Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter
1. This is what I, best I can recall,
this is one of the first passages I remember being able to understand
when the Lord began to reveal Christ in me. 1 Corinthians 1
verses 29 through 31. This is why The Lord say through the preaching
of Christ and him crucified. Verse 29, that no flesh should
glory in his presence. But of him are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption. That according as it is written,
he that glorieth Let him glory in the Lord. He begins here and
he says, No flesh shall glory in God's presence. What does
it mean to glory? It means to boast. It means to
brag. No flesh is going to boast and
brag about anything that we've done in God's presence. Not one. He said, I am the Lord. That
is my name and my glory will I not share with another. Neither
give my praise to graven images. That's the offense of the cross.
The offense of the cross is that God gets all the glory and salvation
beginning to end. Works, no matter what name it
goes by. You take all the religions in
the world and all the different divisions within each religion,
and it all works if it gives man just one thing to do. That's
what works is. And the only other religion is
true religion, which is the religion of grace. That declares God does
the saving beginning to end. No flesh shall glory in His presence. And if it's grace, then it's
no more works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
If it's works, it's no more grace. Otherwise, works are no more
works. Everybody sitting here today You're either going to
be found trusting in your works and grace won't even enter the
picture. Or you're going to be saved by grace and works don't
enter the picture. One or the other. One or the
other. So how's a sinner made willing
to stop boasting in himself in glory in the Lord? He says, of
God, are you in Christ Jesus? In eternity, God the Father chose
whom He would in Christ And that's how we're in Christ. Of God are
you in Christ Jesus. And then in time it says who
of God is made unto us. It's God that reveals Christ
in us. He's made unto us. Now what he's
going to say here is salvation. And this is what I want us to
focus on this morning. Everything that he's going to
list here that Christ has made unto us, this is salvation. If you have Christ made these
things unto you, you've been saved. This is salvation. This
is what we have to have to be accepted of God. We're going
to look at these four things. He's made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. I realize I have That's a lot. But I'm going to try to be simple.
I'm going to try to be very, very simple. First of all, wisdom. Of God is Christ made unto us
wisdom. We have some young people here,
and you're going to be starting college very soon. You get an
education in college, but you're not going to get wisdom in college.
You get an education, but you're not going to get wisdom. Christ
is wisdom. And get what it says here, Christ
is wisdom. And of God is Christ made unto
us wisdom. When He makes Christ wisdom to
us, that's when we have the mind of the Lord. We have the mind
of Christ. I want you to look over at 1
Corinthians 2, look at verse 16. It says, Who hath known the
mind of the Lord that Christ may instruct him? But we have
the mind of Christ. What does he mean by that? We
have the mind of Christ. Look back up there, 1 Corinthians
2, and look at verse 11. He said, What man knoweth the
things of a man? What man knows the mind of a
man, save the spirit of that man which is in him? Even so,
the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now,
we have received, we've been given, 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. That's what it
is when Christ has made wisdom to you. You start hearing Christ. Christ makes His mind known to
you. He's the revealer, He's the Word, and He makes God known
to you. And it says here, Which things
also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but
which the Holy Ghost teaches." We're using the Word of God.
We're comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. What God
said here, what He says here, what He says here. We're not
trying to take the fence out and preach it in such a way to
try to make you believe something or make you do something. We're
just declaring what God says. But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. But he that spiritual judgeth, he discerneth. He got
spiritual understanding. He discerneth all things. John
said, you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all
things. We know all things that are freely given to us. You know
all when you know Christ is all. And he said, That's what he means
here when he says, who's known the mind of the Lord? Christ
has given us His mind and He's instructing us. And now we know,
we know. What did John say? We know the
Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we might
know Him that is true and we're in Him that's true. This is the
true God and eternal life. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
young people, you go to school, you go to college and get your
education, but don't let education get you. This is what Jeremiah
said, Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his
wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory
in his might. Let not the rich man glory in
his riches. Let him that glorieth glory in this. This is what the
Lord said. Let him glory in this, that he
understandeth and knoweth me. that I am the Lord, which I exercise
lovingkindness and judgment and righteousness in the earth. For
in these things I delight, saith the Lord." Now, here's the second
thing. This is where it began. Christ's got to be made wisdom
to it. We have to be made to sit down and hear Christ speak
and learn from Him. Secondly, of God is Christ made
unto us righteousness. Some preach righteousness as
a doctrine. You know, you gotta believe this
about righteousness and that about righteousness. What does
this text say right here? It says Christ is righteousness.
He's righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ is righteousness. Look over at Romans 10 in verse
3. Romans 10 verse 3. See, what we're doing right here,
we're comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. Now here
in Romans 10, I want you to see what He said. In verse 3, he's
talking about the Pharisees. He said, they being ignorant
of God's righteousness. Look at that now. Ignorant of
God's righteousness. Going about to establish their
own righteousness, have not submitted unto the righteousness of God. And he's going to tell us what
the righteousness of God is. He says, for Christ is. Christ is. Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness. He's the righteousness of God.
Look with me over at Romans 5. Romans chapter 5. To be righteous
is to be perfect before the law of God. Perfect before the law
of God. It's to be as righteous as God
is righteous. That's what it is to be righteous.
How are sinners made righteous? Look here in Romans 5.19. As
by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners." Now let me
ask you a question. When Adam sinned in the garden,
and then you're born the first time, did God give you the possibility
to be made a sinner if you'd just be a sinner? No, He made
you a sinner, didn't He? You were made a sinner by somebody
else, what they did. By their breaking the law and
by you being born of them, you made us in it. How we made righteous. So by the obedience of one, shall
many be made righteous. Christ didn't give us a chance
to be righteous. By His obedience, He made His
people righteous. Romans 3, I want you to go back
there one more place. Romans 3. We know, verse 19, we know what
things wherever the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law. Now listen, if somebody is protesting and saying they want
to be under the law, the law only speaks to those who are
under the law. You don't want to be under the law. Because
those that are under the law, this is what the law says, that
every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty before
God. Therefore by the deeds of the
law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law
is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested. Being witnessed by the law and
the prophets is by the faith of Jesus Christ. It's by His
obedience, by His faithfulness, and His righteousness is unto
all and upon them that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
it has to be this way. Justification has to be through
faith only, for there's no difference for all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. Look down at verse 26. In Christ,
by what He did, He manifests the righteousness of God. He
showed in Romans 3, 26, Christ declared God's righteousness,
that God might be just and the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus. That's what we see on the cross.
We all sin. All God's elect sinned and could
not bring forth the righteousness, can't bring forth the righteousness.
We had to die because God's just. Well, in Christ we died. God's
just. And God justified us in Christ. We're justified in Christ. One
time somebody came to the Lord and they said, Master, what's
the great commandment in the law? Two tables in the ten laws. There's two tables. There's a
whole lot more laws than just ten. But there's two tables. And our Lord said, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And He said, the second is like it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets. And somebody will start bragging
that, well, I've done that. Let me tell you what it takes
to do that. Let me tell you the only one that ever did that. The Lord Jesus Christ loved God
the Father and He loved His elect perfectly. And you know how He
did it? by being made sin for us and
bearing the curse for us that he might declare God just and
the justifier and might justify all his people and make us the
righteousness of God in him. That's the perfect righteous
love of the law. Nobody ever fulfilled that but
him. That's why he's called the righteousness of God. He's the
only one that ever did it. And I pray, I pray the Lord would
help you get this. I want you to get this and don't
let anybody rob you of this. When He gives us faith to believe
Christ, God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us. And let me tell
you something, the reason He imputes righteousness to you
is because Christ made us righteous by His obedience. He's imputing
to you what you've been made by the Lord Jesus Christ. Why
won't He impute? He said He will not impute sin
to us. Why not? before the law, before God in
Christ, you don't have any sin to impute. Christ put it away. What I'm saying to you is God
imputes what you've been made by Christ. That's right now. There was a heresy that had begun
back in the early church right after Christ rose from the dead
called Gnosticism. And a Gnostic said that They
said that because all sinners are flesh, the Son of God could
not have been made flesh or he'd have been a sinner. So they said
it was as if he was made flesh. That's exactly what John was
dealing with in his epistle when he said, if any man say that
Jesus Christ is not coming to flesh, He's not of God. He's
Antichrist. They said he couldn't have come
into flesh. It was as if he came into flesh. It was as if he was
made under the law. It was as if he was made sin.
It was as if he was made a curse. And it's as if you're made righteous.
That is not what the Word of God says. The Word of God says
it behooved him and all things to be made like unto his brethren. He was made flesh. He was made
under the law. He was made sin for us who knew
no sin. He was made a curse for us. Now
He's made higher than the heavens, and you for whom He died have
been made the righteousness of God in Him. So you rejoice. That's the good
news. And this is how Paul presented
it to her. He said, In that he died, he died unto sin once. And in that he liveth, he liveth
unto God. Likewise, reckon, impute ye yourself
also to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. It's done. When Christ said it's finished,
that's what he meant. It's finished. All right, here's
the next thing in our text. But we come into this world dead
in sin. We come into this world dead
in sin. Well, Scripture says, of God
is Christ made unto us sanctification. Now, here's where there's a whole
lot of confusion. People want to say sanctification
is by your work. Some brands of religion say sanctification
is partly by Christ and partly by you. It's a co-effort between
you and Him. It's a synergistic thing that
takes place between you and God. What does the Scripture say? Of God is Christ made unto you
sanctification. In other places, that same word
sanctification is translated holiness. Same thing. Of God
is Christ made holiness unto us. What is sanctification? It is to be set apart, separated,
and made holy. Christ is made unto us sanctification. He is holiness. Holiness is in
Christ and by Christ. In eternity, God the Father sanctified
us when He chose His people in Christ. Everything's in Christ. Now watch this. He sanctified
us when He chose us in Christ and He declared us holy. You
remember whenever the Lord gave the pattern for the tabernacle
and He said, He told them these certain vessels, He said, you're
going to set them apart and they're holy. They're for my use. That's
what God did for us in eternity. He set His people apart in Christ
and said, now these are mine. They're sanctified. They're set
apart in Christ. And it says in Ephesians 1-4,
according as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him
in love. Before He made a grain of sand, we was holy in Christ,
separated, sanctified in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the
Lord Jesus came and He sanctified all those God the Father trusted
to Him. He sanctified us by His will
and by His Word. Hebrews 10, 9 says, Christ said,
Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. We couldn't do it. Not in the
perfect righteousness and holiness God required. We couldn't. He
said, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. And then He says, the
which will, we are sanctified by that one offering Christ made.
For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."
Don't you love that? Perfected forever? I guarantee
you, as much as we delight in it and as good as it sounds,
we ain't entered into the half of what that means. Complete
in Christ. And then in the new birth, a
new holy man is created within us in the image of Christ our
holiness when Christ is formed in us. And Christ is the holiness
of the new man. You know, when you were conceived
of Adam's corrupt seed, you didn't have to do anything to be a sinner. You were conceived in sin. By
conception, you were a sinner. When you're born again of the
incorruptible seed, when Christ is formed, you don't have to
do anything to be made holy. That new man's holy. He's holy. And he's one with
Christ. That's why the new man's holy.
He that's joined unto the Lord is one spirit. It says, both
he that sanctifies us and they who are sanctified for all of
one, for which cause He's not ashamed to call them brethren."
Our Lord is not ashamed to own us as His brethren because He
made us holy. Colossians 3.10 says, you've
put on the new man, now listen to this, you've put on the new
man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Christ that
created him. And there's neither Greek nor
Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond or
free. See, those are all the things that when we were just
in our flesh, those are the things we used to try to exalt ourselves
over others, sanctify ourselves and say we were better than somebody
else. But now in the new man we know, it's not whether you're
a Jew or a Greek that made the difference, it's not whether
you're Circumcision or uncircumcision, it's not whether you're barbarian,
sentient, bond or free. It's nothing in the flesh. It's
nothing you and I have done. Now in the new man, Christ is
all. And you know He's in all those
that have been born of Him. So for the first time, when you're
sanctified, I mean when you've experienced this by Him, by this
new birth, when you're sanctified, you know what you are separated
from? You're separated from that vain notion that you sanctified
yourself. You're sanctified from this false
doctrine of trying to do a co-work with God to make yourself holy.
You're separated from that, and you see Christ as my holiness. And for the first time, because
He makes you see what you are, you put on, therefore, as the
elect of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercy, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, long-suffering. You start forbearing one another.
You start forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, why do you do that? Even as Christ forgave you. And above all these, you put
on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And the peace
of God starts rolling in your heart. And you know you're one
body with your brethren and in all of this you're thankful to
God. Now old things are passed away
and all things become new. For the first time you start
living to God. To God our Father and to His
Son the Lord Jesus. For the first time. You begin
living to Him and you love what He loves and you hate what He
hates. You hate the sin of our old man and you love God less.
You know, by Christ being made our holiness, by Him being formed
in us, that's the first time that we realize what Paul said
in Romans 7, I know that in me, that is, in my flesh dwells no
good thing. That's the first time you know
that. The Holy Spirit keeps turning
us inwardly to Christ above to remember we're complete in Him. And that's how the Spirit makes
you mortify this sinful flesh. And I'll tell you something now.
I know that everybody's so worried about immoral sin. Well, God's
people aren't wanting to commit immoral sin. But I tell you what,
we've got to have our flesh mortified concerning more than anything
else is that old self-righteous desire to have something to glory
in. That's our That's our biggest
problem. And that's what He keeps turning
you to Christ to know. He's all. And that's the way
this old, proud, self-righteous, self-sanctified man put down.
You know, He said in Hebrews 12, Run the race that is set
before you. He set the race. He puts you
in the race. He set the race. Every valley,
He set it. Every mountaintop, He set it.
The curves, He said it. It's all set by Him. And you're
running this race looking to the Lord Jesus who is the author
and finisher of our faith. And start talking about Him chastening
us. The Holy Father would chasten
us. Remember what it is. After it says you're looking
to Christ running this race, here's why He chastens us. We
turn to the left and we turn to the right. And He corrects
us. He said He does it for our profit.
to keep us partaking of His holiness. We don't have any of our own,
and it's not by our works that we're holy. He's our holiness,
and He's gonna keep His sanctified child partaking of His holiness.
He's gonna keep you knowing He's your holiness. He's your sanctification. All right, lastly. I'm doing a little better than
I thought I was gonna do. I thought I'd be a lot longer. Lastly,
of God is Christ made unto us redemption. He made to us redemption. Oh, this is so good to know.
To be redeemed is to be bought with a price. To be redeemed
is to be bought, to be purchased with a price. The law had us
for ransom. Christ paid the price. And the
price was His precious blood as a lamb without spot and without
blemish. He paid the price. Christ had
redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for
us. He bought us. And then to be
redeemed is to be freed. It's to be given liberty. That first covenant was enjoined
to the children of Israel. And the way that first covenant
was enjoined to them is to picture how the new covenant of grace
is joined to us. I'm just going to paraphrase
this from Hebrews 9. But it said, Moses, remember
this, he come down from the mountain with the law. Moses read all
the precepts of the law to the children of Israel. 600 and something
laws. He read all the precepts of the
law to the children of Israel. The Lord sends the Gospel to
us of what He's done. Not the precepts of the law.
He makes you hear the law and hear you're guilty, but He sends
you the gospel of what He's accomplished. And then it said Moses took blood.
They killed a substitute and they took the blood and He put
it in some water and took hyssop and He sprinkled that on everything.
The book, He sprinkled it on those vessels that God said He
separated. The Spirit of our Lord purges
our conscience with the blood of Christ. This is that same
way of saying you have the mind of Christ. Christ has made wisdom
to you by that. You start hearing it and one
day, you don't even know what's happened, but you start hearing.
And you really start believing, I am a sinner. And you really
start hearing about Christ's blood and that He put the sin
of His people away. And the Lord has purged your
conscience to where you can hear what Christ accomplished for
the first time. And then it said Moses declared. This was Moses' declaration.
When He gave them that law and He sprinkled everything, but
He said, this is the covenant God has enjoined to you. Well, when He When He's made
you hear this gospel and He's purged your conscience, God comes
to you and He says, because of what my son accomplished, He
said, this is the covenant I make with you. Your sins and iniquities,
I remember them all. And where remission of these
is, you can stop working. There's no more offering for
sin. I'm satisfied, God says. And the Hebrew writers said,
now, if that had ever happened under that old law, they'd have
quit working. They wouldn't have offered any more sacrifices.
When will a sinner... Especially a religious sinner.
When will he stop working to try to make himself righteous
or holy or more wise or any of these things? When will he stop
that and live to God and be thankful and really worship and serve
the Lord? When his work's been done in his heart and he's been
made to know there's nothing else to be done. We accept it.
And preachers all over the world say, you can't tell people that.
Don't tell them what they'll do. Just tell them and see. There ain't no telling what they'll
do. They'll probably stop working and sit down and worship the
Lord. And do some honoring to Him for a change. Yeah. That's what they'll do. The Lord is that spirit and where
the spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. We are with an open
face now. He's taken a veil off the heart. And we can look into the mirror
of this gospel and we see the glory of the Lord. And we're
changed into the same image. And if you read the context of
2 Corinthians 3, we're changed into the same image. From the
glory of that old covenant to the glory of the new covenant.
That's what it is, brethren. And it's by the Spirit of the
Lord. That's when we start singing, free from the law of happy condition. Jesus has bled and there's remission.
Cursed by the law, bruised by the fog, grace has redeemed us
once for all. And then one day, one day Christ
is going to redeem our bodies. He's going to redeem our bodies
into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Scripture
says He's already sealed us with the Holy Spirit. And He says
the Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption
of the purchased possession. Every time you partake of the
Lord's table, you know what you're doing? You're showing forth His
death until He returns. He's going to redeem our bodies
into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. We ourselves
grown within ourselves waiting for the adoption to wit, the
redemption of our bodies. I want you to think about this.
Christ said, you're not of the world. Even as I'm not of the
world. When you were born the first
time, all you were was earthy. You were flesh. You were born
of Adam. But born again, you're born from above. And that new
man is not of this world. The new man in you right now
is not of this world. He's born of the Lord. makes
this new body, it's not going to be of this world. Nothing
of Adam, nothing of this flesh, nothing of this world is entering
the new heavens and the new earth. Everybody there will be the creation
of the Lord Jesus Christ entirely. Entirely. So then, if you've
been, if you're sitting here now and you have been made meat
fit to partake of that inheritance. And if Christ has made these
things to you, you have been. You have been. That thief on
the cross was with the Lord then, that day. He had his feet and
his hands nailed to the cross. He had everything he needed.
So if this is so with you, then here's what he said. According
as it's written, he that glories, let him glory in the Lord. Amen.