5.3 Working with God
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Let me define pro-thesis, referring back to Chapter 3: Conformed to His Image in Symmorphy I: Purpose. God’s pro-thesis is His set-forth purpose written as a proposal from the beginning so that everyone inside the processes of creation will know the end result. The end result proves out the proposal of the pro-thesis.
God’s pro-thesis is the Covenant God enters into with man, including the reasons why God wants a Body, and thus it will also be the state of creation once the Covenant is fulfilled. Here is an extraordinary thing to consider. God never wanted the original creation as it was, for what God brought forth by Himself was incomplete. God wants only the New Creation.
God No Longer Alone. Thus we might conclude that God resting from all His works was not God no longer working, but God no longer working BY HIMSELF! It is not good that man should be alone is the most telling line in Scripture. God was speaking of Himself. God does not want to live or work alone.
In this lesson, however, we want to return to the Lord Jesus as the energeia of God, energeoing, that is, working in us and out from us towards one another. Energeia is inward, that is, covenant; dunamos, or power, is outward, that is, kingdom. The word translated “miracles” is actually a cognate of dunamos, the expressions of power.
Romans 8:28. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28 as it is typically and poorly translated).
| Transliteration | English | Root Form | Phonetic |
| Oidamen de hoti | We know moreover that | Eido | i’-do |
| tois agapōsin Theon | those loving God | agapao Theos | ag-ap-ah’-o theh’os |
| panta synergei | all things work together | pas synergeo | pas soon-erg-eh’-o |
| Theos eis agathon | God for good | eis agathos | ice ag-ath-os’ |
| tois kata prothesin | the according to purpose | kata prothesis | kat-ah’ proth’-es-is |
| klētois ousin | being called | eimi kletos | i-mee’ klay-tos’ |
The question is, of course, the meaning of syn, “together.” Is it God and us together or is it God doing something on His own without relevance to us. My own answer is clear and fixed.
Working Together. In other words, is this the one time that Paul uses syn/sym in a way that does not join us together with the Lord Jesus Christ? No it is not! In fact, everywhere else this word is used in the New Testament, it means two entities working together.
Now, I am amazed at how many Greek words are used in the New Testament to speak of work and working, and most of the time, those words are found inside the Covenant verses. We saw, in Symmorphy II: Essence, that in Genesis 2, prior to Adam’s rebellion, God gives us three pictures of His pro-thesis, His desire to work together with man inside the creation. Let’s look more closely at the most important present application of this synergy, this energeia working in us.
Energeoing in Us. First, look down at your chest. Include your entire physical body in your mind’s eye. Include as well your entire soul, all your thinking, all your feeling, all your choosing. Include also your entire spirit, filling and energizing your body, causing your soul, your human person to exist. Include all the words of your own story and all the actions of your work. In short, picture yourself, your entire being.
Now, picture, all through all that you are, another Person, a Person functioning in every part of you in this specific way. His energeia (Jesus) which energeoes in me mightily – God energeoes all in all – He who energeoes power IN you – according to the power (Jesus) energeoing in us – God who energeoes in you both to will and to energeo.
Synergy. I do believe that you and I, in all our parts, are plumb full of God energeoing away in us.
Then this: The exceeding greatness of His power penetrating with purpose into us who believe, down to the finest details of the energeia of the dominion of His ability to subdue (Ephesians 1:19-20). And again this: In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being pro-determined according to the pro-thesis of Him who energeoes all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11).
But this is not God independent of us; this is synergy, God working together with us. God never leaves us out of His picture nor ever imposes His own work upon us.
Give Thanks. Now, let’s consider the continual expansion of “give thanks” that we are discovering in this walk with God. First, “give thanks” was an act of yielding to God, of justifying God in every situation. Giving thanks was, for us over many years, the signifier of our placing the entirety of our lives into the hands of God, even in the most difficult of situations.
Then we discovered in Symmorphy I: Purpose that “give thanks” really is eucharist, which means “speak good grace.” And so we learned that our part of working together with God, turning all things towards and into goodness, is to speak good grace, to speak forth the working, the energeia of God into each situation, turning even the bad towards goodness.
A More Powerful Level. Now God is taking this working together with Him to a greater and more powerful level.
I just wrecked my wife’s new car, the one I was planning to drive to Canada for my daughter’s wedding, not severely, but the whole front corner is caved in. Now I am plunged into the process of which insurance company, including Uber, is going to pay for it, a process I abhor. And hanging over that is how long is it going to take? I am devastated. Though the hit was not enough for any physical problem, I was shaken emotionally – and still am.
Now, lets place, right in the middle of me, right in the middle of this horrendous situation – ENERGEIA-SYNERGY.
Enthusiasm. But let’s add another word – enthusiasm. You see, enthusiasm is a non-Biblical Greek word coming into English, from en, meaning in, and Theos meaning God.
Enthusiasm means to be filled with God, to be filled with all the excitement of God.
Let’s also add another condition. Faith energeoing through love has power (Galatians 5:6). – Those who love God.
By faith energeoing through love, I speak the grace and goodness of God into this difficult situation, expecting with all ENTHUSIASM that God and I together are working it, together energeoing it towards incredible goodness and blessing.
To Comfort Others. Let’s take this action of Father and I working together and direct it more specifically; that is: “Father, what say Wwe together turn this difficulty towards a very specific end result.” Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God (1 Corinthians 1:3-4).
Let me expand on this reality by inserting a piece from my book, Kingdom Rising, Chapter 7: The Mystery of the Holy. I am referring to my own contention with Almighty God over many years.
from The Mystery of the Holy
Let me take you to a dark room in the back of a rough log cabin in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, to a 20-year-old boy on his knees beside his simple cot, in pain and agony of soul, in confusion, in shame, tears streaming down his face, in the loneliness of the night watches far from home, desiring to know the living God with all his heart. Allow me to draw back the veil, if you would, and show you a most holy thing.There, inside this autistic, naïve, overly-sensitive boy, to whom most everything in life hurts, bringing confusion and endless misunderstanding, lives a daring, audacious, presumptuous HOPE. He cannot put it into words; he cannot explain it if you asked. But he knows it.
He bears inside his heart the incredible presumption that all this pain, all this confusion, all these tears possess a PURPOSE. That through them, Christ Jesus is reconciling the world to Himself. He bears in his heart the audacious belief that someday, somewhere, somehow, someone will break out of darkness and into light, someone will be spared the pain, someone will escape the confusion BECAUSE OF his tears and BECAUSE OF his hurt.
No, he does not see it, or how it could even be so. Yet he hopes, and HOPE is that which is not seen.
What he wants to know… is that the Lord Jesus is IN his hurt and IN his affliction, that it is indeed holy and filled with great purpose. He wants it confirmed to him that Christ is indeed living as him in this world. He must know that the whisper inside, "Your difficulties are Me and I am in you, redeeming others to Myself," is truly founded in the gospel.
When he knows with all certainty the extent to which Christ Jesus reveals Himself in, as, and through his affliction, then, and only then, will healing be acceptable to him.”
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This is a significant part of my contention with God over many years and through many dark and lonely paths. That God would use all of my trouble to work life and hope and joy inside of you who are now reading these letters, and many more and far beyond as well.
Energeia from Me to You. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, energeoing (into) you in the endurance of the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation (2 Corinthians 1:5-6).
Yet this profound quality of energeia, of my synergy with God, is not limited to passing from me to you. Rather, it is the function of the entire Body of Christ together. You also impart great hope and strength, comfort and joy to me in all things through your own expectation of faith and your own engaging with God in this precious word of Christ our life He is giving to us.
Energeia from One to Another. Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective energeia by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:16).
Right now, our primary work together with God is not to “save the lost,” although leading precious dear ones into the knowledge of their Savior is a vital work. But our primary work together is this passing of energeia from one to another, this operation of a fully-functioning body dependent on the full supply from each one of its members.
This is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
My Real Magnum Opus. Here, then, is Oour magnum opus, Oour great work, Father and I, over the next few years. For what is Oour hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ inside His presence? For you are Oour glory and joy (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20).
And what is it that turns even my foolish action of ruining my wife’s beautiful new car into your comfort and strength? My faith working together with the Enthusiasm of God in me, Oour faith together extending towards you through Oour love.
And this, I contend, is the heart of the very thing God wrote down in His proposal, His thesis statement, from the beginning.
Called. Tois kata prothesin klētois ousin. – Being called according to His purpose. – Being called down to the finest specific details of His Pro-Thesis.
We are speaking of Covenant. And here we are looking at the first part of Covenant in action. When I say “first part,” I don’t mean our steps into a Covenant with God, but rather the origin in us out from which all parts of this Covenant flow actively, that is, energeo in us. We have looked at some of the key specific details inside God’s original proposal, God’s thesis statement, the Word coming forth from God creating and sustaining all things. But the entrance of Covenant is this word, called.
God’s Purpose. Those whom He has called. – Being called. – And he calls his own sheep by name (John 10:3).
The Pro-Thesis of God is the Lord Jesus as the Word God spoke from the beginning, a Word containing in Himself all things that God desires in the end. That Word is the full and explicit Covenant; the Covenant is God’s Pro-Thesis, His thesis statement. And the entrance into Covenant with God comes by being called. We are called down to all the exact and specific details of that Covenant.
God’s purpose through the Covenant is to enter Himself into His creation as part of the creation, that He might be seen and known by all.