Last week we looked at Isaiah
chapter 35 and verses 3 through 4. I want to read those verses
to you again. I put those verses in the bulletin
last week. I don't know if you got that
little bookmark or like scripture. It's helpful to me to memorize
these scriptures. But in Isaiah 43 verses 3 through
4, just to remind you, it says, this is spoken by God has a message
for his doubting, fearful, and weak people. spoken by the Lord,
considering Himself as our Savior. Verse 3, Strengthen ye the weak
hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of
a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come
with vengeance, even God with a recompense. He will come and
save you. So today's sermon is a second
part to this. And in light of that, I want
you to turn with me to Psalm 27. And after we pray, we will
read Psalm 27 and a couple verses in Psalm 18. And then we will
go to our text in the book of Zechariah. So beginning with
Psalm 27 after we pray, you want to follow along in that psalm.
It's a psalm declaring what the Lord is to us as believers. Let's
pray. Our gracious Father, thank you
that you've given us your word which cannot fail. You cannot
lie. You cannot change. Your will
shall be done. And everlasting ages will leave
you unchanged. and will leave our relation to
you unchanged but secure by the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
We pray that you would speak to our hearts the comfort of
your word and tell us that you yourself in the Lord Jesus are
our salvation. And say it to our hearts, Lord,
we need to be defended, we need to be saved from our enemies,
the greatest of which is our sin. and all the consequences
of it. So we pray, Lord, that you would
comfort us, point us to the Lord Jesus Christ today. In His name
we pray. Amen. Let's read Psalm 27. The Lord
is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? So that's
not just an aspiration. You know, an aspiration means
something I'm trying to get to. The Lord is my light. The Lord
is my salvation. If the Lord is my light, if the
Lord is my salvation, then he says, whom shall I fear? Because
my salvation and God's revelation of himself is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord is the strength of my
life, of whom shall I be afraid? If Christ is my strength, then
I'm strong. Though a weak in myself, I am
strong in Christ. When the wicked, even mine enemies
and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled
and fell. Though a host should encamp against
me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against
me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the
Lord. That will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of
the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. to behold the beauty
of the Lord. That's our desire, isn't it?
And to ask all those questions that God places in our hearts.
He puts it in our hearts to ask, Lord, how can you be just and
justify me, this ungodly sinner that I am in myself? And he answers
that question for us now, and he will answer it again and again
throughout eternity. He goes on in verse five, for
in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion, in the
secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me upon
a rock, and that rock is Christ. And now shall mine head be lifted
up above mine enemies round about me. Therefore will I offer in
his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will
sing praises unto the Lord. We sing because God is our salvation. He's our refuge. He's our strength.
Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon
me and answer me. When thou saidst, seek ye my
face, my heart said to thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek.
Hide not thy face from me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave
me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father
and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach
me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of
mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the
will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against
me, and such as breathe out cruelty. What do we do when accusations,
just accusations, come against us? What is our plea? We do not
plead innocence, do we? Like the man brought to court,
we don't say, I'm not guilty. That's not our plea. We actually
plead guilty because that's the truth, but we also plead Christ
as our answer, our advocate. Verse 13, I had fainted unless
I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and he shall
strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Be
patient and wait for him. And the same thing is echoed
in Psalm 18, where in verse 2 he says, the Lord is my rock and
my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I
will trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high
tower. In other words, he's everything
when it comes to that. And now let's look at Zechariah.
You want to turn to the book of Zechariah in the Old Testament.
And I want to read a couple of verses there. And then we'll
look at this in more detail. Zechariah chapter 2. In verse
10 of Zechariah, if you read the whole chapter of Zechariah,
you can see that it's a message to the church. He speaks of the
church as Zion. Remember in Hebrews 12, you have
not come to the mouth that might be touched and that burned with
fire. You haven't come to Mount Sinai. You've come to Mount Zion,
to the city of the living God. So that's the church. But in
Zechariah chapter 2 and verse 10, the Lord says this to his
people. Sing and rejoice. Now, that's
consistent with what we read from Isaiah 35, verses 3-4, where
the Lord said to the weak and to the feeble knees, He said,
don't be afraid, be strong, don't be afraid, for the Lord, your
God, behold the Lord your God, He will come and save you. Here
He says, sing and rejoice. It's hard when you're despondent
to sing and rejoice. In fact, it's impossible. We
can't produce that in ourselves, can we? What are we to do? Well,
he says, sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion. Every believer joined
to Christ. He says, for lo, I come. This
is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking of himself.
Lo, I come. And I will dwell in the midst
of thee, saith the Lord. The Lord our God is among us.
King Solomon prayed at the dedication of the temple in the Old Testament.
He said, but will God indeed dwell with men on the earth?
That was a question that didn't seem to get an answer, but they
thought he meant dwelling in that physical temple, but he
was looking forward to Christ dwelling in his incarnate body
and soul of a man. He says, Lo, I come, and I will
dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. And many nations shall
be joined to the Lord. Remember Revelation 5, 9, that
we're the redeemed out of every nation under heaven, redeemed
by the blood of Christ, and we're joined to the Lord, joined to
the Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to talk about that
in more detail in a minute. And many nations shall be joined
to the Lord in that day, not just Jews, but Gentiles, and
shall be my people. And I, the Lord Jesus, will dwell
in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts
has sent me unto thee. God the Father has sent the Lord
Jesus Christ to his people to dwell in them and to be joined
with them. And so it is that we have this
great promise that the Lord Jesus would come to His people, that
He would be joined to them, and they would be joined to Him.
And so I want to consider this message with you this morning,
what it means to be joined to the Lord, to be in the Lord Jesus
Christ. that we are in Him and He is
in us. And the first thing we need to
do is to find out whether or not that's truly the case. Are
we in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is He really in us? Look at John
chapter 6. If you would turn to John chapter
six, Jesus had fed the 5,000 and the Pharisees had seen him
do that and they asked him, what can we do that we might work
the works of God? They wanted to do those sorts
of things. And he said, no, this is the work of God. This is the
work of God. that you believe on Him whom
He has sent." That's God's work and it's the only thing that
we're to do is look to the Lord Jesus Christ. And there we find
all of God's work fulfilled and completed in Him. And there we
find our righteousness. And in verse 35 of John 6, Jesus
said, I'm the bread. He gave them physical bread and
fish and fed 5,000 men with the women and children. But here
he says, I'm the bread that came down from heaven, not the manna
in the wilderness. And he goes on in verse 51, he
says, I'm the living bread which came down from heaven. If any
man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that
I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world. The Lord Jesus Christ laid his life down. His body
was broken. His blood was spilled and poured
out and given for our life. His blood actually completed
all the conditions of the New Testament. It's the New Testament
in His blood. But look at verse 56. And read
this carefully. He says in verse 55, my flesh
is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. In other words,
believing on Christ is equivalent to eating and drinking of Christ
and Him crucified as all of our salvation. We live upon Him just
like our physical bodies live upon bread. Our souls live on
Christ, and he says this about those who believe him. Verse
56. He that eateth my flesh, his broken body, shed to make
atonement for sins, to bear our sins in his own body on the tree.
He that eateth my flesh in this way, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth
in me, and I in him. That's a very intimate union. at the wedding with Andrew and
Hannah, I mentioned this, that it occurred to me as I was looking
at that in preparation for that, that the relationship between
a man and a woman, by God's will, is the closest relationship there
is on earth. It's a close relationship between
a father and his son and between children and their parents. That's
close. And between brothers and sisters. That's close. But there's
nothing closer than that relationship God has made between a man and
his wife. Now, that's true on earth. How much more true is it then
in heaven? That our relationship to the
Lord Jesus Christ is absolutely the closest and nearest and dearest
relationship in all of heaven and earth. between God and His
people in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He took their nature
into union with Himself and He took them into union with Himself. And the way we know we have that
union with Christ is that we live by faith upon what He has
done for us in His body broken and in His blood shed for us.
That's the way we have this. Look at John chapter 17. In John chapter 17, the Lord
Jesus says this in verse 23, I in them, thou in me, so this
is the Lord Jesus speaking about his people, I in them, thou father
in me, that they those people that you've given to me, they
may be made perfect in one, because they're in me, and I'm in them,
and the Father is in Christ, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me and has loved them as thou hast loved me. The Father himself has loved
his people even as the Father has loved his Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ." This boggles the mind. There's no way that we can understand
that. Can we really comprehend? I mean,
we can understand it somewhat by faith, but really can we comprehend
the love of God? it requires God's grace to even
to understand it at all. So I want to look now at these
scriptures with you of our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, which
are described by these words, in Him. In Him. We are in the Lord Jesus Christ. And first we have to understand
the beginning. How is it that we become come to be in Christ? And what does it mean to be in
Christ? And why is it important that
we know that we are in Christ and what it means? And how is
this an advantage to us? How does it benefit us? So let's
look at this together. First thing we want to understand
is our relationship to God in ourselves. Because when we understand
that, then we'll see a need for a relationship to God in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Look at the book of Romans. I'm
just going to touch on some of the highlights there that lead
up to this conclusion that's made in chapter 3. In Romans
chapter 1, God says this in verse 18, For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
What is our condition by nature? What is our state by nature before
God? God's wrath is justly against
us. We're under the curse of God's
law in ourselves. Before God's law, we are under
the curse. Now that happened at a point
in time when Adam sinned. We sinned in Adam. When Adam
had children, his children were born with that fallen sinful
nature. And not only were we born with
that sinful nature because of our guilt and committing that
sin, but we actually commit sins. We live our life sinning. The
wicked is estranged from the womb. They come forth speaking
lies. And David said, I was shapen
in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. And so this
is our condition. We are, by nature, the children
of wrath, even as others, from Ephesians chapter 2, verse 3.
But here, God describes our condition and God's justice by his law
against us, which is that the wrath of God is revealed against
us. And then look at chapter 3. He
goes on, after having proved that this is true both of Jews
and Gentiles, he says, as it is written in verse 10, There
is none righteous. No. Not one. And we think back
and say, well, wait a minute. I heard that God saw that Noah
was righteous. And we know that he accepted
Abel. And he called Abraham righteous. There were some righteous men.
Surely Samuel didn't commit any sin, did he? Or Daniel? I mean,
these men of old, some of them had to be righteous. No, there
is none righteous. No, not one. And that's where
we must find ourselves. It's one thing to believe that
all men are sinners. It's another thing entirely to
believe that I'm a sinner, isn't it? It's one thing to believe
that men have no strength. to put away their sin or to make
themselves right before God. It's another thing entirely to
believe that God found me to be a sinner and under his wrath,
and justly so. And so he says, there's none
righteous, no not one, there's none that understandeth We don't
understand the way of God. We don't understand God's mind.
We don't understand the truth. There's none that seeketh after
God. Not only are we without understanding, but we don't seek
the truth. This is the truth of all of us. They're all gone out of the way. They are together. Take the best
of them, add them up, together they become unprofitable. There
is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat, this is
what comes out of them, their throat is an open sepulcher because
death is within. And with their tongues they have
used deceit. Constantly speaking lies, the
heart is deceitful above all things. Jeremiah 17.9. Desperately
wicked. He says, and their tongues have
used deceit. The poison of asps is under their
lips. What they say in lies is poison
that kills others. Not only are they self-deceived,
but they deceive others to their damnation. Verse 14, whose mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness. They're full of cursing against
God and bitterness towards men and God. Their feet are swift
to shed blood. Like Cain, swift to shed blood,
destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace
have they not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. Because he says in verse 19,
Now we know that what thing soever the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all
the world may become guilty before God. What is my condition before
God in myself? Guilty. What can I do then? Verse 20, Therefore by the deeds
of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Our
first reaction to the news that we're guilty and the wrath of
God is against us for our sin is to do what? We try to get
back out of the pit we got into by our own fall. We try to undo
what we did and he says that's a fatal mistake. By what we do
there's no hope for us. The law tells us what we should
do and we have this grasping after a hope that we
can be made righteous before God by correcting our mistakes,
by feeling sorry for our sins, and turning from our sins, and
God will somehow accept us. He says, no, by the deeds of
the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin, just like that tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. Eve said, this will make me wise. I'll know the difference between
good and evil. No, by the law is the knowledge
of sin. It'll give you the knowledge
of sin, but it will not bring you to the way of righteousness
and peace. Now, in light of this, that we're
guilty, and in light of the fact that we have no power to bring
a righteousness to God that God can accept us with, he says,
in the light of the absence of all hope on our part, We in ourselves
are sinful under the wrath of God and we can do nothing to
get out of this. We can't motivate God to accept
us. We can't promise him or make
corrections. He's not going to look down the
road at our performance to say, oh I know, he's going to eventually
turn around and do the right thing. Given the right circumstances,
I'll remove all negative influences and somehow he'll be corrected
and right. No, he says, now Not you, but
the righteousness of God without the law, without our personal
obedience to the law, is made known, is manifested, being witnessed
by the law and the prophets. God's righteousness was witnessed
by the law and the prophets. For example, Jeremiah 23, verse
6, he says, the Lord our righteousness is his name. So, he says, what
righteousness is this? This righteousness of God, verse
22, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus
Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there
is no difference. It's by faith. It's not by our birth. It's not
by our works. It's not by our will. It's not
by our reform. It's not by our tears. It's what
God has provided, has appointed and provided and received from
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's by the faith of Jesus Christ.
He's the object of our faith. He's the one we look to for God
to accept us. And that looking is holding Him
as the reason why God accepts us. Verse 21, For all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, this and now, carefully,
being justified before God in the presence of God, who is all
holy, who cannot lie and will not bend the truth. God justifies
us how? being justified freely. without
cause found in us by His grace through, on the secured grounds
of, on the payment of, the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. A ransom
was paid. A full satisfaction was made.
Our sins were, God's wrath was appeased and our sins were removed
in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom God has set
forth, the Lord Jesus, to be a propitiation. He is our our
justice satisfying, God's wrath appeasing sacrifice of himself
to God, a propitiation through faith in his blood. We look to
the Lord Jesus Christ and to him only, and we expect God will
receive us for his sake alone. Not for the strength of our faith,
not for the purity of our lives, not for a holiness we will produce
someday through rigor, None of those things. We expect him to
look to Christ only. Now this is the footing, these
are the scriptures that teach us the basis of how God receives
sinners. He does not receive them because
of what he finds in them. He doesn't receive them because
of what they do or shall do someday. not for any potential. He finds
them unprofitable, ungodly, without any goodness, no righteousness,
without understanding, not seeking God, deceitful and being deceived. All these things, murderers,
and no fear of God before their eyes. And this is where he finds
us, and what does he do? He tells us, he holds up, he
says forth to us his own righteousness in the blood of his own Son,
who gave himself for our sins, who gave himself in fulfillment
of God's law by that one offering. because of his love, his eternal
love for his God and his people as our substitute, our mediator.
And so now I want to look at this. This is how we are saved,
being in the Lord Jesus Christ. How are we in the Lord Jesus?
Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Because God is our refuge,
God is our strength, God is our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if He is, then we can sing
and rejoice because it's not in me, it's in Him. And God has
lifted Him up and shown that He is utterly satisfied and pleased
with His Son. And therefore He is utterly satisfied
and pleased with all who are in His Son. In 1 Corinthians
1, I want you to look back in chapter 1 before I read verse
30. Look at verse 17. The Apostle Paul is writing to
the Corinthians. He says in verse 17, after mentioning
that he baptized the household of Stephanas, and he doesn't
know who else he might have baptized, verse 16. Then in verse 17 he
says, For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the
gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should
be made of none effect. I have no contribution to make
here by the wisdom of words. I'm just simply going to declare
to you what God has said Christ has done, who he is, and what
he has accomplished and obtained, and where he is now. So he says,
I'm going to preach the gospel to you. with simplicity, with
a singular focus, and not with the wisdom of man's words. Verse
18, For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish
foolishness, but to us which are saved it. The cross, Christ
crucified, is the power of God. The power of God. Is there any
way of measuring that? Is there anything too hard for
the Lord? We think of God's power in creation when out of nothing
He called forth everything and everything obeyed his will by
his word. He spoke and it was established
and done. His thoughts were all completed
there in that creation and the work was finished and it was
perfect. But how much greater is God's power that saved us
from our sins? This is the power of God, he
says. Now, this is written here to the Corinthians. These people
who were immoral, a man who had his father's wife, a fornication
not even named among the Gentiles. an immoral people and a people
who were proud. They were always comparing themselves
to others and the apostles to one another and trying to latch
on and identify with the better apostle. I'm of Paul. I'm of
Apollos. I'm of Cephas. They forgot Cephas
and Paul and Apollos didn't die for you. And so Paul corrects
that. And then they wouldn't wait for
one another at the Lord's table. There were so many problems they
had. And they sought gifts in order to puff themselves up in
comparison to others. The Corinthians were a messed
up church, weren't they? These are the people that the
apostle is writing to. Just like we read in Romans 1-3. These are the people to whom
the righteousness of God is revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Look
at verse 30 now. But of Him are you in Christ
Jesus. The Him is God the Father. We are in Christ Jesus by God
the Father. God himself has put us in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Who of God, the Lord Jesus Christ,
by God's own decree, by God's doing, not what we do, but by
what God has done, He, Christ, is made unto us by God wisdom? Do you know how to answer God?
Do you know how to bring to God a ransom? Do you know how to
plead with God in order to obtain acceptance at His court? Do you have the wisdom to justify
yourself or another? Christ has made unto us wisdom
and righteousness. There's none righteous. But Christ
is made by God unto us righteousness and sanctification. This means
holiness. Christ is made our holiness. Hebrews 10.10 says, by the which
will, by God's eternal will, we are sanctified by the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So it was by Christ's
offering of his own body. He himself set himself aside
to do the will of God and perform that will in offering himself
for his people. And that offering sanctified
us. And then in Hebrews 13.12 it
says that we're sanctified by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're made holy by God because he made Christ our holiness. Without holiness, no man shall
see the Lord, but it's not a holiness I can produce. Do you think God
is going to put our holiness as the condition upon which we
see the Lord? Or has He provided for us and
made Christ our holiness before Him? According to this verse,
He's made unto us sanctification and redemption. He's the ransom
price paid. He is our liberty. He's the year
of Jubilee. He's the Accepted One and the
Acceptable Year of the Lord. And He proclaims it. So, what
are all these things? Wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption. These are the ultimate blessings
of God to a people. And even a sinful people. And
how are they ours? He says, God made Christ. All these to us when it says,
of Him are you in Christ Jesus. It's by virtue of our being in
Christ. In Christ. In Ephesians chapter
1, look at this. How did we get in Christ? Well,
we just read God did it. When did He do it? When did God
place us into Christ? Ephesians 1 says in verse 3,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. Not only wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption, but all spiritual blessings are
ours in Christ, not in ourselves. This is the most significant
and tremendous cause for comfort and rejoicing and singing. As
it said in Zechariah 2.10-11, rejoice and sing. Why? Because
the Lord is come. He himself has come.
He has joined himself to us. We're joined to him. That relationship
that is so close as indicated by the physical relationship
between a husband and his wife is in reality an eternal relationship
established by God when He chose us in Christ. He says in verse
4, according, all these spiritual blessings in Christ, in heavenly
places, He says, according as He has chosen us in Him. God the Father did this, of Him
are you in Christ Jesus, who's made of God all these things
to us. So our blessings are in Christ,
especially wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
which covers everything, really. But all spiritual blessings,
all of them are in Him. And when was this made? It wasn't
made when we were converted. We were not put in Christ by
our conversion. But we were chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world. Before God ever started
the clock of time. Before history, the world was
ever created, called into existence. God before sin entered into the
world. chose us in Christ, and why?
That we should be holy, not because we are, not because we would
be someday, but that we should be holy. And how? In Christ. He's our sanctification. And
not only holy, but without blame, before Him in love, because it's
God's love that was the the origin, the spring from which all of
this came about. We were chosen because of God's
everlasting love. And we were put in Christ because
of His everlasting love. And every provision that God
would require of us, every blessing that God could give us, He has
given us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are joined to Christ by God's
decree made before the world began. And it was made That end
goal that we should be holy and without blame before him was
made under the umbrella coming in through our fall in Adam,
our own personal sin. So that he saw us in Christ before
we became sinners, but he chose us to be holy even though in
ourselves we were nothing. We were not holy. We were ungodly.
Alienated from the life of God. Separated from him. Now think
about this. What is the Lord Jesus Christ?
Who is He? He's the Son of God. He's God
over all, blessed forever. He's the eternal God. He had
no beginning of days nor end of life. He's the Son of God. He's equal with the Father. There's
nothing... He's Almighty. He says in Revelation
1.8, He is the Almighty. The Alpha and the Omega. The
beginning and the end. The Almighty. This is God our
Savior. Now, we're joined to Him. And
all that He is in His person and in His work as our Savior,
our Mediator, we are in Him. Well, those words seem flamboyant. They seem like a hyperbole. It seems like you're saying things
that are so far beyond the realm of reality, we can't accept it
as true. But God has said, in Christ we
were chosen to be holy and without blame, with all these spiritual
blessings in heavenly places, enumerated as wisdom and righteousness,
sanctification and redemption. But here, look at Colossians
chapter 2. Because this is almost the crowning jewel. If you could
put it all in a single sentence, here it is. Colossians chapter 2 and verse
9, and first we'll actually read from From verse 1, in Colossians 2
verse 1, For I would, Paul says to the Colossians and to all
the church of God, every believer in Christ, For I would that you
knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea,
and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their
hearts might be comforted. See how important it is that
God would comfort his people? comforted being knit together
in love. What is that bond between God
and His people? What is the cementing bond of
our union to the Lord Jesus Christ? What is that bond that has to
be broken if God's love were ever to be broken? I mean, God's
strength were ever to be broken? It's His love, isn't it? That
knitting together is the love of God for His people, and that's
the same bond between believers. That you might be knit together.
In Song of Solomon, it says, Set thee as a seal upon my heart
and on my arm. In fact, it's a prayer of the
church to Christ. It says, set me as a seal upon
your heart and upon your arm. That seal that reflects the inner
bond of love between Christ as the husband and his people as
the bride. And the bride prays his will,
speaking to him of his own heart's desire, and says to him, set
me as a seal upon your heart and upon your arm." And so he
says here, Paul speaking as a reflection of that, you, believers, being
knit together in love and unto all riches, of the full assurance
of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of
the Father and of Christ, in whom, in Christ, are hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And this I say, lest any man
should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent
in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding
your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. This
is the result of God's grace to them as they steadfastly clung,
they held fast to Christ in faith, depending upon Him to be their
all at all times. And that gave Paul great joy
and gave them joy and love for one another. He says in verse
6, As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk
ye in Him. And how did we receive him? Well,
when we were ungodly and guilty and shameful and filthy in ourselves,
and we found that we were just as Romans 3 described us, without
strength, unrighteous, no good, unprofitable, and all these murderous
and lying lips. And he says, when you so saw
Christ, and you laid hold upon Him with that hand of faith,
grasping Him, and letting go of the law, all trust in yourself,
and all hope for acceptance before God by anything that you are,
you laid hold on Him. That's the way you're to walk.
Same way. He says in verse 7, rooted and built up in him, and
established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding therein
with thanksgiving. But beware, lest any man spoil
you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of
men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Because that was the temptation
that came in through the Jews' religion. You need to do this.
You need to do that. Someday you'll get better. Keep
working. You're not as good as us yet. Keep working. Look at
that brother over there. He's not as good as you. You
have some hope. No. This is so foolish. Always striving,
never attaining, always looking in relative measures, and never
coming to God by the way of peace. There's no fear of God before
our eyes until we see that Christ has accomplished all, and our
life and everything is in Him. So he says in verse 9, Not after
these other things, but after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are, not shall be someday,
but now, you are complete. Nothing can be added. There's
nothing lacking. It's full up to the brim. In
Him. In Christ. We are everything. Right now. that God desires for
His people. We stand before God absolutely
pure. Thou art all fair, my love, I
see no spot in thee. This is the way God sees us.
He sees no iniquity in Israel. He shall look in that day, but
there shall be found none. These are the words of God. When
He, Christ, has by Himself purged our sins, washed us from our
sins before God, the presence of God in all His holiness, He
sat down. And now a high, glorious throne
is the place of our sanctuary. We look and run by faith to Christ
and find a refuge in Him. We say, the Lord is my rock. immovable, stable, unchanging,
all-powerful, a foundation upon which any man who builds shall
not be ashamed. The Lord is my rock. He is my
strength. He is my righteousness, my wisdom,
my holiness, my redemption. He is my life, Jesus said in
John 14, 19. Because I live, you shall live
also. We're so inextricably bound to
Him that He says the two are no more two but one flesh. And this is true of every believer.
In Him. In Him. Turn back to Zechariah chapter
2. Look at it again. We see the conclusion. We were
one with Him in all these things. And I want to take you to these
illustrations God has given in His Word just briefly. Zechariah
chapter 2. Let's look at this one more time
before we do that. He says, this is good reason
for us now, now that we have this. He says, verse 2, verse
10, chapter 2, verse 10. Sing and rejoice, O daughter
of Zion, for lo, I come. The Lord Jesus Christ speaking
to Israel, I'm coming, I'm going to do everything. I'm going to
fulfill all of God's promises. who has saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which were given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began." 2 Timothy 1.9. Everything was deposited
into the hands of our Savior in Jesus prayed in John 17.2.
I have given them eternal life to as many as thou hast given
me. I haven't lost one and I shall not lose one. None of them shall
perish because we're joined to him. Nothing can separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Is that cause
for singing and rejoicing? Isn't it cause for strength to
know the Lord is my strength? We say, well, this week one day
I felt good, the other day I felt bad, one day I felt like I was
a good Christian, the next day I was as bad or worse than I've
ever been. What does God tell us to do?
Where is your strength? How are you going to overcome?
They overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their
testimony. Look at Christ. He's my answer. He's my righteousness. He's my
holiness, my redemption, my wisdom. And if there's anything left
out, let me say it this way. The fullness of the Godhead dwells
in Him bodily, and I'm complete in Him. There's nothing lacking,
nothing that needs to be filled up. Everything God requires is
found in Christ. Everything Christ earned in reward
for his obedience of love unto death is given to him with his
people. We're one with him. Because I
live, you shall live also. I am the resurrection and the
life. Therefore, whoever believes on me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live. And whoever lives and believes
on me shall never die. Paul the Apostle said, I know
that I'm convinced that either in life or in death Christ will
be glorified in my body. We're one with him. These bodies
are his bodies. And his spirit dwells in us,
therefore we cannot die. His spirit's in us. We will be
changed in a moment. And even at our death. But think
with me now, without turning to the Scriptures, think with
me about these illustrations God has given of our union with
Christ in the Old Testament Scriptures. And there's lots of them. First
of all, think about our relationship to Adam. This is an important
one, because he was a figure of Him that was to come. Remember
how in that one sin of Adam, we sinned in Him? Through one
transgression of the one man, many became sinners. So by the
obedience of the one, shall many be made righteous. One offense,
many were guilty, many were condemned. But one man's obedience, when
many sins were laid upon him, became all of our righteousness."
Do you see that? One man. for all of his people. And as in Adam all died, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. So there's Adam. And then,
of course, there's the ark. Remember, everyone in the ark?
They went through the flood of God's judgment that was poured
out on the wicked. Everyone in Christ, that ark was pitched
within and without, the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everyone in Christ and his atoning work They spared the judgment
of God. And then there was the Passover.
All those outside the house, or in a house where there was
no blood sprinkled, were destroyed. And yet all the firstborn, and
yet all those in the house where the blood was sprinkled, were
spared. Because God said, when I see the blood, I will pass
over you. In the house, in Christ, God
sees the blood, and He passes over us. And then, of course,
there's the account of Judah standing before his father on
behalf of his little brother Benjamin, the son of his father's
love, and Judah making a bond of of promise with his father
that he would take Benjamin with him and bring him back again
or else his own life would be given for Benjamin's life. I'll
bear the blame to you forever. And then he stood before Joseph
as judge and he says, take me instead of the lad and let the
lad go free. He didn't plead Benjamin's innocence. He pleaded Benjamin's father's
love and he pleaded his own engagements with his father to make himself
the surety for Benjamin before the governor. And he said, take
me. He answered with himself and
Joseph accepted Judah and set them all free. So many examples
in scripture. David stood for the army. Goliath stood for the Philistines.
And David was a champion. Joshua came into the land of
Canaan as the captain. And by conquest, he conquered
the land. And that land of plenty, all
spiritual blessings were given to God's people. And their inheritance
was through the conquering work of Joshua. And therefore they
had rest. The eternal inheritance we have
is in Christ, our heavenly Joshua, who through the conquest of his
work on the cross has obtained our eternal inheritance because
he's the mediator of the new covenant. You see all these things
are pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything God has for
us is in Him. There is nothing for any sinner
outside of Christ. But every sinner in Christ has
all that Christ has. We're heirs of God and joint
heirs with Christ. Now, I say all this because it's
essential that we live our lives by faith upon this. This is something
that has to be emphasized to each one of us daily, hourly. annually, our whole life through,
as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. Walking
by the Spirit, or in the Spirit, is walking by faith in Christ.
And only in seeing our acceptance by God in Christ can we actually
love God. We won't love God until we learn
of His love for us in His Son, who is our propitiation. What a wonder it is that God,
even when we were dead in sins, when in ourselves we're guilty
and deserving of His wrath, finding no righteousness in us, would
already have prepared another for us to stand for us and obligate
himself and answer all and give all that he earned in that sacrifice
of love to us so that he would consider himself without being
complete unless he had his people with him. So inextricably joined
to the Lord are we from God's eternal decree of election to
the redemptive work of Christ, which was imputed to us for our
justification, to the gift of His Spirit to us, whereby we
know these things, and He comes to live in us, and we eat of
His flesh and drink of His blood, and so live upon Him, and He
dwells in us, and we dwell in Him. All these things are teaching
us of that union of Christ with His people, and our union with
Him, and our completion in that. This is the Gospel. This is the
most amazing news that ever was given to men. The mystery of
God and of Christ. That the Lord Jesus would take
the place of His people, and do all for them, and make God,
and glorify God, and fulfill His will, all in the one man,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for the gospel of your Son. Thank you for the Lord Jesus.
We thank you, Lord Jesus, that from the beginning you love your
people. You never stop loving them. You
will never stop loving them because your love is eternal and unchanging
and cannot either diminish or increase. And so we thank you
for this love that moved you to give yourself for them, that
you might have them for yourself and present them to yourself
holy and without fault, spotless. unblameable by your own cleansing
blood and found them dressed in your own righteousness that
you put upon them so that you could see beauty in them and
say the work is done and it's very good and therefore you're
seated and we are seated there with you even now in glory and
the things we hope for and look forward in hope and expectation
we now have by this present gift of your faith to us. And the
things that we can't see and don't appear to us now, even
in ourselves and our experience, we have them by this evidence
of faith. And so we pray, Lord, that you
would magnify your mercy in our lives by upholding this faith
that we've been given in the Lord Jesus. Help us to overcome
every trial. and withstand every trouble,
and find our strength, our rock, our all, our life, our eternity,
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so rejoice and sing for your
goodness to us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.