Ephesians chapter 1, as I was
putting the bulletin together yesterday, I read an article
by one of our brethren, and I may have put it in the bulletin,
I can't remember, but it referenced the scriptures, speaking of those who believe God, in the
book of Hebrews chapter 11. It says, these all died in faith. in faith, and that got me to
thinking on this subject, where can you find God's people? And I sat there, and I do most
of my studying in the recliner in my study. I sit there with
my computer on my lap, and my computer is my library, which
means the whole world wide web is my library, because I just
type, started looking at things, started thinking, thought of
all those occasions where the Scriptures define where the people
of God are to be found. And it was a blessing as I thought
of it, and I hope it'll be a blessing for you. It is simply another
method by which I hope to show to you God's grace in Christ. I constantly or regularly think
of that scripture. It is good for the heart to be
strengthened with grace. And you and I who know what we
are by nature, sinners, what we are by practice, sinners,
we who know about our natural inborn weakness, We need our
hearts to be strengthened and the only thing that will strengthen
them is grace. And in all that I'm going to
show you from the scriptures about what they say where God's
people can be found, we will discover a testimony of the grace
of God. And so let's begin. I've got
one, two, three, four, five, six things to mention to you
where the scriptures describe where God's people can be found.
Now, the first thing I want to note to you is this. The question
is where God's people can be found, not where believers can
be found. You say, why do you make that distinction? For this
simple reason, God's people have always been God's people, but
they've not always been believers. Now you think about that. You
see, people don't become God's people because they believe.
According to the Lord Jesus Christ, it's the other way around. They
believe because they're God's people. For our Lord said in
John chapter 6, All that the Father gives to me will come
to me. Now, who are these people that
the Father gave to the Son? Well, they were God's people.
The Lord Jesus Himself said in John 17, He says, Thine they
were. and you gave them to me." And
every one of these, chosen by God, and therefore made His in
a special way, every one of them will come to the Son. But they
were not made God's people because they came to the Son. They come
to the Son of God because they belong to God and God gave them
to the Son. So I say this, where can you
find God's people? And I want to look at the various
stages, not only of their lives, but of history. And where can
you find God's people? In Ephesians chapter 1, verse
3, the apostle writes this, Praise be to the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with
every spiritual blessing in Christ, for he chose us in him before
the creation of the world. So here's the first one. Where
were God's people to be found before the creation of the world? They were to be found in Christ. Now, there's only two conditions
when it comes to Christ. There's only two conditions.
You are either in Him or you are outside of Him. And if you
are in Him, it's because of God's work and not because of yours.
Paul says clearly in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30, it is because of
God that you are in Christ Jesus. Now, did you hear that? It's
not because of the preacher and his talents or the clever way
he was able to arrange a sermon. It wasn't because of his nice
illustrations that you're in Christ Jesus. It wasn't because
they sang the same verses of a hymn over and over and over
again at the end of a service and begged you to come to Jesus
Christ. If you're in Christ, that's not
why you're in Him. You are in Him by the will and
the power of God. God chose us in Christ. Now this means two things. In
the book of Isaiah, chapter 42, God says, Behold my chosen one,
in whom my soul delights. And who is he talking about?
The Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to talk about election,
you've got to start at the beginning. And the beginning of election
is God's choice of His Son. And He chose the Son because
He delights in the Son. Now don't get confused in trying
to understand how it is that the Son can be God and yet God
chooses the Son. Those waters are too deep for
us so just stay out of them. Let's just accept this reality. God chose Christ God chose Jesus,
the Son of God, because he delighted in Christ. That is what we might
call conditional election. That is, God chose his Son because
of what the Son was. The Son is the perfect image
of the Father. There's the old Southern expression,
the spittin' image. They used to say that, you know,
they'd say, ah, look at that boy, he's a spittin' image of his
father. And I always wondered as a kid, what's it got to do
with spittin'? You know, it just didn't make any sense. What it
was, it was just Southerners, the way they talked and the way
they said, he is the spirit and image of his father. And it'd
just come out, he's a spittin' image of his father. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
exactly that. the spirit and image of His Father. Everything the Father loves,
He sees it in His Son. He opened up the heavens, and
it's the only time I know of that the Father ever spoke directly
to the world. And He opened up the heavens
when our Lord was baptized, and He said, this is My beloved Son,
in whom I'm well pleased. And then on the Mount Transfiguration,
the same message, With one additional phrase, he says, this is my son
whom I love. I'm well pleased with him. Now
listen to him. Listen to him. God chose him. He said, my soul delights in
him. He said, I'll put my spirit on him and he shall not fail. And then God chose us in Christ. He chose us to be in Christ. And what does that mean? That
means that before, as the hymn we sing from time to time goes,
long before the stars were shining in the vast expanse above, God
the Father was designing all salvation's plan in love. Sovereign
Father, choosing out His own in love. That means then that
before God said, let there be light, before he spoke time and
space and all that into existence, before that, and I know that
doesn't make any sense. How can you talk about something
being before time? Well, that's the only way we
can talk about it. But before that, God put his people in Christ. And in a very real sense, they've
been in Christ ever since. so far as God the Father is concerned. He blessed them with all spiritual
blessings in the heavenly places, all the great things for which
believers hope and even things they aren't aware of yet that
are good, all those blessings. were given to them in Christ,
for He chose them to be in Christ, and therefore when God sees them,
He sees them through Christ, and He sees them as one of those
ones in whom He delights, in whom His soul is pleased. Now you think of that. We are trapped in time and space
and we can only see things and understand things as they unfold
through history. And we only see just a little
patch of that. We live such a short time compared
to the span of history. And as we're going through this
experience of life, even when those who believe have times
of great doubt, because they cannot perceive any work of grace in them. I know that there are some religions
that purposefully tell people to search themselves and see
if they can find some evidence of the work of God's grace. I
urge you, don't do that. Because someday you will think
that you do see it. The problem is, is what you're
seeing will not really be the work of grace. It will be those
proud, fleshly, religious things you do that you think are evidence
of God's grace. And then there will be days when
you can't do that, when you don't perform those things. And you'll
begin to wonder, well, has the work of grace really been done
in me? My friends, if you want to understand something of the
grace of God, don't try to figure out if God's done a work of grace
in you. Look to the cross and see that God has done a wonderful
work of grace in Christ. Because that's where all His
grace is. The more you look at you, the
more you will be disappointed. The more you look at you, the
less you will be able to believe God and all His promises. The
more that you examine yourselves, the less you will be examining
Christ and all of God's blessings in Him. So when the Scriptures
say examine yourself, okay, examine yourself for what? To see if
you be in the faith. Not to see if you be good enough.
Not to see if you're religious enough. Not to see if you give
enough or go to church enough or anything enough. Do you believe
God? That's it. That's as far as our
examination of self is to go. And sometimes in the process
of looking for that, we seem to come up empty. You might think that because
I'm the pastor of a church that most of the time I go about it
with a sense of spiritual confidence. Friends, most of the time I walk
around in a sense of spiritual darkness and doubt and unbelief
and wondering if there's anything to this at all. And I think part
of the reason God leaves me in that situation is because that
makes me keep digging into this book to find what I'm really
supposed to be looking at and finding the same comforts for
me that will certainly be a comfort for you. If I struggle with these
things and God is pleased to give me the answer to the struggles,
maybe it's because you're struggling with those things and these same
answers will help you. But here's all I can do in those
times. I look to Christ. I call on his
name. And I try to think of all the
wonderful things of God in Christ. And I try to quit thinking about
me. Because I am nothing but disappointment. And there is
not the least disappointment in the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is in every way satisfying to God. And thank God he is in every
way satisfying to me when I take the time to notice him and think
upon him. One can hardly doubt. I'm not saying it's impossible,
but it's pretty difficult. It's difficult for a child of
God to doubt when his eyes are fixed on Christ. And it's almost
impossible for him not to doubt when his eyes are on himself.
But here is our comfort. Before God called the worlds
into existence, before Adam was created and fell, and before
we came into this world and through our lot with Adam and followed
in his sinful footsteps, before then, God put his people in Christ. He joined them to Christ. And
God's standard in that is what God has joined together. Let
no one put us under. So where do we find God's people
before the world? In Christ. Now look at Ephesians chapter
2. Where do you find God's people? Ephesians chapter two. As for
you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. Now, oh, I tell you,
human wisdom is so foolish. And that's exactly what the scriptures
say. Hath not God made the wisdom of man into foolishness? And
indeed it is. And here's what we naturally
think. Here's what our human wisdom brings us to. God is looking
for a few good men. That's what we think. We think
God's up in heaven saying, well, you know, it's mostly a mess
down there. But there's some people, they're trying. They're
trying. I see them. They're going to
church, you know. And they try to treat their neighbor right.
I tell you, I think I ought to save them. I ought to give them
another chance. Do you know what would happen
if God gave us another chance? We would blow it, just like Adam
blew his chance. If Adam, who was by nature without
sin, and he was living in a creation, not cursed by sin, if he fell,
What hope do you and I have that we would do anything but fall
as sinful creatures living in a cursed world? I tell you this, God's people
born into this world, whether they were born of unbelieving
parents or believing parents, here's how they were born, dead
in transgressions and sins. In sin. Now, some people, some
of them, they were in sin in the common way we think of it.
They were doing things which were direct violations of the
law of God. They lived their lives in corruption
and obvious selfishness. They pursued the world and all
its sinful things with gusto. Now, that's kind of obvious,
isn't it? They live in sin. That's where
you find them. But you know, some of them, they
were in sin by reason of their self-righteous religious pursuits. You see, it's not difficult,
or not very difficult anyway, to convince the gross transgressor
that he's a sinner against God. Now, he may still think he's
got a little bit of righteousness somewhere. But I mean, you come
up to the gutter drunk. And you say, you know, God says
you're a sinner. Yeah. I mean, he can't get away from
it. He's in sin. You go down there to death row,
as long as the guy's not a psychopath. I mean, if the guy's got a little
bit of conscience left, you talk to him, you say, you realize
as a murderer, you are in sin. Yes, I am. I am. I'm in sin.
The thief, the adulterer. All those things that the law
mentions. These folks know, Paul says that, even though they know
that those who do these things are worthy of death, they continue
to do them and find their pleasure among other people who do. Nobody
doubts those people are in sin. Do you know who they don't understand
is in sin? That guy who gives all his effort
to being good. Like Paul. Saul of Tarsus. He says, any of you think you've
got something to boast in in your flesh? That is, in your
natural way of life that you lived before God saved you, you
think you have something to boast in? He said, I got more. He said,
well, I'm a Hebrew born of Hebrews. I'm a pure-blooded Jew. That
national people of God. He said, I circumcised on the
eighth day of the house of Israel. I'll tell you, in the Jewish
mind, and that's mostly who he was addressing there, but I mean,
how good can you get? Pure-bred Jew. circumcised on
the eighth day according to the law, zealous. I tell you, this man, he said,
I was above all my peers. Anybody my age, I outstripped
them in zeal, in knowledge, in activity. And he went on to say
this, and with regard to that righteousness that is found in
the law, I was blameless. Now, try convincing a guy like
that he's in sin. You couldn't convince Saul of
Tarsus. I couldn't convince him. Nobody in his day could convince
him. There was only one that could convince him that that's
where he was, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And
it took a pretty hard lesson to teach him. Saul's on his way doing what
he thinks is righteous. And God confronts him through
Jesus Christ. And all at once, All that Saul
had boasted in and thought was his goodness just crumbled around
him. And he learned that from the
time he was conceived in his mother's womb, he was nothing
but sin, in sin, born of sinners. No longer a Hebrew born of Hebrews,
he's a sinner born of sinners. And while circumcised in the
flesh, he found out he was not circumcised in his heart. And
while as touching the righteousness of the law, he was blameless
as touching the righteousness of God, he was totally without
it. Without righteousness. Now, why
do I point this out? Well, again, that our hearts
might be strengthened with grace. Is there someone here this morning
that has never yet believed the gospel? I know most of you adults
that are here say you do, but I found it's good for all of
us just to dress ourselves as sinners and nothing else. Because those that are outside
of Christ, or let me put it this way, that have not yet believed,
they need to learn they're sinners. And we who already know it, we
don't get insulted when somebody calls us that. In fact, we take
hope in it for the promises that Jesus Christ came to the world
to save sinners. Well, I'm one of those. I'm not
proud of the fact I'm a sinner, but being a sinner, I'm sure
glad that's the kind of person Jesus Christ came to save. But is there somebody here in
sin? And maybe You're in sin in such a way that you cannot
imagine that God would have mercy on
you. Well, let me tell you something. The only thing, the only point
of Scripture that I might argue with is the point where Paul
said that he was the chief of sinners. Well, maybe he was in
his day. But if he lived in my day, he
and I might have to fight about that. I'm a different kind of
sinner than he was, but I am certainly no less a sinner than
he is. And quite frankly, neither are
you. No matter how you decide to show your sinfulness. And what I'm saying is this,
if God, if all his people were dead in sins, then there is no reason for you
to think that your sinfulness will be a hindrance to God saving
you. There's not a person here that
has done anything so evil that God will not forgive it. That
is, that God would be unwilling to forgive it through Christ.
For we have this scriptural equation Where sin did abound, grace did
abound all the more. And no matter the level of your
sin, there is sufficient in Christ to put it away. Everyone God has ever come to
to save, He has found them in sin. and save them. So don't ever let your sinfulness
be a hindrance to believing Christ. That's where everybody is found. Even God's elect. Alright, turn
to Job chapter 5. Where are God's people And at
this point I'm speaking of God's people, even after God has come
to them, and revealed His grace to them, revealed His Son to
them, and they've called on His name for salvation, where will
they be found? Verse 7 of Job chapter 5, Man
is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upward. And then turn over to the 14th
chapter, Job chapter 14, verse 1. Man born of a woman
is a few days and full of trouble. So where will you find God's
people even As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will find
them in trouble. Brother Scott Richardson said, All believers bear one of three
relationships to trouble. They are on their way into it,
right in the middle of it, or just coming out of it. One thing
is they're never completely free of it. You know, it is a great
lie being told to people, and it sucks them into false religion.
This idea that if you believe God, your life from that point
on is going to be full of bliss. It's going to be easy from that
point on. Why, believing God removes your
troubles. And people actually believe the
preacher when they say that. The funny thing is, it seems
the only people who are relieved of trouble at that time is a
preacher. Because somehow or another, they always get it twisted
around that your faith in God is somehow going to be displayed
in sending them a check. Have you ever noticed that about
those preachers? And so they're getting rich and
at least from the outside it looks to people like they're
not having trouble and they, you know, the preacher's not
having trouble so the people believe, well if I just send him some
money which is kind of like believing God, then I'll no longer have
trouble. Brethren, nobody has trouble. Like a child of God has trouble
in this world. He has all the troubles that the world experiences
and he's got the additional troubles that come from being spiritually
alive in a world that hates God. You know those people living
in Sodom, they had troubles. Living like they did, I'm sure
some of them got sick. Diseases passed around from their
corrupt life. But you know what it says of
Lot who lived there, who the Bible says he was a righteous
man? It says his soul was vexed by
the ungodly lives of those around him. But here's the thing, God's
people at any particular time might be found in deep trouble
and it is no indication whatsoever that they don't belong to God.
Job, for lack of a better way to put it, one of God's choice
people in the world of that day. In fact, Job in his faith and
godliness stood out so much even the devil noticed it. Now you
think of that. A man living in such faithfulness
to God that the devil took note of it and he appeared before
God and he said, you see your servant Job down there? I tell
you what, the only reason he serves you is because you put
a hedge around him. I can't touch him. A child of God takes a little
comfort in what the devil said right there. God put a hedge
around Job and the devil couldn't touch him unless God took the
hedge down. and that God will never let anything
happen to you, or nothing can happen to you. Let me put it
this way. Nothing can be done to you, nothing can happen to
you, unless the God who loves you and whose Son gave His life
for you, unless He allows it to happen. If the devil is going
to touch Job, he's got to get permission from God first. And
I'm sure of this. I don't want to be too proud
here. God might say, oh, you're sure
of this? Let me show you. We'll see how sure you are. Here's
what the scriptures say. If something happens to you,
something horrible, God permitted it. God allowed it. And He allowed it for your good.
And He will bring good out of it. Now that's not always easy
to see in the middle of it. But understand this, God put
a hedge around you, and it can't come down unless he's willing
for it to. And even when he does that, as
someone says, the devil is just the Lord's dog, and he can only
go as far as the Lord gives him leash to go. And he may make
your life miserable. He cannot touch your soul. God
will never give him that much leash. Let me show you the trouble
that God's people go through. Job. Like Job, it may be that
you will lose everything you have. And most of us like our
stuff. If somebody says, oh, I don't
care about that, watch out for him because he's liable to lie
to you about other things too. I care about what I've got. I don't
want to lose it. But some of God's people do. Job lost everything
of his material substance in one day. You know what else he
lost? He lost his children. Every last
one of them. The most frightening thing to
me, so far as My natural life is concerned.
Is the loss of my wife or the loss of my children? Really. And I imagine most of you feel
the same way about your family. I think about my children and
I know that there have been those who got the visit from the police
and said, there's been an accident and your child is gone. Some of you have heard news from
the doctor about a wife or a husband. Nothing we can do. You have buried loved ones. And
in the midst of all of that, you might think, do I really
belong to God? Does this kind of thing happen
to God's people? Do they bury their spouses? God
said to Isaiah, tonight, the delight of your heart will be
taken away from you. And what I think are some of
the most shockingly sad words to be found in scriptures, Isaiah
went on to say, that night, my wife died. Some of you have buried children.
I'm not going to pretend I understand the grief associated with that.
But I do know the fear associated with thinking it could happen.
A phone call, a visit, a doctor report, and your whole life crumbles
right in front of you. And you find God's people right
there. Say, I thought believing God
made things good. Eternally it does. But here,
things can get really bad. Like Hosea, God's people suffer
an unfaithful spouse. Like Paul, who said, I came to
you with great fear and trembling. God's people go through very
scary times. Like Noah, they see their children
sin the worst of sins, and some of those sins are even against
the parents. Like David, they see their beloved
children rebel against God and suffer the consequences of it. I say this for your comfort,
you who belong to God, so that if you have or sometime in the
future fall into some of these circumstances, don't let your
conscience compound your troubles by putting a question mark over
whether you believe God, I mean, whether you belong to God. Our
Lord Jesus Christ was with his disciples somewhere and the news
came and said, the one that you love is sick. It was Lazarus. So here is one who is a special
friend of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the testimony comes, he's
sick. And the Lord Jesus Christ waited. He could have, right there where
he was standing, given the word and healed Lazarus from afar. Or he could have done what Lazarus'
sisters hoped he would do in response to the news and that
was quickly make his way to Bethany and lay his hands upon their
dying brother and heal him. He didn't do that. He waited. I can't remember just how long
it was. But he waited. Why did he wait? It's going to shock you. So that
Lazarus would die. What? So that Lazarus would die. Because he had greater things
in mind than healing. He had a resurrection in mind. And he says to the disciples,
we've got to go to Bethany because Lazarus is asleep and I've got
to wake him. They didn't understand what he meant. They said, they're
talking among themselves. And that's what the disciples
did, just like us. Instead of talking directly to the Lord
when they're confused about what he said, they started talking
to each other. If he's asleep, shouldn't we leave him that way?
He needs rest. So the Lord, you can just say, well, I don't know
if the Lord ever showed exasperation, but I tell you, if it were me,
I'd show some exasperation. He says, Lazarus is dead. I'm going to raise him. I tell you, whatever trouble
God puts you in, He put you there that He might do greater things
for you than if He had relieved you of the trial. And it doesn't mean you don't
belong to God. Mary and Martha, they didn't
understand why didn't Jesus come. We sent a messenger, the messenger's
already come back, and yet Jesus isn't here. They come out and
said, Lord, if you had come, our brother wouldn't have died.
And that's true. But that's exactly why He didn't
come. And in the midst of your trouble, if the Lord does not
come when you wanted Him to, understand He has not come yet
because the time is not ready for Him to reveal His glory to
you in ways He couldn't if He were to make you miss this trial.
And it might be that you'll never see the glory of what He's going
to do until you're gone. But whether it be the grief of
a tiny coffin, or the grief of an empty bank account, you'll
find God's people there. And here's another place you'll
find them. In trouble, because of their sin. I've read so many times, and
people write in articles, even people that believe the gospel,
I just think they over speak themselves. Well Christians won't
do such and such, I beg your pardon. Christians, believers
in God, do things they shouldn't do, and sometimes they get caught
up in them, and it creates havoc in their lives. And I bring forward
as an example, and I'm glad God put this story in there, because
we can always go to this one. Look at David, the man after
God's own heart, sets his eyes in lust upon a woman. He says,
I want that woman. Well, she's married, okay. That
don't matter, I'm the king, I can have her. So he calls her. She gets pregnant. Now he's in
a mess. Big mess. I mean, what does the law say?
Law says David's supposed to be stoned. So David seeks his own salvation
and he says, all right, I know how to figure that out. You bring
her husband home from the battlefield and I'll tell him, why don't
you spend the night with your wife, you know? And then he'll spend the
night with his wife and then when she turns up pregnant, they'll
figure it's his. Well, Uriah's of better stuff
than David was in that day. And Uriah said, that wouldn't
be right for me to have pleasure with my wife while my comrades
in arms are out there fighting a war. He slept out at the front
door. He never went in the house as
far as I know. Once David found out that his little plan hadn't
succeeded, what does he do? Does he seek the Lord? Does he
confess his sin? Does he say, oh God, I've made
a mess of things? No, he comes up with another
plan, and a worse one yet. And he calls his commander and
he says, I tell you what, he says, you press the battle. And
when you're up there close to the enemy and the fight is fierce,
you tell everybody but Uriah to fall back. And when they do, Uriah will
be out there all by himself and he'll be killed. And then David
says, thinks in his mind, all right, your eye's dead. Everybody
thinks he was with his wife and I'll be clear. Oh my, what a mess David was
in. And he thought he got away with
it until Nathan the prophet showed up. And yes, Nathan came to bear
good news. that the Lord had forgiven him
of his sin, forgiven him of it before he repented of it, forgiven
him of it before he confessed it. But here's the thing. Nathan
said, but that child, conceived like that, he's not going to
live. And sure enough, Bathsheba gave
birth to that boy and he didn't make it. And David, in agony
of soul, fell face down and cried out to the Lord to spare his
son, and God did not. And David was the man after God's
own heart. Now, David never paid for his
sins, but he suffered the consequences
that came from them, and God's people do too. You find them in sin, and you
find them under the discipline of the Lord because of their
sin. But thanks be to God, that does
not mean that they don't belong to God. In fact, their discipline
is good evidence that they belong to God. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 13. Where do you find them before
the world? In Christ. Where do you find
them before God calls them? Dead in trespasses and sins.
Where do you find them in their life of faith? You find them
in all kinds of trouble. Some that just falls on them,
some that they bring on themselves. Every kind of trouble. Where
do you find them when they die? Hebrews chapter 11. Verse 13,
all these people were still living by faith when they died. Now
that's certainly the meaning of the text there. This is one
of the times I wish our translation had followed a little more closely to exactly the way it's written
in the original language. These all died in faith. You know, David, for all the
mess he got himself in, he didn't quit believing God. For all the
trouble that Job went through, he said, I tell you, my life,
it's a wreck, it's a mess, I'm brought, my health is gone, my
children are gone, my riches are gone, and I'm just sitting
here on a pile of ashes, scraping the boils off of my body. And
I know this, One of these days, and you can hear it in his voice,
and I hope it's soon, this body is going to be buried. Life is
no good to me anymore. But I know this, I know my Redeemer
lives. And in the latter day, he shall
stand upon the earth. And though it's concerning this
body, worms will eat my flesh. Yet in my flesh, I will see God. And I'll see him with my own
eyes, not with the eyes of another." In all of Job's troubles, he
believed God. And though he thought he was
about to go to the grave and actually wished, he said, I wish
I'd never been born. Which is to say, I wish I'd just
go ahead and die. He kept believing God. God's
people Yes, they live by faith, but more importantly, they die
in faith. Why? Because the God who put
them in Christ and ordained everything good for them works in them so
that they don't quit believing, even when they have absolutely
no reason to believe. And then, Philippians chapter
2, where will you find people that great day of judgment. Philippians chapter, I said chapter
2, chapter 3, beginning with verse 7, Paul,
having given that big boast he had in his religious life, he
says, but whatever it was to my prophet, I now consider loss
for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything
a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus
my Lord. For whose sake I've lost all
things, I considered them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be
found in Now what's he mean when he says
be found? Well what he's saying is everybody's going to be found.
God's going to be looking for everybody. The day of judgment
has come and everybody's going to be found. No one shall have
a hiding place in that day. But he says when I'm found, let
me be found here in Christ. Before the world begins, Where
are God's people found? In Christ. When the world ends,
where are God's people found? In Christ. Isn't it something to think about
how God put in Christ on both ends of this thing? And why is
that? Well, because before the world
began was eternity. And when the world is done, it's
the same eternity. And it's the same God. And it's
the same Christ. And it's the same people. In Noah's day, Noah didn't say,
boy, may I be found on the highest ground on the day of the flood.
That wouldn't do any good. It said the water went, I don't
remember how high it was, but it was really deep over top of
the highest mountains. So it wasn't going to do you good to
be on the high ground, would it? Noah said, and this was his hope
on that day, when the overwhelming scourge of God's wrath in the
flood comes, let me be found in that ark, because I'm going
to be found. God's judgment is going to find
Noah just like it did everybody else, because Noah's worthy of
judgment. But Noah was in the ark. And the ark bore the judgment. And Noah went through safe. And
when God comes in judgment on this world, no one's going to
be spared. No one's going to not be found. But there's going to be a multitude
which no man can number who will be found in Christ. And he'll
be safe. Where are God's people? We mentioned
several things. But the most important thing
is this. They are in Christ. Therefore, in eternal things,
nothing else matters. God bless us with a knowledge
and a grasp of this. Thank you that we were in Christ
by your sovereign decree. Thank you that we were in Christ
when he died. We were in Christ when he was
raised, and we're now in Christ as he's seated in the heavenly
places. And when he comes again, we'll still be in Christ. and therefore no harm shall come
to us. Lord, seal that truth to our
hearts, in Christ's name, amen.