If you want to mark 2 Corinthians
4, we're going to go there as well. Now each regenerated child of
God is holy by the work of God alone. When we've been regenerated,
we're holy by the work of God alone. God the Father sanctified
us, made us holy in divine election in Christ before the world began.
He didn't choose us because of anything in us. Christ the Lord
perfected us, sanctified us by His one offering on Calvary's
cross. He came and fulfilled the will
of God on behalf of His people. And the Spirit of God sanctifies
us when we are regenerated. He imparts a new Holy Spirit
within us when Christ is formed in us. when Christ is formed,
and Christ is the holiness of the new man. And the God of peace
shall sanctify you wholly, W-H-O-L-L-Y. He'll sanctify you
completely in body, soul, and spirit, in resurrection glory,
when He raises us to be with Him forever. In every way, in
every way, sanctification is of God. Sanctification is what
God does for us and in us. Sanctification is of the Lord.
It's not something we do for ourselves. It's not even something
we do for ourselves by the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification
is of God. We're holy by our triune God
alone, entirely by Him alone. by Christ who died for us and
dwells within us in spirit. A newborn child, when they're
conceived, they're a child from the moment they're conceived.
They're a human being, and they're not going to grow to be more
of a human being. They're going to grow in that
state of manhood in which they were conceived. Well, the child
of God, is holy by this new birth. When Christ, through the Spirit,
circumcises us in the heart, in the new man, we are holy.
We grow up from then on. We grow in the grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To whom be glory,
both now and forever. Amen. That's what Peter said.
We're going to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ, but God's going to get all the glory now and
forever. That's what Paul is saying down
there in verse 15. He tells us to be of the same
mind. If you've been matured by the
Spirit of God, grown in grace, he says, be of the same mind.
And he says this, and if in anything you be otherwise minded, you
don't have to condemn one another, you don't have to separate from
one another. Why? Because you've experienced the
power of God, you know God shall reveal even this unto you. It's all of God. Sanctification
is of the Lord, to His praise and His glory. And whatever you
need to have revealed to you, God will reveal it to you. But
God's saints do not become more holy. We grow up in the sanctified,
holy state of holiness which Christ has created us in, but
we're not growing more holy. Now that's important because
there is a different spirit created when God sanctifies a sinner
than that spirit that's in a sinner who boasts that he sanctified
himself or that he had some part in sanctifying himself. There's
two totally different spirits because the work is totally different. Most speak of sanctification
with a great deal of confidence in their own strength and their supposed progress.
But by creating a new Holy Spirit within his child, Christ makes
us, as Paul said in verse 3, he makes us worship in spirit,
rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. True
growth in grace, true growth in the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ is growth in all three of those areas. He's growing
us more and more to see our worship is in spirit, in the new spirit
he's given, a true heart, a sincere heart. He's making us rejoice
more in the Lord Jesus Christ when he grows us in the knowledge
of Christ. In the new spirit, Christ grows us to have less
confidence in this flesh, less confidence in ourselves altogether,
so that we count all things lost for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ and count them all but done. He gives us faith so
that our new will, our new will, our one desire is to be found
in Christ. Not having our own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the righteousness which is of God,
given to us through God-given faith. So our subject tonight
is a saint's new will. Paul expressed his will there.
I want to be found in Christ, not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through Christ's obedience.
This is a sinner's new will. Now, here's what I want you to
get for the message tonight. True growth in grace and in the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ makes us value Christ and all
that we have in Him above our own flesh, above all others in
this world, and above all worldly things. And we're growing to
value Christ and what he is and what he's done for us and what
he's doing. We're growing to value him more
and more. And the things of this world
and the things of our flesh, less and less. Less and less. He's gonna grow us more and more
to count them but dung that we may win Christ. Now here's how
the Lord does this, and this is what Paul wanted to know more
of. He gives us The new will, right
here, that Christ creates within his people, and he divides it
into three things. Paul says, by the power of our
Lord Jesus, verse 10, I want to know him. My will is that
I may know him. He said there, the second thing
is, in verse 10, I want to know the power of his resurrection. That's the power of his life.
The power of his life. It's his power, Christ's power.
the power of his resurrection. And then verse 10, he says, and
I will to know the fellowship of his sufferings being made
conformable unto his death, that by any means I might attain to
the resurrection of the dead. These are the three things that
are involved in this new will that Christ creates in us by
his power. I want to know him. I want to
know the power of his resurrection, and I want to know the fellowship
of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. Now let's look at each one of
these. First of all, when Christ sanctifies us, he creates a new
will to know more of him. Paul said that I might know him. By the power of God's grace and
by the Holy Spirit, Paul knew the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew
him, but he wanted to know him more. That's what knowing Christ
results in. When he's made you to know him,
you want to know him more. And I want you to notice here,
this is connected with faith. Paul later is going to talk about,
let us walk by the same rule. He's talking about the rule of
faith, looking to Christ and trusting Christ, our own selves
and trusting one another to Christ. And notice here, he says, he
connects this knowing Christ with faith. He said in verse
9, I want to be found in him, not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may
know him. You see, without faith, you can't
know him. The first thing the Spirit of God does is he persuades
us that we are the sinner. He persuades you and me that
we can by no means make ourselves just with God. We can by no means
make ourselves holy of anything we do. He makes you know that.
And he makes you to see by faith, through faith, he makes you to
know Christ and know that he's your only righteousness. That
Christ by his faithfulness justified his people. That's what he makes
you to know from the beginning. You see, Paul said in 1 Corinthians
1, he said, to you that are called, he said, the Jews seek after
a sign. They want to see some exterior
work to convince them they wanted to see that in Christ. And they
couldn't see Christ, they couldn't see his works because they weren't
regenerated. But they kept asking for a sign. And he said, there'll
be no sign given but the sign of the prophet Jonas, as he was
three days and three nights in the Beelzebub, so shall the Son
of Man be three days and three nights in the earth. Our Lord
Jesus Christ laid down His life. He's the sign. And the Greeks,
worldly men, seek after wisdom of this world, and to them the
Gospel's foolishness. But to you that are called, Christ
is the power of God, and He's the wisdom of God. And why did
God choose to save through this foolish means of preaching, through
what the world considers foolish by a cross and a man dying in
place of his people on the cross? Why do they consider this foolish?
Because God chose you and me who are foolish, weak, despised
things to save us and to use us to preach this gospel so that
he brings to nothing things that are. He works that in the hearts
of everybody he calls. When he called you, you thought
you were something, and he brought you to nothing. So that no flesh shall glory
in his presence. Now, if I have a part in making
myself just with God, or if I have a part in sanctifying myself,
I'm going to glory, and so will you. And he saves this way through
Christ, through the gospel, using no bodies to preach him, that
no flesh or glory in his presence. But of God are you in Christ. This is what he reveals through
faith. It was of God that you were in Christ from eternity.
It's of God that he called you into Christ. And Christ of God
is made unto us wisdom. That's when we have the mind
of Christ. That's when we begin to have the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ. When Christ has made wisdom in
us and he's made into us righteousness, he justified us and he's all
our righteousness with God. Paul said, that's who I want
to be found in that I have his righteousness alone. He's made
Christ into a sanctification. We know we didn't believe it
was by Christ being formed in us. and it was by what Christ
did for us on the cross, and it was by God sanctifying us
in Christ from eternity. He's sanctification to us, and
He's redemption unto us, so that now, through faith, we glory
only in the Lord. Well, brethren, the Spirit of
God is going to teach you more and more. He's going to grow
you in the grace of Christ, and in the knowledge of Christ, more
and more, how that Christ is your wisdom, He's your righteousness,
He's your sanctification and He's your redemption. And as
He grows you more in the knowledge of Christ, you're gonna put less
confidence in yourself, less confidence in your brethren's
flesh, and you know Christ has saved His people and is saving
us and shall save us. Your confidence is Christ, your
rejoicing is Christ, and when you know Him, you wanna know
more of Him. Paul said, I wanna know Him.
I want to know Him. Don't you? Don't you want to
know Him? That's why we preach Christ.
That's why we preach His works. It's because it's knowing the
person and works of our Redeemer by which the Spirit makes us
know more of Him. He's the strong meat and the
things He's doing and teaching us in this world. Secondly, Christ
is growing us in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. And
this is the will He gives us. He makes us experience the power
of His life and He makes you want to experience it more. He
said in verse 10, and I want to know the power of His resurrection. That's the power of His life.
The Spirit of God declares in Ephesians 1. He declares to us
that the same power that it took to raise Christ from the grave,
it took to regenerate you who believe. He said, Paul's prayer
to God was that you may know what is the exceeding greatness
of His power toward usward who believe. And it's according to
the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when
He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand
in heavenly places. The same power that it took to
raise Christ from the grave, it took to regenerate a dead
sinner and give us life. What is the succeeding greatness
of His power? Well, it's the succeeding greatness
of His sovereign power. Our sovereign Redeemer ruling
and reigning everything. What did Peter say on the day
of Pentecost? He said, He shed forth this which you now see
and hear. Christ ruled everything in this world and all everybody
in this world to bring the gospel to us, and He prayed the Father
and sent forth the Spirit unto us, and it was by His sovereign
power that He regenerated us and separated us and made us
know we're separated by Him, unto Him, in Him. And then it's
the exceeding greatness of the power of Christ being the Holy
Son of God, of Him being the life. He is the life. He's the priest of His people.
It's the power of His endless life by which we were born again. Paul said in Romans 1-4 that
He's the Son of David after the flesh, but He was declared the
Son of God with power according to the spirit of wholeness by
the resurrection from the dead. Christ said, he's God. He said,
I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it up
again. Christ is made a high priest,
not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power
of an endless life. What does that mean? God said
to him, you're a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
There's no beginning of days or end of days with Christ our
High Priest. An endless life. And it was that
power by which He was raised and it's that power by which
we were born again. His power. That's why He's the
power of God unto you. When you experience that Christ
is the power of God that regenerated you and gave you a new will and
made you want to walk after Him and deny ungodliness and do good
works and the things that He works in His people, then you
know something about the reason why you continue believing in
Him and why your brethren continue, because it's by His power alone.
It was the exceeding greatness of the power of satisfied justice. It was the exceeding greatness
Christ having come and honored the law and magnified it on behalf
of his people by laying down his life and God who's holy would
not pour out wrath on his son and then pour out wrath on one
for whom Christ died. You were born again because the
holy justice of God has been satisfied by the Lord Jesus and
demanded that you be born again. That's the power by which we
were born again. Knowing that Christ being raised from the
dead dieth no more, he conquered death. That's the power we're
talking about. Death has no more dominion over
him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that
he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, impute yourself also
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Now, as he grows us, and we're
learning more and more of Him, of His person and His work and
His power. We're learning more and more
that we're sanctified and we're kept by the faith of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The same faithfulness by which
we were redeemed and justified is the faithfulness by which
we're born again, and it's the faithfulness of Christ by which
we're being kept right now, separated unto Him. Christ said, the words
that I speak their spirit in their life. He said, it's the
spirit that quickeneth the flesh prophets nothing. Christ made
you experience that regeneration and hasn't he made you experience
that many times before? You come in here, you can't believe,
you come in here and you're dull of hearing, you come in here
and you're just so bombarded by the world and so encumbered,
but then you sit down and you start listening and the Lord
speaks into your heart and you begin to hear. And there's many
more examples of this in our lives that our Lord does. Paul
said, I am crucified with Christ. It was the faith of Christ by
which I made righteous. He said, nevertheless I live,
yet not I, Christ liveth in me. I can't even boast that I live
by myself and of myself. It's Christ living in me. The
life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faithfulness of
the Son of God. The same one who loved me and
gave himself for me and made me righteous lives in me and
he's my sanctification. He's made me holy and keeps me
sanctified unto him. It's his power. The same power
of Christ's life. that justified us will save us
to the end. Listen now, he said in Romans
8.10, he said, if when we were enemies we were reconciled to
God by the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled,
we shall be saved by what? His life. He, our Redeemer, liveth
and He is at the right hand of God and He's ruling everything
in heaven, earth and hell right now and He's doing it exactly
for you who are His, who purchased with His blood. And you're kept
by the power of God unto salvation. You're kept by Him. Now I want
you to turn to 2 Corinthians 4. How is He going to teach us
this and make us experience this power of His resurrection, this
power of His life? Well, it's going to be through
suffering. It's going to be through tribulation.
He left us in a body of death for this purpose. He left us
in a sinful world for this purpose. He left us in the midst of a
God-hating world for this purpose. But see, Christ is teaching us
that the same as it was the power of God and the power of Christ,
the power of His resurrection, that regenerated us and gave
us life and gave us knowledge of Him in the first place and
faith to believe Him in the first place, it's that same power that's
going to keep quickening our inward man and keep us walking
by faith looking only to the Lord Jesus Christ and doing what
we do from the motive of love from the heart. You know, you
take a slave, a slave, he'll be obedient to his master, And
he may be more obedient to the master than that master who's
a father. He may have a son and his son
may not be as obedient as the slave and may not be able to
do the things the slave can do. But there's a big difference
within them. That slave doing what he does because he has to
do it. That son's doing what he does because he loves the
father and he wants to please the father. And God looks on
the heart. And what I'm talking to you about
tonight is not just the outward, I'm talking about what God's
working in the heart to make you know Christ is the power
who's keeping you. Now look here, 2 Corinthians
4 and verse 6. He said, God who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge This is how Paul came to have the
excellency of this knowledge, the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God, not
of us. Paul's saying the same thing
here in 2 Corinthians 4 that he's saying in our text. I want
to know the power of his resurrection. How's he going to make you know
that you're kept by his power, his life, him living and abiding
and never forsaking you? How are you going to know that?
Here's how you're going to know it. Verse 8, we're troubled on
every side, yet not distressed. We're perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken.
We're cast down sometimes, but not destroyed. Always bearing
about in the body the dying of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now let
me tell you something this means right here. Paul suffered for
Christ's sake, but Paul is talking about something, including something
else in this. Our flesh is mortified, made
to die by our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the power that's going to
make your flesh die. And he said we experience this.
And he says that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest
in our body. Christ also going to make you
know it's him that's quickening you inwardly. Look here, for
we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. Yes,
Paul suffered for Christ's sake, for preaching Christ, but also
our flesh is mortified for the sake of Christ to keep us believing
Him and trusting Him and giving Him all the glory just as the
Father promised Christ He would have. Look here, and we're delivered
to death To keep us looking to Christ, it's for his sake that
the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal
flesh, that we might know that it's Christ, our resurrection,
who is quickening us within. So then death worketh in us,
but life in you. So, we having the same spirit
of faith. Now, who's he talking about here?
Well, all brethren have it, but right here he's looking back
to the Old Testament saints, and he's particularly looking
to the psalmist. He says, we have the same spirit
of faith as they did. According as it's written, I
believed, and therefore have I spoken. That's written. I'm
going to show you. That's written in the scripture.
He said, we also believe and therefore we speak. Knowing that
he which raised up the Lord Jesus, there's the power of his resurrection.
The same power that raised up by the Lord Jesus shall raise
us up also by Jesus. Now he's talking about in the
last day when he resurrects us, but not just that, he's talking
about right now when you're cast down. It's gonna be that same
power of Christ that's gonna raise you up. quickening you
inwardly. And in the last day, he'll present
us with you. Now I want you to hold your place
right here in 2 Corinthians 4. There in verse 13, Paul quotes
from Psalm 116.10. That psalm includes the verse
that we hear at funerals. I want you to look at Psalm 116.
This psalm includes a verse that we are very familiar with. We
hear it at funerals. It's the verse where The psalmist
writes, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his
saints. Paul quoted that, he quoted that. Now he's been talking
about a death that we die in our flesh as Christ quickens
us in spirit. That's what he's talking about
in 2 Corinthians 4. And he quoted this, where this
whole psalm right here is declaring the exact same thing Paul's declaring
in 2 Corinthians 4, and it's declaring the same thing Philippians
3 is declaring when it speaks of the power of His resurrection.
The death and the mortification of our flesh is by Christ. We're quickened inwardly by the
power of His life, by the power of His resurrection. That's how
we're quickened inwardly. The psalmist had experienced
that he had no strength in his flesh. Look here in verse 3,
Psalm 116.3, the sorrows of death come past me, pains of hell got
hold of me, I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the
name of the Lord, O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul. We come
into captivity of our sin nature that Paul spoke about. We don't
want to sin, and God's child doesn't run with the same crowd,
and God's brought us out of that. He's united us with our brethren,
and we want to walk in a way that's honoring to our Lord.
That's our desire, our will to do. And then you'll come into
captivity to your sin nature. Sometimes you just sinned and
you fail. Sometimes you started trying
to mortify your flesh and you begin to think, man, I've done
a good job. Look how far I've come. I've put away a lot of
things. I'm a whole lot better off now. And you've come into
captivity by that. It's just as sinful as if you
fell on your face like David did. Or we get surrounded by enemies
in this world or something and we get put into some painful
providence and we can't deliver ourselves out of it. And in a
little small way, we experience what Christ experienced when
the sorrows of death compassed Him on the cross and when the
sorrows of hell got hold of Him. And we experience that a little
bit. and we find trouble, and we find
sorrow. We try to deliver ourselves out
of it, but all we find is trouble, and all we find is sorrow. And
then the Spirit of the Lord turns you from you, and the Spirit
of the Lord brings you to cry out to the Lord, just like the
psalmist did. Then called I upon the name of
the Lord. O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver
my soul. And He does it. He does it. What has happened? The Lord is
showing you, brethren, that you can't mortify your flesh with
your flesh. He's going to use you bodily
to reject sin and to walk honorably before God, but you can't do
it of yourself. Because that's just flesh trying
to mortify flesh. That's like taking a dirty mop
and trying to clean a dirty floor. It's just going to be twice dirty.
But the Spirit of the Lord puts you in a place just like He put
the psalmist here so you realize, death is compassing me. I can't
find anything but trouble and sorrow. I can't get out of this
by anything I do. And then the Spirit quickens
you inwardly and makes you to call upon the Lord and He delivers
you. And He's to teach you that in
our flesh dwells no good thing. And our flesh dwells no good
thing. It's to keep no flesh glorying in His sight. He's not
going to let His people start glorying in how far we've come
and what we've done in sanctifying ourselves. He's going to keep
us glorying only in the Lord. The Spirit quickens us in the
inward man, the Spirit of Christ, Christ Jesus, the power and resurrection,
His life enters in and He quickens you inwardly in power and He
makes you know it and He sanctifies you from the danger to teach
you that it's by the power of Christ's resurrection. That's
when we praise and glorify God for our sanctification. Are you
with me? I hope I'm being simple. Look what the result was in the
psalmist in verse 1. He said, I love the Lord because
He heard my voice and my supplication, because He's inclined His ear
to me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live. He
said in verse 5, Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Oh, that's
when you've fallen, that's when you say you're saved by grace.
That's when you say that He's righteous. Because He justified
His child, He won't cast you away. That's true love. That's
commitment to you for Christ's sake. Look here. Yea, our God is merciful. The
Lord preserveth the simple. The simple are the single-minded.
They're those that are just dependent entirely upon Christ alone. I
was brought low, and he helped me return unto thy rest, O my
soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee, for thou
hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my
feet from falling." We experience all three of those, don't we?
Our soul is just dead, and our eyes are filled with tears, and
our feet are falling, and the Lord comes and delivers you from
it. Look back now to 2 Corinthians 4.15. Is that not what Paul is
saying here? He said we're distressed and
we're cast down, we're persecuted, verse 15, for all things are
for your sakes. The Lord's doing this just for
you. that the abundant grace, he said, oh, how bountiful your
grace is, Lord, the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving
of many, redound to the glory of God. God's bringing glory
to himself, Christ. He's bringing us to glorify Christ.
He said, for which cause we faint not. This is the only reason
we don't fall away and cease being sanctified and kept. Though
our outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by day. Same
message, Psalm 116, that's the death that's precious in God's
sight, the death of our flesh and the renewing of our new man
because then we're casting all our care on Christ only, looking
to Christ only, glorifying Christ only. We're like Paul who said,
oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body
of this death? I thank God through Christ Jesus
my Lord. So being grown like this in the
knowledge of Christ's power, His resurrection, by His power,
by His resurrection, we're grown more to worship God in the Spirit,
rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in ourselves,
in our flesh. We see the faithfulness of Christ
who justified us to also quicken us. And we can say with Paul,
I'm not only crucified with Him, I live by His faithfulness. Look
at Romans 8. This is exactly what Paul said
in Romans 8. I tried to preach this to you not long ago. Romans
8, 10. He said, if you try to mortify your flesh in minding
carnal things, touch not, taste not, handle not, you're going
to perish. But he said in verse 10, if Christ be in you, The
body's dead because of sin, but the Spirit's life because of
righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from
the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ from the
dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit to
dwell within you. That's the power of His resurrection.
Therefore, brethren, we're debtors not to the flesh to live after
the flesh. For if you live after the flesh,
you'll die. Be it living in sin and wallowing in sin and running
headlong into the world, or be it trying to justify ourselves
by our works or sanctify ourselves by our flesh, either one. He said, but if you through the
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. You
see, that's what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 4. We
die because the Lord puts us in these situations to mortify
our flesh. The psalmist said, I was brought
to a place where hell encompassed me about, death encompassed me
about. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't find anything but
sorrow and trouble. And then He brought me to cry
unto Him. And He delivered me. He quickened me. He brought me
out. And that's how, look, as many as are led by the Spirit
of God, you're led by the Spirit of God. It's the Spirit of Christ
leading you, child of God. You're the sons of God. And if
you've not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, you
receive the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
And we get in such predicaments like the psalmist was, we can't
even cry unto Him. But he says there in Romans 8,
but the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities. He brings you to
cry, Abba, Father. Why does he do all this? Same
reason, regeneration's all of the Lord. That's why sanctification's
all of the Lord. That you might know the exceeding
greatness of his power to us were to believe according to
the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when
he raised him from his dead and set him at his own right hand.
And Paul said, and it's Christ our head that filleth all in
all. He's the one working this. Now
lastly, through all of this, Christ makes us know, verse 10,
the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His
death. Now, when He brings you in the
fellowship of His sufferings, He makes you know we're partakers
of everything Christ is and everything He accomplished by His suffering.
Justification, Redemption, Regeneration, Sanctification, Preservation,
Resurrection, Glorification. As Paul said in Romans 8, we
have an eternal inheritance with Christ. We're joint heirs with
Christ, if so be we suffer with Him. So that's the fellowship
of His suffering. Everything He accomplished by
His suffering, we have freely given to us. But, He's going
to grow you in this knowledge of Christ, knowing you're saved
by the grace and power of Christ through these light afflictions
which we suffer. He brings you to suffer in this
world. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4
back over there in verse 17, he said, our light affliction
which but for a moment works for us a far more exceeding eternal
weight of glory. Why? It turns you from things
that are seen and makes you look at things that are not seen.
For the things that are not seen are eternal. They're seen only
by faith. He turns you to Christ above and makes you set your
affection on Christ by making you know He quickens you and
He made your flesh to be mortified by His Spirit. And so by this
Christ makes us conformable to His death. Now hang on right
here with me just for a minute. I'm just about finished. What
does that mean to be made conformable to His death? In the Garden of Gethsemane,
Our Savior fell on His face, and He prayed, saying, O my Father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me, nevertheless, not
as I will, but as Thou wilt. That was what Christ did at His
death. He said, Lord, Father, if it's
possible, let this cup pass from Me, nevertheless, not as I will,
but as You will. In Psalm 116, having suffered,
and having been shown that he was delivered by the Lord, having
been shown it's the Lord that quickened him, and the Lord by
His Spirit that made him regard his flesh as dead. The psalmist
said in Psalm 116.13, he said, I will take the cup of salvation. Christ's cross was our salvation. That's the cup He drank from.
And these sufferings, these light afflictions you and me go through,
that's the cup of salvation God's given to you. And He makes you
pray, Lord, let this cup pass from me. When you're suffering
and you're weeping and you can't deliver yourself and it's painful,
You pray, Lord, let this cup pass for me. But being made conformable
to his death, he's being brought to say, nevertheless, not as
I will, but as thou will. And what do you do instead? He
said, I'll take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the
Lord. That's being made conformable
to Christ. That's what Christ did at his death. makes you submit to His will
in your suffering, makes you submit to His will in His word,
in His gospel, makes you submit to His will in all His exhortations,
to trust the name of the Lord and call upon Him. Christ said,
I gave my back to the smiters, to them that plucked off the
hair. Why? He said, for the Lord God will help me. I won't be
confounded. I won't be ashamed. He's near
that justifies me." And he brings you to say the same thing. Paul
said he's working, at the end of Romans 8, he's still talking
about the same subject of when you suffer. He said, you know
God's working all these things together for you. It's the cup
of salvation that God's given to you. Trouble? Yes, trouble. What do we do? We submit to the
Lord, we bow to the Lord, we trust the Lord's will to save
me and quicken me and mortify my flesh and to do the same for
my brethren. Yes, you will be affected by
it. He will make you put away your sin. He'll make you walk
after him, but he'll do it in such a way that you know you
didn't do it. You won't boast in you doing it. You'll know
he did it. And when you're in that situation,
you'll take that cup, and if all hell has compassioned you
about, you'll take that cup, and you'll know this, Paul said,
if God be for us, who can be against us? He that delivered
up His, spared not His Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
how shall He not with Him freely give us all things? Who's going
to condemn us? It's God that justifies. That's
what Christ said at His death. I'll give my back to the smiters,
I'll give my face to them plucked off their hair, because He's
near that justifies me. And He brings you to know that
though you're a lamb counted as sheep for the slaughter, you're
more than conquerors through Christ that loved us. And He
persuades you that nothing shall be able to separate you from
the love of God in Christ. That's true sanctification, brethren.
You take the cup. Why? Why? Because you know if
our earthly house is dissolved, we have a heavenly house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. And so you take the
cup being conformable unto his death, even if it means suffering
unto death, Paul said, if by any means I might attain to the
resurrection of the dead. I'm willing to die. Trust in
Christ will raise me. You let the world have this haughty,
arrogant thing they call progressive sanctification. That right there
is progress. to be brought to a place where
you're willing to take whatever cup of suffering God puts in
your hand and submit to His will knowing He's my wisdom, He's
my righteousness, He's my sanctification, He's my redemption. I want to
know. I want to know Him. I want to
know the power of Christ Jesus, my resurrection. I want to know
the fellowship of His suffering. I want to be made to submit to
His will and just trust Him to save me. That's true sanctification. desire to be found in Him alone,
having His righteousness alone. I pray God bless that. Amen.