The Lord Jesus said that His
words are spirit and they are truth. They are life. It's the spirit that makes alive. The flesh profits nothing. The words I speak unto you, they
are spirit. and they are life. I still remember reading this
verse and isn't it wonderful how we can read the scriptures
again and again and again and we can read them dozens of times
and we can know them off by heart and then all of a sudden it's
as if a light shines on it and it has a depth of meaning and
of power. Just amazing. And it shines a
light. It shines a light on the Lord
Jesus. And we see that that light not
only illuminates this part of scripture, but it shines lights
that sort of twinkle across so many other scriptures. And the
Word of God becomes more meaningful and more powerful. So it was
with me some years ago when I discovered this verse. I probably knew it
off my heart. And then all of a sudden I knew
it in my heart. What a beautiful, beautiful passage
of scripture. And so often we go quickly over
the scriptures. And so often in my position I
actually read the scriptures in a different sort of way and
I've got to stop myself doing it. I'm reading them in terms
of wanting to bring some message out of them, rather than reading
them just to delight in them. One of the things that I used
to encourage people to do is that it's so good to read the
scriptures and read big quantities of the scriptures, but it's so
precious to read them asking God to illuminate a part of them. And I used to encourage the kids
at school to read their Bibles until a phrase or a word grabbed
a hold of them. And then I said to them, then
stop. Stop and let that verse be a
verse that sinks in and becomes spirit and life to you. And it'll
be life from God. And such is this verse. It's
so good, isn't it? We could skip over it and read
it quickly. And I just want to concentrate
on four things, but the introduction to it is just amazing, isn't
it? He talks about the difference
between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of man. And the result of it is, verse
29, that no flesh should glory in his presence. Not in his presence
here in church. We don't boast about what men
do. No glory in His presence in this
world or in the world to come. And Paul has a wonderful way
of encouraging the saints. He does it consistently in all
of his letters and he encourages the saints by thanking God for
signs of God's grace amongst them. So that they get the encouragement
to look to God yet again. He says, I thank my God, verse
4, always on your behalf, for the grace which was given you,
which is given you by Jesus Christ. When that grace is given, there's
no need for any glory in the flesh. Paul added up all of his
extraordinary gifts and natural talents in Philippians, and then
he looked at them all, perfect righteousness under the law,
extraordinary zeal for God, extraordinary knowledge of the Bible, extraordinary
tradition and history that he had, and he said, all of it,
all of that is done. Manure is what he called it.
He had a treasure that made all of that seem like rubbish. But,
verse 30 begins, of Him, of course it's a reference to God the Father. But of Him, of God the Father,
are you in Christ Jesus? And that, those three words,
are the most common description of Christians in all of the New
Testament. If you check out a concordance
you'll see that it's in the scriptures I think 172 times and almost
100 of them are direct references to what it is to be a Christian. A Christian in the New Testament
is someone who is in Christ Jesus, who of God, This Christ Jesus,
who of God, is made. He's made unto us. He's made by God the Father. He's made in eternity to serve
this purpose. Made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. Let's just look briefly at these
four words, and let's remind ourselves as we look at each
of them, that of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who of God is
made unto us wisdom. You see, by nature as children
of Adam, as children in Adam, by nature and practice, We are
so lost and fallen in sin and corruption that we are not only
miserably blind, but we are completely ignorant of our state by nature. We are so utterly senseless of
our ruin that until the Lord Jesus, that Son of Righteousness,
arises in our souls, we have no idea of what we are. We have no idea of the state
we are in. We have no idea of the danger
that we are in. I was talking to Rob yesterday
about freediving. I had never realised that when
you go down freediving you get to seven and a half metres and
then you can actually sort of skydive underwater, so I believe. It's remarkable, isn't it? And
then you can actually sort of float out like they do when they're
gliding. But the remarkable thing is that
once you've been down there for a while, your brain gets so messed
and at the bottom of long freedives they actually have an oxygen
cylinder down there and there are these trachea. situations
where the person has been down there and they've got the oxygen
bottle there which will save their lives and you see these
incredibly experienced people fumbling around not knowing how
to turn on the oxygen. not knowing how to do it. I was
telling Rob about a guy who was a famous and experienced mountain
climber who was on Mount Everest and the base camp was in communication
with him and in his little tent up there on the mountain he had
an oxygen bottle and he desperately needed to take some oxygen so
that his brain would work properly and he couldn't get his brain,
his brain couldn't get his body to actually reach out and take
the oxygen bottle which was right there beside him and turn it
on and take a breath which would have given him sense and given
him life. And that experienced, knowledgeable
mountain climber died in that tent with the oxygen bottle there
right beside him. is the state of natural man. Such is the state of natural
man. He has absolutely no idea of
what a ruined state he's in. He has no idea of the holiness
of God. That's why this remarkable verse
begins with the fact that God's great and first blessing is to
make Christ Jesus unto us wisdom, to see who we are, to see what
we are, to see what we've earned and what we deserve. to make us see the Lord Jesus. It's only when we see Him do
we really know who we are. It's wisdom. You probably know
those verses in Proverbs 8. You can go and read them at your
leisure at home. Proverbs 8, in a sense, the Lord
Jesus describes himself as wisdom. And we know those verses, don't
we? I can quote some of them to you.
In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. I will direct their work in truth.
and I will make an everlasting covenant. I will instruct them
and teach them in the way they should go. I will guide them
with mine eye." And he tells us again and again, not to be
like the brute beasts, not to be as the horse or the mule that
have no understanding. I will bring the blind by a way
that they know not. I will lead them in paths that
they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them and crooked things straight. These things will I do to them
and not forsake them." wisdom and understanding, the
highest wisdom that we can have, the only true wisdom in all of
this world, is knowing Him. As Proverbs 8 says, I wisdom
dwell with prudence. in the Lord Jesus are hidden
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the Holy Spirit tells
us in Colossians. What a wonderful description.
In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Treasures. Wisdom is a great treasure. He gives wisdom and understanding. In fact, so often in the scriptures
we are left with verses that leave us in awe of the promises
of God and then ask, how is this fulfilled? In the next chapter
in Corinthians 2.16 it says, But we have the mind of Christ. Isn't that remarkable? You see
how it's come, isn't it? Verse 12. We have received not
the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. which things also we speak, not
in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit
teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receives
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. The wisdom that he's talking
about here is a spiritual understanding of who the Lord Jesus is and
what he has done and who we are and remarkably in the context
of the Corinthian letter, who these Corinthian saints are in
the Lord Jesus. You see, it's remarkable, isn't
it, that the Corinthian letter is written to a church which
in so many ways is in disarray. It's open, wicked sin, a man
sleeping with his father's wife. There is abuse of gifts, there
are divisions, and yet remarkably Paul begins this letter writing
to them in these most remarkable ways. And yet when he writes
to the Galatians, the Galatians are people who were zealous and
added to their zeal, law-keeping, just to show how much more zealous
they were to grow in holiness. And Paul writes to the Galatians
And he says he's in fear, in danger of them. He writes to
the Corinthians who are being sinful and they are abusing grace
and God is punishing them. In chapter 11, they are dying
because of their abuse of the Lord's table. And yet, and yet
he writes to them. He writes to them to encourage
them to hold on to what he first brought to them. to not abuse
the grace of God, but to live righteously. But the way He does
it is to show them again who the Lord Jesus is, to talk to
them about Him, that He is their wisdom. All of these other things
that are causing these divisions, seeing why is in the mind of
the person who's causing the problem. But it's not the wisdom
from God. He's made unto us wisdom. You see, we have no wisdom outside
of the Lord Jesus. It's nice to know, it's comforting
to know that the only real wisdom I have is Him. It's nice. It's comforting. It's a safe place to be. And when there is contention
and there are divisions around, it's really good to go back and
say, what is God saying? It's a good test of all things,
isn't it? In every situation, what is God
saying to me? by this situation right here
and now, and what does faithfulness to Him look like? What does love to Him look like? The reality is that the world
throws up before us situations where we just cannot explain
what is going on. We cannot answer the question
why, except if we go back to the foundation of where all this
comes from and where this springs from in the lives of God's people. See, you are children of God. You are in Christ Jesus and He
has been made to us wisdom. We will see in time His wisdom
displayed and it will be perfect wisdom. It will be glorious wisdom. It will be the wisdom of God. Wisdom in planning, wisdom in
execution, perfect wisdom in every footstep, perfect wisdom,
perfect love, perfect care from God in every painful and difficult
situation. God is wise. He is unbelievably wise. The next thing that it speaks
of is made unto us righteousness. And righteousness is primarily
a legal term. It's all very well to have wisdom. But before God, we walk. Righteousness refers to our deeds. God's righteousness. Jesus Christ
is the only righteousness that we have. It's the righteousness
of God. It is a gift to us. You know that verse well, but
it's good to think about it again, isn't it? 2 Corinthians 5.21,
for He has made Him to be sin for us. God has made His Son
to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God. The righteousness of God, brothers
and sisters, is the only righteousness that matters. the Jews in Romans
10 whom Paul loved, and he wrote those amazing chapters 9, 10
and 11 with tears in his eyes for his own countrymen. And he
says that they had a zeal, but not according to knowledge, for
being ignorant of God's righteousness. They would have been able to
quote scripture after scripture about righteousness. Righteousness
under the law, they are ignorant of God's righteousness. Isaiah 54, 17 speaks of God's
righteousness. He says to his people, their
righteousness is of me. Their righteousness isn't a law-keeping
righteousness. You see, they're ignorant of
God's righteousness and going about to establish their own
righteousness. That is a great and telling description
of so many people in this world, isn't it? You see, God's demands
for you are really simple, to be accepted. What does he say? It must be perfect to be accepted. God's demand is plain and clear
to every single one of us, isn't it? Walk before me and be thou
perfect. Be holy. And if people think that that
is something that they can do, rather than something that God
has given them in the Lord Jesus, multitudes, countless multitudes,
have gone to hell because they sought to establish their own
righteousness. They are ignorant of God's righteousness.
God's righteousness is simple, isn't it? It's absolutely perfect
righteousness. perfect righteousness. Holy righteousness
is the only righteousness that's accepted. And it's interesting
in Romans 10, it says that to have God's righteousness is a
humbling experience. You see, they have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. We have to lose our righteousness. The most dangerous thing that
we have, the dangerous possession that we all have, is self-righteousness. You take it away from someone
in any way or form and you will find how much they cling to it. There is none righteous, says
God, none, none. It's a very dangerous position.
There is a more dangerous position that you can have, and that's
a self-righteousness that's an exercised self-righteousness. So it actually looks righteous
in the eyes of the world. The most dangerous righteousness
in all of the world is a religious righteousness that's exercised. That's the righteousness that
Paul had. That's the righteousness that
he boasted in. That's the righteousness that
allowed him to stand before God's people, to kill them and to persecute
them. That sort of zeal, that sort
of religious zeal led these people to take our Lord Jesus and have
him crucified by deceit and malice. We were made sinners by the disobedience
of our Father Adam. We were made righteous Remarkably
righteous. We're made righteous by the perfect
obedience of the second Adam. It's a perfect righteousness,
this righteousness that comes from God. This righteousness
that Christ has made of God to be for us. It can never be lost. It can never be reduced. It can
never be improved upon. It can never be changed. He has made Him wisdom. He's made Him to be our righteousness. He's made Him to be our sanctification. Sanctification is just a word
that we use that can be interchanged with holiness. It really says
to be perfect, isn't it? So perfection requires perfect
obedience. Perfection requires perfect atonement
and satisfaction. Perfection requires a perfect
nature. God the Father has made Christ
unto us, sanctification. Like wisdom and righteousness,
It's altogether the work of God. Christ provides perfect obedience. That law of God that required
perfection or death is perfectly obeyed for all of God's people
by the Lord Jesus. He provided perfect atonement,
perfect satisfaction upon the cross. He became a curse for
us. And He fully obeyed and He fully
honoured God's holy law. And to have sanctification is
to have a perfect nature before God. spotless and blameless,
that you can walk into the presence of Almighty God in Heaven with a smile, with confidence,
and knowing His delight in you. See, it's Christ in you, the
hope of glory. Without holiness, No one shall
see the Lord without sanctification. No one shall see the Lord. Be
holy, for I am holy." It's this new man in you, isn't it, that
Ephesians 4.24 talks about. It's Christ in you, this new
man created in righteousness and true holiness. What a remarkable
word we have from God in 1 John 3. Just read it with me, brothers
and sisters. What a remarkable word from God. Little children, verse 7 of chapter
3. Little children, let no man deceive you. He that does righteousness
is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that commits sin is of the
devil, for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose
the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works
of the devil. Whosoever is born of God does
not commit sin. For his seed remaineth in him,
and he cannot sin, because he is born again. If you think that's a reference
to you not sinning, then Paul has a clear word for you in Romans
7. Sin is there with everything
we do, with everything we touch, with every thought. John is talking
about Christ in you. What a remarkable statement.
cannot sin, does not commit sin. That's the sanctification that
Christ has made for His people. No condemnation. No condemnation
for them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit. God has made him our wisdom,
for we have none of our own. He's made Him our righteousness. He's made Him to be our sanctification. And remarkably at the end it
says, He's made Him to be our redemption. And the word redemption
there is complete deliverance. Complete deliverance by the payment
of a ransom. A ransom paid, a ransom demanded
by God himself for the deliverance of them. All gods elect. us delivered from sin's entanglements. In Adam, we lost the way to God. In Adam, we lost the truth of
God. In Adam, we lost the life of
God. In Adam, we lost the knowledge
of the love and the grace of God. And it's only in Christ
Jesus that these things are restored to us. Complete deliverance. Perfect deliverance. A price
paid. What a price our Saviour paid. I remember when we were going
through Mark's Gospel I spent a week thinking about one verse
or one few words of a verse And I just couldn't get it out of
my mind for a whole week in Zechariah 13.7. God says, Awake our sword,
awake our sword of divine justice against my shepherd. And against
the man that is my fellow, the man, the man, who is my companion,
says the Lord of hosts. Awake, O sword, against this
one. And then it says, smite the shepherd. Slay the shepherd. awake our sword of divine justice
and slay the shepherd." What a remarkable thing the cross
of the Lord Jesus was from the point of view of the Trinity.
God says, it pleased the Lord to crush him, it says. but pleased
God the Father to crush him. He found sin on his son. And when the holiness of God
meets sin, God must rise up in punishment. No wonder Paul describes
his life in Galatians 2. I no longer live. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in
the flesh. I live by the faith, the faithfulness
of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." That's
grace, brothers and sisters. That is grace that redeems. That is grace that saves. It pleased the Lord to crush
him. And divine justice is perfectly
satisfied, perfectly satisfied with my Saviour's price, paid
for my sins. And Jeremiah 50, 20 says, they'll
be sought for and they won't be found. They are hidden behind
God's back. He remembers them no more. They
are gone, brothers and sisters, gone forever. Why squabble in
the Corinthian church when God has done this for you? Let's talk about the Lord Jesus
and what He did on the cross, and all of these other things
will have a perspective which will take away the hurts, which
will heal the divisions. Redeemed. God's children were
redeemed in eternity. The lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. God's works were finished from
the foundation of the world. Read about it in Romans 8, 28-30. We were redeemed at the cross
when the Lord Jesus died in our place. He's made of God unto
us redemption. We are redeemed and aware of
it at the new birth, delivered from death and delivered from
judgment when our hearts are sprinkled with the blood of the
Lord Jesus. And God the Holy Spirit cleanses
our consciences from guilt. But there is more. And it's interesting
that redemption, which you would think was at the start of this
list, is actually at the end. And he's not just talking about
the redemption of our souls, but he's talking as well about
the redemption of our bodies. That great day of redemption,
the redemption of the purchased possession, this day of redemption,
the redemption of our bodies. That great day when body, soul
and spirit, we will see Him as He is. Why? Because we will be
like Him. We have to be made to be like
Him. in resurrection glory to be able
to delight in the glory of the resurrected one. As one of our
friends said some years ago, he said, your gospel is too good
to be true. If your gospel isn't too good
to be true, then come and read 1 Corinthians and you'll find
a gospel that is true and it is really good. Good and glorious
news for sinners. Let faith's imagination delight
in the depths of the riches of the glories of God. We continually
hear the word but, but, but. It's the light in God before
the buts. According as it is written, he
that glorieth, he that has a high degree of confidence in someone
exceptionally noteworthy, let him glory in the Lord. God is faithful. The Lord Jesus has done it all. So that's the testimony of Christ,
the testimony of God. May God rise up us all who are
here, raise us up that we might preach Christ Jesus crucified. Let's pray.