving the Supernatural One out of the equation.

Ps 115:1-8 says the same thing about our problem, just a little differently.

-  Our capacity to see and grasp reality is in direct proportion to our idols. If money, or control, or something I want is all that I can see, then… that is all that I will see. I can only see and hear as well as my naturalistic idol, or my financial idol can see. A $100 bill has eyes, but it is blind.

This is the OT reality, that Jesus Himself picks up and offers us in Matt 13:10-13.

What if we can see the unseen? What if we can grasp what we can’t grasp?

Do you check your temperature with a tape measure? What do you use? (Thermometer) And what might you use the tape measure for?

Do you see if your construction is level with a tablespoon?

No. What do you use? (level) And what might you use the spoon for?

So… maybe our eyes aren’t the right tool for seeing the unseen… and maybe our hands aren’t the right tool for grasping the supernatural…

We have explored and affirmed the reality of our inner world, our heart and soul… What are some tools to grasp what is going on in a person’s inner world? (a Journal, listen…). Will my journal be the right tool to know the barometric pressure today? No, we need the right tool.

What are the right tools to grasp the realities of our physical bodies and this material world? (Microscope, litmus paper, stethoscope, thermometer, and our senses!) Will a microscope help me get a handle on my soul?

So… How do we get ahold of what is real in the supernatural, non-material world? How can we see what we can’t see? What is the right tool to grasp what we can’t grasp? How do we get real, Spiritually?

Answer: Read Hebrews 11:1-12:2

I came to this wonderful passage not because it is one passage about how we see the unseen and grasp what can’t be grasped. But, because in this passage, God is reviewing and summing up what you will find when you turn anywhere in this book. Faith is the only tool we have to see what is unseen and grasp what we can’t grasp.

Please be very clear, that what the Bible means by faith, and what our culture means by faith are 2 different things. Our culture has faith in faith. For the world that rejects God as He is, as He has spoken, as He has shown himself to be in Jesus, for this world, faith is our hope in whatever we want or imagine or believe… and what the world thinks is so wonderful is that we have faith, and it is ours, and it is personal, and that makes it special.

As Hebrews will show again and again, the faith we are invited to… the faith that allows us to see the unseen and grasp the supernatural, is faith in all that God says. God promises Abraham a son. When Abraham finally trusts God’s promise, he sees this so clearly, he is not afraid to offer Isaac on the altar, because he sees what God is doing.

Faith always has an object. Our faith is in all God tells us, in His Word.

Imagine with me that in our gathering someone collapses in pain. We have one doctor on hand, but both his arms are broken. So, he tells me to get his doctor’s bag… he directs me to feel the body here… and feel there. Ok that pain and swelling mean this… and he says it is the appendix. Then he says we must operate right now! He directs me to inject medication he has in his bag in just the right spot. He guides me to make an incision… to clap, and sew… he guides me through what I do not know, handling things I cannot see…

This is faith. I do not know, and I can’t see the unseen anatomy inside people. But the Dr. knows, so faith takes him at his word, and allows him to guide me through this territory that is foreign and strange, but very real. I don’t know what the pain means… I don’t know where to make an incision… I don’t know how to handle this… but the Dr. does. So, I take him at his word, and handle what I can’t handle.

This is not faith in faith, but faith that takes God as He is, at His Word, and can therefore see what I cannot see and handle what I cannot handle.

This is what we do, in order to grasp the reality of the supernatural. We trust the One who created the seen and unseen, the author and perfector of our faith, Jesus. When you know and trust Jesus, you will see His movement, His work, His Gospel realities in this world. When you know and trust God’s Word and you will be able to grasp and evaluate the supernatural, the unseen realm, in light of what God sees, that we cannot. The Spirit of God, present in the person of every person who trusts Jesus is LORD, will orient us to and familiarize us with the supernatural, unseen realm.

But, do not chase and embrace ‘spirituality.’ So many people are lost to what they call spiritual, what they imagine is spiritual, and even to very real spirits that are not what they think. Even in the church, we make the same mistake with the spiritual that we do with our hearts, and bodies, and minds. We make the mistake of following and confusing our hearts and minds and bodies and the Spirit.

We say someone is spiritual if…

-  They are passionate and expressive (Inner world?)

-  Or they know Scripture and Doctrine (Reason?)

-  Or they feed the poor and serve the needy, and do holistic medicine (Physical?)

-  Or they have visions and tongues and seem… spiritual (spiritual?)

We say worship is real or ‘spiritual’…

-  if it is passionate, I can just feel it… (Inner world?)

-  or if it is reverential and doctrinal… (Reason?)

-  or if we are in certain positions… (Physical?)

-  or the Spirit moves… which I can feel… somehow?

I am not criticizing; I am just being honest about our confusion… We say that serious Christians

-  are passionate and sold out… (Inner world?)

-  Or… Know the Word (Reason?)

-  Or…Obey… feed the poor and needy (Physical?)

-  Or…Are Spirit-filled and have faith in faith for healing and miracles… (spiritual?)

The same thing happened in the New Testament, as the early church confused spirituality with heart and mind and body. Col 2:16-23 You will see all these ingredients confused, unless we entrust them all to Jesus in confession and repentance.

Just as we are learning not to follow our hearts, but to get real by leading our hearts to follow Jesus… Just as we are learning not to follow our bodies or naturalistic science, but get real by letting our bodies and concept of nature be ruled by Jesus…

In the same way, we see what is unseen and grasp what we cannot grasp only when we take Jesus at His Word about the supernatural, confess we have followed our fears and imaginations instead… repent by letting Jesus and the Word guide us in this supernatural life, and find ourselves restored…

Our Christian walk becomes a beautiful blending of heart, body, mind and the Spirit, all lead by Jesus and His Word.

Our Worship becomes a beautiful blend of heart, mind, body and the Spirit, all led by Jesus, by His Word.

Our calling to be restored from the brokenness of our sin and bring that restoration to others in evangelism, becomes a beautiful blending of body, mind, heart, and His Spirit, all for the glory of Jesus, our LORD.