Invite your attention to 1 Corinthians
chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. My text will be found in verse
number 30. My message is titled. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. And as I said, my text is in
verse 30. The message is titled, What Christ
Jesus Became for Us. But let me begin reading in verse
number 26. For ye see your calling, brethren,
held it not meaning wise men after the flesh, not meaning
mighty, not meaning noble or called, but God hath chosen the
foolish things of the world to compound the wise, and God hath
chosen the things which are mighty,
and base things of the world, and things which are despised
hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not,
to bring to naught the things that are, that no flesh should
glory in his presence. But of him," here's my text,
but of him are ye, 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. Now, in the verses preceding You'll notice he says that only
a few of the people called by God are, earthly speaking, wise,
mighty, and noble. Only a few of them. Most of the
people who have been called by the Lord are commoners, common
people like you and me, self-important people They're foolish, not wise. And these are the terms that
Paul is using. They are weak, not mighty. They
are despised, not noble. Paul even says that we are worthy
to be overlooked as though we do not exist, things which are
not. People look at us and say, you
folks, you know, it's almost as if you do not
exist. people God has chosen, not many
wives, not many daughters, not many of royal birth. He's chosen
common people and he's done so for three reasons. Number one,
to shame those chooses whom he will, and he's
proven it. He's chosen the people that the
world would say they do not need to be chosen, as though some
would think they do deserve it. But God says, no, I've chosen
people. They know they do not deserve
it. Some think, God shouldn't choose me. I'm a pretty good
person. God says, no, I'm going to overlook
you and go choose someone else who knows he's not Well, I think that's about what
we're going to be doing. Someone asked me this morning,
how are you doing? And I said, well, I'm doing better
than I deserve. And the person says, and that's
true of all of us. And you know, that's true. We
all acknowledge we're doing better than we deserve. Are you not
glad God is gracious to sinners? God is so good to sinners. But there's more than that. Although
we may be considered foolish, ignoble, and nothing more about
us, just common people, look what God has made us to be. Would you consider, Paul speaks
of these people, and he says, they are in Christ. Have you
considered What a privilege it is to be in Christ, and how did
they get to be in Christ? Well, I can show you here four
ways. Four ways that we are in Christ.
First, declaratively. Not as a declaration, but as
a decree. By God's decree, we are in Christ. From before the foundation of
the world, God shows us in Christ, We should be holy without blame
before him in love We are in Christ from old eternity by God's
decree We are in Christ Everyone in Adam, represented
by Adam, died when he died. Everyone in Christ, represented
by him, lives because he lives. We are in Christ vitally, as
the vine is in the branch. And that's what he speaks of
us. Abide in me, as the branch abides in the vine. We are in
him vitally. for our life and all that we
have and that we are in Him experientially. Paul writes to the Romans and
he says some of you were in Christ before me. Paul and I thought
you said that everyone was in Christ before the foundation
of the world. That's true with regard to God's
decree. But with regard to our experience,
we are in Christ in the day we believe in Him. to believe in
Christ and to be in Christ and to acknowledge that. Now, because
you are in Christ, he has been made unto us wisdom from God
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Now notice, Paul
does not say Christ gives us wisdom. He does not say Christ
gives us righteousness. He does not say Christ gives
us sanctification. He does not say Christ gives
us redemption, though he does, though he does. Rather, Paul
says that Christ is made to be what he gives. Christ is what
he gives. Christ gives what he is. He is our wisdom from God. Christ Jesus became for us wisdom
from God. Now, what is wisdom? Wisdom may
be simply defined as the ability to rightly use knowledge. Knowledge
is good, but not unless you've got the
wisdom to know how to use it. A man may be full of knowledge
and have great knowledge, He has no wisdom, he's an educated
fool. He's dangerous. He can be very
fatal. Let me illustrate. I want you
to consider this example of no one in particular, but of many
in general. There are some who have earned their degrees
in seminary. Now, when you see someone with
a Doctor of Divinity degree, that is an honorary degree. It
was given to him, but he probably spent 20, 30, 40 years in the
ministry in some school, you know, because of his many years
gaining the honorary degree, Doctor of Divinity. On the other
hand, there is the man with the Doctor of Theology. The Doctor
of Theology. I spent a little bit of time
in seminary. Doctor of theology. Oh, yeah. If you wanted to be known as
a seminarian, that's what you wanted. It's going to take you
about eight years or so. Eight to ten years to get it.
Four years for your bachelor's and a couple of years for your
master's. And then you spend two more years. But, you know, you get your doctorate
of theology. And so have you. Look at them. They've gotten
their degree. They're fluent in biblical languages. Biblical languages are Hebrew,
Greek, and some Arabic. And they can speak them. Because
you cannot get that degree unless you have learned those languages. Particularly Hebrew and Greek. Very knowledgeable of biblical
history, both the Old Testament and the New. Very knowledgeable of Christian
doctrine while they write books on it. They cannot get their
doctoral degree until they've written a big long thesis on
some religious subject. And it usually has to be some
subject that no one else has written on before. So when you
see somebody with that doctoral theology degree, yeah, he is
very educated. Very educated. He can also be an educated folk. And he is, if he believes salvation
is by man's free will. And most of them do. Most of
them do. Why, they write books on how
to be born again. They talk about God cannot do
this for you unless you let him. I want you to think about that
for a moment. There is a man who is very advanced in knowledge,
but he does not have wisdom and does not know how to use it.
And behind the bullpen, he's dangerous and can be fatal. Why is that? He denies God's sovereignty. He says God's will is subject
to man's will and God cannot do his will unless man is willing
to let him. He denies We have two young girls here
today. Two young girls, Hope and Skyler. Now, they're probably
among the youngest of us here. Now, they may be young girls,
but they got the common sense, I assume, of a girl even in her
youth. So here they are. They are at
a funeral home. There's Cassidy. It's open. They're
looking at the earthly remains of a departed one, the one who
died. Here comes someone walking up
to the casket. And he says, hey, you, get up,
come over here. I need to talk to you. Got something
you really want. Get on out of the casket and
come on over here. I need to talk to you. I said, get out of the casket
and come over here. Please, get out of the casket
and come over here. I've got something for you. And
these two young girls, they look at each other, and then they
look at him, and they say, sir, are you daft? He's dead. You can beg and plead control
and exhort. He's not getting out of that
casket. He's dead. He cannot do what
the living can do. Are you daft? Well, their parents have enough knowledge
and enough wisdom, I assume, to know that the same is true
in the spiritual realm. There sits a man in the pew.
I go over to the man in the pew and I tell him, I'm going to
tell you what to do in order to be born again. And preachers
do it every day, every Sunday in pulpits. If you do this, you
can be born again. They write books about it. How
to be born again. Now these two young girls' parents He's dead! Dead in trespasses
and sins. Spiritually dead. What can he
do? Nothing! He's spiritually blind. He could not see the truth if
you put it right in front of his face. He's spiritually deaf. He could not hear the truth if
you hollered it in his ears. He's spiritually lame. Yet there are people educated
seminarians with their many years of knowledge and greatly increased
in knowledge and they do not have the good sense and the wisdom
to know that the dead cannot regenerate themselves. I hope the Lord's given some
wisdom to somebody here today. Oh, that he would give us wisdom
to know that We cannot be saved by our words. We cannot regenerate ourselves.
We cannot do that which can cause us to have new life in Jesus
Christ. The scripture says, by grace
you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. That
faith is a gift of God and yet there are people who have amassed
great degrees of knowledge Now here's the point that I'm
making. They got much knowledge, but no wisdom. And it's dangerous. It can be fatal for the souls
of men to be telling people that if you do this, you can be born
again. If you do this, you can be saved.
Some work that they give to do, on the other hand, On the other
hand, no one in particular, but a many people in general, well,
look at it, we may not be fluent in biblical languages, We may not understand Hebrew
and Greek and Aramaic, but we heard Christ when he spoke, whatever
language it was. We understand Christ when he
speaks to us through the scriptures. And the man who stands behind
the pulpit may have never studied Hebrew, Greek, or any other language,
May know no other language except English and may not be an expert
in it, but we understand the scriptures when the Lord uses
him to speak the truth through it. We may not be fluent in biblical
languages, but we are fluent in Christ and we love to speak
him. He is our native tongue. One
must have wisdom to do that. We may not have a whole lot of
knowledge, but we've been given wisdom to use what knowledge
we have. Christ has been made unto us
wisdom. We may not have vast knowledge
of biblical history, but we see the hand of Christ in Two words, his story, that's
all that history is. It's Christ working at his purpose. Everything with regard to history
is Christ working at his purpose. He's the beginning of all history
and he will be the culmination of it all. History is his story. Meaning we may not be adept in
writing about Christian doctrines, We may have difficulty defining
some Christian doctrine, but we know the truth when we
hear it. Jesus said, my sheep know my
voice. Yeah, I've got enough wisdom
to know when Jesus is speaking to me. I have enough wisdom to
know when the truth is being spoken. I know the truth when
I hear it. And I can spot a false preacher
the very minute he begins preaching. He just sounds different from
the truth. He or she sounds different from
what Jesus Christ has said. We may not have a whole lot of
knowledge on Christian doctrine, but we know enough to turn from
a false preacher and to follow a true one. We hear someone speaking to us
about this or that, and we judge it all with regard to, is that
according to Christ? Was Christ magnified in that? Was Christ exemplified in that? That's the wisdom that God has
given to his children. You may say, well, I need that
kind of wisdom. Well, I got good news for you.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to
all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given. Well, I need some wisdom. Ask
God, He'll give it to you, and Christ is that wisdom. All right,
let's move along. Is the man that to us of righteousness
a firmly Very simply defined. Perfect
and complete fulfillment of God's law. There it is. Righteousness. Perfect and complete fulfillment
of God's law. And we are completely incapable
of performing it. There is not a just man on the
earth who does not sin and does right. All have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God. There is none that is righteous.
No, not one. We know what God's law says. We cannot keep it. Go ahead. Put those ten commandments in
front of you and say, I'm going to keep these perfectly throughout
the day. You will have broken them before
you get out the door. Especially Thou shalt not covet."
Paul says, I thought I had given the law pretty well, and then
I read that one. Thou shalt not covet. Well, we're
going to break every commandment, We do not speak of self-righteousness. We do not speak of righteousness
from ourselves. We speak of righteousness from
God. What is this righteousness from
God? It is Jesus Christ. He is that
righteousness. And it is that righteousness
that he brought in his earthly life. There he is. in the day of his incarnation.
Well, we can say it's in his mother's womb. He says, I'd like to do your
will, oh my father, and your law was written in my heart.
That's his theme throughout his life. Paul says he was born under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law. Therefore,
he had to keep that law. Perfectly, he had to keep that
law. I mean, from the day he came
from this mother's womb, was nursed on her breast, he had
to keep God's law. Even as an infant, had to keep
God's law. And he did. In every joff and
tittle of it, He crossed the eyes, or done in the eyes and
crossed the teeth perfectly with regard to God's law. Never broke
it. Never broke it. Not only the
10 commandments, but the 600 and some other commandments that
are said to be found in God's law. Never broke it. Never broke
it. 33 and a half years, his enemies
are watching. He says, can any of you accuse
me? No, no one ever did. He never broke God's law. They
don't do it. They don't do it. The man who
has been assigned the task of judging him says, I find no fault
in this man. He's even kept your law perfectly. No fault in him. The devil says,
I've watched him. I've tried to trick him. I've
tempted him. He's perfect. He's perfect. He kept the law
in every jot and tittle for 33 and a half years on this life,
in his life on this earth, keeping God's law for himself. But then he had to keep God's
law for me and for all God's elect. Now we had broken God's law. God's law demanded the one penalty
of death. The soul that sins shall die. The wages of sin is death. He's
born unto the law to redeem men that are unto the law. They have
broken the law. Therefore, not only must he keep
the law perfectly with regard to his own self, but he must
also fulfill the law regarding those who have broken it. What's the penalty? Dead. For every sin? Every sin. Of every one of God's elect?
Every one of them. Every sin of every one of God's
elect laid on Christ their own Calvary. For 33 and a half years. He has
kept God's law and never broke it But now he must pay the penalty
for those who did break it. Oh He fulfilled God's law In the life of every day Until
high noon on the day of his death And when the sun is at its zenith,
God plunges the world into darkness. And a transaction took place
for three hours. He was stricken, smitten of God
and afflicted. Every sin three hours three hours The world
is in darkness And this sacred transaction is going on And he's
tripping and split the flood and uplifted Until he had paid
for every sin committed By every one of God's people and then
he shouts It is finished. Three most glorious words ever
spoken. I dare say, it is finished. One
word in the Greek text that simply means perfect. Perfect! That's what it was! The law was
perfectly fulfilled. in Jesus Christ. And now He is
our righteousness. God has made Him to be our righteousness. We are clothed in Him. We are
in Christ our righteousness. He is Jehovah Shektenu, the Lord
our righteousness. Jeremiah 23 verse 6. He is a
legal righteousness to justify us, Romans chapter 3. A robe of righteousness to clothe
us, Isaiah 61 verse 10. A breastplate of righteousness
to protect us, Ephesians 6, 14. Our only righteousness. God made
him to be righteousness. Oh, and let's see, something
else here. God made him to be sanctified. word. It is found ten times in
the New Testament. Five times it is translated sanctification. Five times it is translated holiness. The terms are synonymous. and consecration unto the God. What do we mean? Separation from
the world. God has taken his people and
he has withdrawn them from the world and then he has consecrated
them to himself. That's true holiness. Now some
people say, I quit doing this and quit doing
that and quit doing the other. Yes, but have you been consecrated
to God? You can be separated from the
world, but not be consecrated to God and that is not sanctification. That is sanctimony. In Christ, we are taken out of
the world. in the Greek text, it brings
it out more clearly than you find in your English text. These
two, righteousness and holiness, are joined together as though
they are inseparable. And indeed they are. Indeed they
are. As in justification, Christ becomes
our righteousness. So in sanctification, he becomes
our holiness. As His righteousness is imputed
to us in our justification, so is His holiness important to
us in our sanctification. As through justification we are
found in Christ, so through sanctification He is found in us. As his righteousness remedies
our legal problem, so his holiness remedies our moral problem. He
is made unto us both righteousness and holiness. Wisdom, righteousness,
and holiness, but there's more. One more. Christ Jesus became
for us redemption. Redemption. What is redemption? Simple definition. Releasing
by payment of a ransom. We sung about it just a moment
ago in that hymn. Second verse. First line of that
second verse. Perfect redemption, the purchase
of blood. Now there are two truths that
bring me out what we're talking about here with regards to redemption. Redemption is releasing the affected
by payment of a ransom. All right. Redemption is the
act. Ransom is the price. In here
we have redemption. What was the price? He says the
son of man came to give himself a ransom for many. He redeemed us by becoming our
ransom, the price that was paid. His blood was the ransom for
us, the price that was paid. When it was paid, we're redeemed. Brought back to God. Restored
to what we were meant to be. You were not redeemed with corruptible
things like silver and gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. In him we have
redemption through his blood. His blood is the price. It is the ransom. His blood is
himself because he cannot give his blood unless he has given
himself. He is approaching the precipice
of the abyss and does not even know it. One step over and he's
gone, he's doomed forever. He's come to the very precipice
of the abyss. And then God says, desire him,
I have found the ransom. I love that text. Desire him,
I have found the ransom. What is that ransom? It's Christ. blood. Christ being our redemption,
you are not going to fall over the precipice into the abyss
if Christ is your redemption. And God has made him to be unto
us redemption from God. From the power of the grave,
Psalm 49 verse 15, Yes, one of these days they're
going to put me in the grave six feet under. The grave's going to wrap its
arms around me and say, now you're mine. And Christ, my Redeemer, says, They came to destroy the power
of the grave. And he did. Oh, death, where
is your sting? Oh, grave, where is your victory?
Christ, our Redeemer, has freed us from it all. People are afraid of dying, knowing
that the grave is going to be the end of it. children of God. That grave? It's just a motel room, folks. That's all it is. I'm going to
spend the night. And in the morning, in the resurrection,
I'm gone and the grave will no longer have power. He redeemed
us from death. Hosea 13, 14. Much the same. He redeemed us from the curse
of the law. Galatians 3, verse 13. Redeemed
us from the curse of the law. The law no longer has a hold
on me. I've had people ask me, and remember
that I ministered for years in a place where legalism and Sabbath-keeping
and law-keeping was very prominent, a very prominent religion. And
they'd say, Moose, how come you don't keep the law? And I would
say, Because I already have. I already have. Christ, I was in
Him when He kept the law. When He fulfilled righteousness,
I fulfilled righteousness. I was in Him. And therefore,
the righteous requirement of the law has been given to those
who believe in Jesus Christ. Now, we know what we mean when
we sing On the law Oh happy condition. Jesus has bled and there is remission Redeemed from the curse of the
law I'm gonna stand before God one of these days And the books will go And the law of God And I know that I have broken
every commandment God ever gave on multiple occasions. And yet, when the condemnation should
be pronounced And from every lawless thing,
redeemed us from every lawless thing, Titus 2.14. Now, that's what Christ is made
to make. And to every other believer,
we may not have a whole lot of knowledge, but we've got wisdom. from God We have righteousness
not a self-righteousness We say Jesus Christ is our only righteousness
And we have holiness and it's from God. We did not make it
ourselves No, no, no Christ in sanctifying us has become our
holiness and redemption He is the ransom. He paid the
ransom. Now we are redeemed under God. Well, it was all a grace. We had nothing to do with it,
folks. We're not wise enough to do this for ourselves. We're
not strong enough to get it for ourselves. We're not noble enough But God has looked upon a bunch
of commoners like us and said, you know what, I'm going to magnify
my name by making him wise through Jesus
Christ, righteous through Jesus Christ, holy through Jesus Christ,
redeemed through Jesus Christ, and we say to him,