Best Seat In The House

So, any time we go to a concert, a play, a sporting event, or even to church, it always is a good feeling to be in ‘the best seat in the house.’ My son and I recently paid for the privilege at a baseball game in Detroit to see the Tigers get beat by the L.A. Dodgers. Not to worry, the Tigers beat them two nights later. Still, when we got to the game we were pleased by the seats that we’d gotten. But then we looked around and noticed that there were even better seats that could’ve been purchased. This was an academic exercise as those seats cost a LOT more than I paid, or would want to. I’m not sure where it is, but there is probably some theoretically “best” seat in Comerica Park in Detroit. The exercise strikes us as very silly because – come on! – we were able to watch baseball that night: ANY seat in the park was a good seat to be in.

I’m not sure if there is a Best Seat in all of creation, but there is a place where – seems to me – we want to be and it is God who can put us there.

In Ephesians, I read that God saved us …

and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:6-7 ESV)

So, if you’ve been following along with my scripture meditation exercise, in this text there certainly is an easy opportunity to sense God’s presence: That God has seated me in Christ in the heavenlies.

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But the significant moment in the text came for me with the notion that God is ‘showing us off’ as markers of his grace and work. God, in the future, will be using us as evidence of his richness, grace, and kindness. In that, and other senses, God is ‘proud’ of us; he will be pointing to us showing us as kinds of trophies. Even more as we enter into our eternal state doing the work that he will have for us during that age. In this text, seems to me that God is wishing to encourage us as we walk the purposes he has for us, guided by the Spirit.